Harvest inspired floral arrangement
If there is one thing I really love to do but never get the time to do it as often as I’d like is create floral arrangements. I love the thrill of going to the market, haggling and picking them out, the challenge of making use of whatever you find and innovating along the way so it works… But I really love unwrapping all those bundles, laying everything out and seeing where it all creatively unfolds. Placing each flower where it belongs until you reach the perfect arrangement.
I usually start with an overall idea or theme, choose the vases or vessels I’ll be using, then I leave the rest up to on the spot creative flow. For this arrangement I originally had in mind deeper, darker colors that reminded me of grapes in a vineyard during a harvest. I wanted to keep the orange to a minimum. However, when I got to the market there was just an abundance of beautiful orange mums and all sorts of mums in sunset colors – I couldn’t resist! The arrangement intact reminds me of a gorgeous intricate indian saree in golden saffron hues, bright fuchsia and deep reds and purples. Although it’s not such a “special” or “exotic” or “fancy” flower, mums are one of my favorite flowers to use because they are quite lush, fill up a lot of space, have great texture, come in a variety of colors and are quite cost effective. They also are very durable and can last a long time when well cared for. Other flowers I used are “palong” that give a nice fuzzy texture and very strange looking bright pink, purple tipped plant. I also added some orange berries. In this arrangement I used fragrant eucalyptus, succulents and some lotus pods for that nice, soft sage green that played well against the very vibrant tones. I started by placing the succulents and lotus pods, started adding some large mono-floral bunches and slowly worked my way there organically letting the arrangement unfold. Most of the time I feel like there is a particular spot for each flower and they are just drawn to each other.
Instead of a vase I used my vintage silver containers, which normally serve as bread or fruit bowls. Although I have a collection of plain glass vases in different sizes it’s nice to use unusual vessels like an old silver teapot or even candelabras where in place of a candle you can place a single flower mounted on floral foam or for the larger candle pedestals have some vines spilling over. For the cocktail tables I made teensy floral arrangements by making use of my leftover flowers, the tiny buds that aren’t lush enough to be added to the bigger arrangements but work well bunched together if you tape them. To this I added some eucalyptus and berries to fill up the glass and create more drama, no matter how small.
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