Flower Arranging (1)

Quarantine isn't much fun, especially when you're not really feeling 'sick'.  Mariposa was desperate to do something with me, so I suggested that she make a table arrangement.  She's helped me make some nice little arrangements before, but this time I let her take the reins and I was going to sit on the side ready if she needed some help.  I would also snap away and take plenty of photos. (smiles!)

Now, I do have  .... somewhere! ....  a proper little collection of flower arranging materials.  When I find them, we can explore some other options.  For now, we're just going to use the following:

• a small waterproof bowl
• a pair of secateurs
• a small block of oasis, cut to fit into the bowl, allowing 1cm sticking out above the rim
• a collection of medium sized leaves for covering the base
• a nice selection of blossoms from the garden
• some 'filler' blossoms or folliage to go between the flowers in the arrangment

I'm going to share how I was taught to do flower arranging from when I was at youth summer camp, in my teen years.  I really enjoyed learning this skill, so it's stayed with me. :)

First thing to be done is to soak the piece of oasis.  Oasis (or florist's foam) may be found at $2 shops, florists, or ebay.  Make sure you have a piece that fits snuggly into the bowl, and that it also is raised above the rim by about 1cm, then pop it into a dish of water so it can absorb as much water as possible (give it at least 1/2 an hour).  Whilst that's happening, you can go about collecting and laying out your flowers and folliage.

Once the oasis is full of water, carefully put it into the bowl.  At this stage, you'd usually tape it down with waterproof florist's tape.  I couldn't find mine, so we're making do without.

Start by making a 'skirt' for the arrangement with some medium sized leaves.  I often use camellia leaves, but some other suggestions are bay leaves, small ferns, or as we've used, scented geranium leaves.  Cut the stalks at a bit of an angle so there's more surface area open to the moist oasis.  The point also helps when it comes to inserting it into the arrangement. 

Next, choose your main flowers and think about where they'll be placed.  Because this is a table arrangement, we need to ensure that the finished product will be enjoyable to view from all sides, so aim to keep symmetry.  Here, Mariposa has used some freesias that have just come into flower.  I instructed her to place them evenly around, starting by putting a smaller flower at the center (top) for height.  Then, she put in a flower facing out at all the corners.  Wherever she placed one on one side, she had to mirror on the other as much as possible.

It's worth noting that lighter colours do appear to come more to the foreground than darker flowers, so place these lighter ones where they'll give good balance.  You'll notice that your eye will get drawn to these first.

Some larger flowers will fill up an arrangement quite quickly.  With ours, though, the freesias are fairly small, so we have plenty of 'spaces' to fill.  We've cut some shrubbery from our fragrant pittosporum bush, then cut off small bunches to fill in close to the oasis.  You want to hide as much of the oasis as possible, creating a background between the main blooms.  You can use all sorts of filler to do this job.  Some suggestions are thryptomene or gypsophila, which are commonly used by florists here, or variegated leaves from various shrubbery.

More filler flowers were added in the form of yellow marguerite daisies.  These highlighted the yellow freesias beautifully.  Then, finally, a few lavender flowers for a touch of 'blue' and some extra dimension.

Make sure some water is added to the bowl every day, and if the weather is quite warm, a spraying over with some water in a small bottle is beneficial.

Not bad for her first 'almost' solo effort.  I think this may become a fun little activity she can do for the family dining table on a regular basis, using the blooms we'll have in the garden throughout Spring and Summer.  We'll practice some other florist skills as we move along.

I have found a 'how to' video online. This may also help give you some information on how to start.  There are many other helpful related links from the video page HERE.