Floral Design

Creating a beautiful bouquet that pleases you is a delightful experience. It can be a meditation, a fun form of relaxation, or a satisfying way to reconnect with the scents and sights of Nature. Here are 10 tips to help you make beautiful bouquets.

1. Location. Think about where the flowers will be displayed and from angle you will view them. A coffee table needs a totally different arrangement than a mantelpiece. As you put the arrangement together, look at it often from that viewpoint.

2. Container. When you choose a container, think about how the stems will naturally fall. A straight cylinder will keep stems more upright. A round "fishbowl" will allow them to fall more horizontally. In general, the simplest shape to work with is wide at the bottom, narrow at the top.

3. Color. Work with a simple color scheme. Use one or two colors, with a small amount of a second or third color for an accent. Choose greens (from outdoors, your houseplants, or your florist) in shades that work with your featured color. Hold blooms and foliage next to each other. Play with different combinations to choose what pleases you.

4. Line, Mass, Filler. When you choose flowers, greens, and branches, include all "design groups." With as few as two stems from each group, you can make a gorgeous arrangement in a bud vase.

Line: Tall and thin, such as pussy willows, larkspur, gladiolas, or long, wide stems of grass.
Mass: Large feature flowers, such as lilies, roses, carnations, large chrysanthemums, or a close groups of medium-sized flowers.
Filler: Small, dainty sprays like alstroemeria, purple statice, and solidago (known as goldenrod in the wild).

5. Keep it simple. More stems of fewer kinds of flowers look much better than putting one of everything in the vase.

6. Water. Fill your vase all the way up. Fresh flowers drink a lot of water, and shorter stems need to be fully submerged. The water level should be an inch or two below the rim of the vase. Top your vase up each day for longest-lasting beauty.

7. Greens. Put greens in the vase first. Green is a neutral color that enhances every flower color, and gives a feeling of vitality and lushness. Mechanically, foliage stems create a grid to hold up your flowers. Be sure to strip off all leaves that will be under water.

8. Structure and depth. A bouquet is three-dimensional. As you begin arranging, criss-cross the stems of foliage and filler flowers to form a visually-balanced foundation that will hold up the rest of your flowers. When working with multi-stemmed flowers, like spray chrysanthemums, use some as-is, and cut some apart when the side shoots with blooms are long. Create visual depth by placing light-colored blooms in the center of your bouquet.

9. Rest some flowers on the rim of your vase.The eye is naturally drawn to the line between your container and what's in it. By giving your eye a beautiful bloom to look at, you interrupt the horizontal line between bouquet and vase and create one integrated arrangement.

10. Step back often. Look at your creation from across the room. Turn your vase around. Breathe deep. Trust yourself. Enjoy your beautiful arrangement.

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DIY Flower Arranging

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