A colorful bouquet of flowers can bring a true floral look to your home. With our tips and a little skill, a beautiful DIY bouquet can be conjured up quite easily. This makes flower arranging really fun.
Making a bouquet
Flowers say more than a thousand words. Beautifully bound bouquets of flowers are often given as gifts on a wide variety of occasions. But colorful bouquets are also a nice decoration for your own home.
You can easily buy a flower bouquet in your local store or even order a fruit bouquet in London online, these days the choice is limitless. But since most people have flowers in their garden anyway, it is much cheaper (and fun) to make it yourself. The resulted bouquet is then much more individual. So you or the presentee can enjoy the bouquet, but also the very personal creativity.
Step-by-step guide
To tie a bouquet, you need a few utensils and a little skill. It is not the easiest work, but with a little practice, you can soon master it.
You will need:
- Vase;
- A sharp knife;
- Scissors;
- Binding wire;
- Ribbon or string;
- Flowers (obviously);
- Additional greenery (optional);
- Other decorative items (stickers, toys, etc).
And here is what you should do.
Cut the flowers
Early morning is the best time to cut flowers for a bouquet. Then it is still cool in the garden and the flowers are well supplied with water. It is best to use a sharp knife or pruning shears to cut the flower stems. The lower leaves of the stems should be removed. This makes it easier to tie the bouquet later. Another reason is that the flowers will need less water and stay fresh longer. Place the freshly cut flowers in water until you tie the bouquet.
Tying a bouquet
Now you can make your first bouquet. Before tying, choose the flowers. For a beautiful, compact bouquet, 15 flower stems are ideal. A large flower – this can be a rose, for example – forms the central point in the bouquet. Now place this flower stem in your left hand. The bouquet is tied with the right hand. Left-handed people put the first stem in their right hand and add the flower stems with their left hand.
Now always take a flower and place it diagonally together in a spiral shape, stem to stem. While doing this, hold the bouquet between your thumb and index finger. Always turn the bouquet slightly while tying it. This way you can see if the large flower is still in the center.
The stems of the finished bouquet should be cut to the same length with garden shears. This way the bouquet will stand up well in the vase later. With floral tape or a ribbon wrap 3 times around the stems, and tie the bouquet tightly together.
The fun part of this process is combining different colors and textures. If you went out for a walk in the field, do not forget to pick not only flowers but also other plants, from which you will then assemble your bouquet. Opposites look very beautiful: for example, luxurious garden roses with simple field herbs or even winter textured branches. For a bouquet to be harmonious, it should have one accent – for example, flowers with large inflorescences, or a uniform texture – for example, a large bouquet of different flowers of the same size.
In bouquet making, there are no hard rules, well, except that the large flowers should be a little lower than the grass parts and stems with small flowers. In the center of the bouquet, flowers are cut to be the height of the vase, and on the outer edges they are cut a little shorter. Asymmetrical compositions are interesting when one of the elements (for example, a branch) asymmetrically extends beyond the bouquet.
The bouquet may look very beautiful right after you make it, but sometimes you can literally watch it wither. To make it last longer:
- Do not place bouquets next to fruits and vegetables, they produce a ripening gas called ethylene that causes some flowers to die faster.
- Do not use cold water. Lukewarm water can be faster absorbed by flowers. Rainwater or water from a filter is even better.
- Use a sharp knife. A smooth edge makes it even easier for plants to absorb water.
- Change the water regularly. Germs form quickly in water, which can clog the conduits of the flower stems. So it’s best to change the water daily and re-cut the flower stems.
If you mess up your first attempt at making a bouquet, that’s perfectly normal. Tying a bouquet is not a skill that comes naturally. As with many things – practice makes perfect. So don’t be disappointed if your first attempt doesn’t look like a work of a professional. Simply start again from the beginning.
