Flip through images of styled homes in any decorator’s book and you’ll see a constant on every page. Whether it’s a dining table, kitchen counter or bedroom nightstand, beautiful arrangements of flowers and greenery bring a room to life. It’s also a simple way to change the look of a space any time you like. Adding freshly cut elements to your home doesn’t have to be challenging or time-consuming. With a few simple tricks of the trade, you can give any spot in your home an organic upgrade.
Choose What’s in Season
A classic downfall is to set your sights on a particular flower, only to find it’s not available or beyond your budget when you get to the store. Selecting plants that are in season is your first key to putting together the right arrangement. Have hydrangeas blooming in your yard in the summer? Use them as the star and choose other elements to complement them. The added bonus? Cutting blooms makes most plants produce more flowers.
Make it Monochromatic
Keeping your arrangement to one color takes out the guesswork of determining what colors will play well together. Select several different shapes and sizes of blooms in a few shades of one color and the result will be elegant and beautiful. Consider the season, such as pastel pinks in the spring, vibrant blue hues in the summer, deep orange in the fall, as well as complimenting the colors in the room or space that will surround the arrangement.
Don’t Overlook the Green
Need a quick arrangement with no flowers in sight? Don’t be afraid to clip greenery from your yard to create lovely accents for the table or any spot in your home. Fill a set of large vases with long stems and interesting leaf shapes on a console. Or clip a few sprigs of rosemary to add a bit of color on the counter next to the sink.
Get Creative with Containers
Just because you picked up one bunch of flowers from the store doesn’t mean all of the items in the bunch have to go in one vase. Consider separating flowers and trimming them down to fit into a variety of vessels. Think outside the norm by using glass jars, ceramic pitchers, various bowls, wooden boxes and galvanized bins and buckets.
Pick a Placeholder
If you’ve ever tried to put flowers in a wide-mouthed container, you know the frustration of stems flopping to the side instead of staying where you put them. Keep some chicken wire on hand to cut into the shape of the opening. The holes will hold your arrangement in place until it’s hidden by the beautiful blooms. No chicken wire? You can achieve the same effect by criss-crossing strong tape across the top of the holder.
Play around with the Plants
The number one mistake most novices make is simply dropping a bunch of flowers into a vase and calling it done. Open up the package and make the best of the items inside. Trimming the bottoms off and cutting the stems at a 45-degree angle will make plants last longer. Some will need to be cut to a variety of lengths to show well in an arrangement and some will need to be cut down significantly or have a lot of leaves removed to create the right look.
