I love cut flowers in the house. For awhile I would spend a fortune each week on them then I had kids and well the rest of that is history until I remember the words my husbands grandmother said to me.
I had only been here a few weeks it was winter it was wet, cold and gloomy. The house as glorious as it was needed something, I needed to get outside to get some Vitamin D and I needed to find something to do. So walking around the garden in the drizzling rain I started putting together a posy of flowers and foliage out of the garden. It wasnt the most stunning posy in fact I remember it was made up of orange, browns and greens but looking at it made me content and happy and so the love of cut flowers came to me.
Walking into the house and presenting them to her my husbands Nan said to me ‘that’s so beautiful. I never would have thought that was in my garden’.
I arranged them into a white jug and placed them on the table all the while watching her smile at them as she smoked her Benson and Hedges at the end of the table. I then listened to her as she told each of her visitors that day that I had found them in the garden and she would never have thought such prettiness was amongst the weeds.
Three kids later I’m not able to afford the money I once spent each week on flowers {although every now and then I splurge at the local rose farm} and so I started bringing foliage in from the garden. Sometimes I score flowers others times I don’t. Sometimes I get neither and it’s just the branch off the fruit tree with a few buds. I have even arranged the herbs in the garden into a vase. Right now I love the mix of foliage and the occasional native flower in the bunch but mostly its foliage that I use and still it makes me happy. I will go all out and do a big bushy voluptuous bunch or a single flower will go in a glass.
So how to on putting together an arrangement but really there are no hard fast rules its flowers in water after all and its to make you smile and nothing else.
Putting something together for me is relaxing from the cutting of the foliage to placing it in the vase. Much like the pleasure my children get when they pick me flowers or weeds and see them displayed in a vase on the window sill for me and the world to see.
1. Choose a vessel. I use a lot of jugs, old tins with a smaller vase inside and glasses of different styles.
2. Choose your flowers or foliage. Use a mix of leaf shapes, leaf texture, foliage colours and heights. Grab what ever is in your garden and experiment from some palm tree fronds and lily, the bushiness of the Lillypilly with some Grevillea to a single Daisy flower. You don’t need store brought flowers or foliage to create something wonderful just your imagination. Using your own garden means you can have an arrangement every week and you can have one for every room {my favourite a single Gardenia for the toilet best room freshener ever} if thats your desire. You dont need flowers for something beautiful.
3. Cut the end of the stems if having brought from a store. Cut on an angle and cut them under running water or in a shallow bath of lukewarm water.
4. I ‘harden’ my flowers by plunging into some boiling water for a few seconds before pulling out and letting them sit in a cool spot. You are advised to leave your flowers in a cool spot for several hours however I leave for as long as it takes me to gather my vessel and materials; I dont have time for waiting. Hardening is meant to increase the stems ability to soak up water. Soft stem flowers and foliage require only warm water and less time.
5. Strip as much of the foliage off the stems that is in the water.
6. Arrange the pieces as you like. Keeping height or shortening where needed.
{You can build from the biggest to the smallest pieces of foliage adding flowers or alternating colour were needed.} I don’t think anyone can tell you what to do here as your like and eye is different to mine. Arrange to make your heart sing each time you look at it.
7. Place arrangement where you can see it and enjoy.
After care.
I replace the water every two days and trim the stems as needed. You can try all the methods to extend the life of the flowers ie vinegar, aspirin, bleach etc but I think it comes down to keeping the water changed and the vessel clean from bacteria.
xx Deb
