Make your own flower arrangements in few simple steps
Want to know how to arrange flowers like a pro? We can help with that! Whether you’ve been given flowers you’d like to use to craft your own floral arrangement, or you’d like to make one from the flowers in your garden, with this professional guidance from Shannon of Euclid Farms you’ll have everything you need to create own gorgeous floral creation.
Choose your vase
We’re using a mason jar, but of course you’ll choose the vase that suits your needs and decor. The size of vase you choose will determine how many stems you’ll need of flowers and filler, so make your choice based on how large (or small) you’d like your bouquet to be.
Fill your vase with water, and remember to add flower food. (If you don’t have any flower food on hand, you can likely get some from the grocery store or your local florist’s.) Filling the vase before you begin may seem like an obvious step. But, it’s easy to overlook once you’re in the grip of the creative spirit, and frustrating to do when you have your hands full of flower bouquet. Trust us, we’ve been there.
Decide on a colour palette
In the video, Shannon has chosen a lavender, white and peaches colour scheme, with various types of flowers cut from her gardens.
If you’re working with flowers you’ve received as a gift, your palette will be constrained by the florals and foliage you’ve received. However, if you’re fortunate enough to be able to cut flowers from from your own garden and have a range of flowers and greenery from which to choose, deciding upon a colour scheme in advance will narrow your choices.
Use a very sharp pair of gardening shears to get a clean cut on the stems. An excellent tip from Shannon — if you’ve been using your shears on other plants in your garden, disinfect them before you begin cutting your flowers.
Gather flowers and filler greenery
With your colour palette in mind, grab a bucket and your shears and take a judicious wander through your garden to gather your flowers and filler greenery.
Pro tip: when you’re cutting, cut stems as long as possible. With longer stems, you’ll have more to work with when you start to arrange your flowers, and you won’t be short when you begin to place your choices in your design.
If you’re working with beautiful flowers you’ve received as a gift, spread them out on a work surface, so you can see what have to create your floral design with.
Start to arrange your flowers
Begin with the greenery you’ve collected to build a frame for your bouquet. As you add in pieces, crisscross the stems across a centre point, so you can see the stems fanning, creating a grid and foundation for the arrangement.
Once you have a well-designed frame of greenery, add your flowers. Place your focal flower(s) at the bouquet’s centre. Shannon chose a dahlia as her focal flower, if your garden has a similarly striking flower in bloom at present, perhaps that will be your choice.
Remove foliage below water line
Create a boundary line with your fingers as you hold the arrangement. This will serve as marker for where your bouquet will sit above the water.
Pull off or clip any of the foliage below the line you’ve delineated. Removing leaves and other stem material from below the water line will slow down bacteria growth in the water. Inhibiting bacteria growth will prevent water from becoming cloudy, and prolong the life of your bouquet.
Evaluate your bouquet
Do the flowers you’ve chosen suit the overall palette you had in mind? Do you see any gaps that need filling? As you fill in your arrangement, keep in mind your intent for the final result and keep or discard flower choices as you go.
Trim stems to suit your vase
Once you’ve arranged your flowers to your satisfaction (we’re sure it looks gorgeous), hold your arrangement next to the vase you’ve chosen. Line up the part of the bouquet that will sit above the waterline with the top of the vase. Anything that projects below the bottom of the vase is what you’ll need to trim.
Cut stems at an angle, and get them into the water quickly to encourage water uptake (you can also cut the stems under running water). This will help to keep the flowers alive longer as well.
Place your bouquet
After you’ve trimmed the stems, place your bouquet into your vase. Aren’t you glad you filled it with water first? We thought you might be. At this stage, you can evaluate the height of the bouquet, and further trim the bottoms of the stems as needed.
Once you’re content with the height and your bouquet sits nicely in its vase, do a final evaluation. If you see any last bothersome gaps in your arrangement, or you yearn for bit more colour, you can make those final tweaks with ease. Your arrangement should be sufficiently stable to hold the shape you’ve created as you add your finishing touches.
