How to Cut Garden Flowers For Floral Arrangements: Country Floral Design

I absolutely love cut flowers.  I look forward to bringing in a new bouquet into my house every chance I get.  If you want to bring some of your landscape flowers indoors but don’t know how to, you are in the right place. (Click to our second edition of Floral Design)

Materials:

  • 1 Quart Mason Jar
  • Raffia or decorative ribbon
  • Scissors
  • Permission to cut plants in the landscape
  • Water
  • Optional: Floral preservative

 

Step 1: Gather materials

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Step 2: Next, we need to cut some greens.  Fill the mason jar half full with water and bring it and the scissors out to the landscape.  A great choice for greenery is asparagus fern from your garden. Consider getting creative and using lettuce leaves, dill, or rosemary from your garden.  Other great options are branches from a burning bush, boxwood, weigela or euonymus.  The options are limitless.  Cut 8 stems  10-12 inches long.  Place them in the water right away to increase the longevity of your cut arrangement.  Don’t worry about the placement now because we will get to that later.

Step 3: Cut some flowers.  Again these need to be cut 10-12 inches in length and placed immediately into the water.  Depending on the flower, cut 3 – 5 stems of flowers (unless they are really big flowers, then you need fewer).  I suggest Rudbeckia-Black Eyed Susans, or Purple Coneflowers.  Some landscape plants don’t last very long after being cut, but most daisy shaped flowers will do alright.  If you don’t know if your plant will last, try it!  Experimenting is half the fun!  With the flowers, remove any insects on them before bringing them into your home (not what you want to find on your kitchen table).

Step 4: Preparation. Bring your plants to a table or work space.  Take them out of the water, and clean out your jar.  Put in fresh water and floral preservative if you have some.  Prep your cut plants by removing the lower 4-6 inches of leaves and any spent or unsightly flowers.  The goal of this step is to be sure there will be no leaves in the water of the mason jar which would speed the decline of your arrangement if left.

Step 5: Arrangement. Place the 5 greens in your arrangement first.  Shorten the stems until they are about twice as tall as your jar.  Arrange them evenly along the outside of the jar, allowing the stems to crisscross in the water.  Next add the flowers.  They should be slightly taller than the greens you just placed.  If you have three stems place them evenly inside the greens.  If you have four or five, place the tallest in the middle and slide the others in between the middle flower and the greens.  Finally tuck the last three greens among the flowers, allowing them to stick out slightly above the flower.

Step 6: Add the raffia around your jar and Enjoy!!!

How to Cut Garden Flowers For Floral Arrangements: Second Edition

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Rebecca Bohling

Horticulture

Grimm’s Gardens

 

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