With fall right around the corner and summer coming to a sweet close, I thought I would share some tips on making those last summer blooms last! Creating flower bouquets is truly one of my favorite ways to get creative. There are endless ways to arrange flowers for your home and for me, it is a form of self care. Spending time selecting flowers that speak to me always brightens my soul.
As a kid (and honestly still) I wanted to be a flower fairy. I would imagine what it would be like to flutter down into the soft petals of the flowers and cozy up. Using their petals as a blanket and their centers as a bed. To this day when I play with flowers, I think about this! Haha. Flowers have a wonderful way of calming your soul and reminding you of certain things. Love, gratitude, patience, happiness and stillness.
My flower fairies are, E for Elly: Eyebright, M for Marie: Mallow, B for Bannon: Bugle
Whether you live somewhere where flowers are still blooming, or you are headed to a local market or grocery store to pick some babies up, these tips will help your floral friends last!
Fairytales say that when seeds sprout, a baby flower fairy is born. Flower fairies get to pick the flower or plant that they would like to live in, as the flower grows, they grow too. A flower fairy is responsible for caring for their flower, polishing their petals and making sure they are getting plenty of sunshine. In many ways, we all have a little flower fairy in us. I feel like this is a nice reminder to care for the earth and fill yourself and others with sunshine. Learn what flower fairies you are! https://flowerfairies.com/category/collections/alphabet/
Ok! Now on to the tips:
Of course, these tips can be used on gorgeous fall flowers too! I like to have seasonal flowers on my counters and in my bedroom. It’s a thoughtful and fresh way to bring a little seasonal nature into every corner of your space. Be sure to check and see what is in season near you! It’s best to shop seasonal flowers to be more sustainable and mindful about the footprint we are leaving on the earth. These wild roses were picked straight from the garden outside my house! I am lucky enough to live in San Diego, where flowers find a way to bloom all year round. My style when it comes to putting a bouquet together is rather whimsical. I like to keep my flowers looking like they were just picked and randomly placed in a jar. Although creating a bouquet is never random, this is just the look I like to go for haha. I like to create a lot of levels in my bouquets and also arrange them in a way that looks interesting from each angle.
Since these flowers were straight from the garden, I focused on the variety of colors these beautiful roses had to offer! These roses all bloom at the same time only about once a year, so it was special to have such a variety of colors in one bouquet! Color was my focus here. However, if I was putting together a bouquet of roses that were just one color, I would add more elements of green, such as ferns, dark green leaves or a filler flower such as babys breath. The biggest tip I can say when putting flowers together is to take a step back and observe what your flowers have to offer. What would compliment their beauty?
5 Tips for putting together a “wildflower” like bouquet:
- Lay out all your flowers after cleaning them of extra leaves and place the colors, textures and types next to each other that you like. In the photos you can see that I placed a purple and yellow rose next to each other. That was because I wanted those two to compliment each other, so I placed them across from one another in the final vase.
- Cut your flowers to be varying heights. Keep your smaller flowers or filler flowers / greens taller while keeping your larger, more fluffy flowers short. This will give your bouquet an effortless look while also creating some interest and allowing each flower to shine! In the photos you will see that the smaller bud roses are my filler flowers. I kept them toward one side of the vase and they are cut a little higher than the rest.
- When putting your bouquet together, start by placing your largest flowers in first. This should be your shortest to medium sized flowers. If you have a shining star flower that you want to be more central, place that one first.
- Arrange your flowers one by one and begin to rotate your container to get an idea of how it is coming together on all sides! Adjust to your liking! This is when I check to be sure that all flowers can be seen and that none are being squished.
- The last touch is to add your filler flowers, greens or other stems! Once you have the base of your bouquet, fill in extra space with greens such as ferns, pine stems, ball green flowers, ruscus leaves or perhaps a delicate white flower like babys breath or queen annes lace.
Tips for keeping your blooms fresh:
- Clean your flowers delicately, removing extra thorns and leaves. I like to keep some of the leaves near the top of several flowers on for a more natural look.
- Once you know what jar or vase you are going to be using, size your flowers up to the container and trim accordingly. You don’t want your flowers to be too tall over the container because gravity will pull them down and they will flop over.
- Trim flowers one by one using a sharp scissor or flower cutters. Trim flowers at an angle instead of straight across. This helps the water to absorb into the stem and keeps them healthy for longer!
- Fill your container with warm (not too hot) water. I don’t know any factual information about this! However, from experience I do know that every time I use warm water verses icy cold water, my flowers seem to be happier!
- Trim your flowers about 1/8 in and replace with fresh water every 2 days. Keep your flowers out of direct hot sunlight. If you are gifting a bouquet to someone, say the next day, pop your final bouquet in the fridge for up to 6 hours to keep them even more fresh!
Let me know if you create a wildflower bouquet of your own! The fun thing with flowers is that each arrangement will always be different! Fall and winter flowers are a bit more moody and earthy while summer and spring flowers are dreamy and delicate. As fall and winter roll around try adding some holly berries, pine needles or goldenrod into your bouquets! Take a moment to notice the details in each flower, they are all so special and unique! Enjoy!
