Michelle Workman was the designer behind our most recent house tour, and one of the details she was responsible for that we noted was the glorious centerpiece floral arrangement anchoring the dining table. We asked Michelle if she could give us some professional pointers about flower arranging and she was kind enough to send these five pointers...
How To: Arrange Flowers
Let the flower market inspire you – choose flowers that are in season and make you feel like being creative.
Use similar or the same color flowers in the arrangement; for example, pink, orange and pinky red, or blues and purples, etc.
Build your base first. Start with your greens and build a base; if you have a tall/large arrangement put greens in the base and then use greens to build a “frame” for the rest of your arrangement. I like to use hydrangea as a base as it fills up the space and acts as a “frog” when placing your other flowers.
Line your vase with something, so you can’t see any “unsightly” stems. I like to use the leaves from the hydrangea to do this, but you could even submerge an entire hydrangea head!
Leave no holes! I like to fill every little gap so that my arrangements have an English garden lushness. I buy a pretty, but inexpensive, flower and then use it as filler (spray roses are great for this). I also group like flowers together in a bunch so that I get “clumps”.
Check out more of Michelle's work here at her website.
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i don't agree/understand the putting the greens into the bowl... sure it will hide the stems, but won't that make it a nightmare to maintain once the leaves start rotting??
view funkia's profile
Great post Gregory - love to see more expert tutorials on ATLA too.
view pinky speedway's profile
I agree funkia, the florist i go to always says to NOT put leaves in the bowl and even take them off the stems if they end up submerged because the bacteria gathers and spreads in the bowl, so your flowers won't last NEARLY as long.
view cassandra158's profile
I don't know about the submerged leaf issue, but I found these tips helpful.
view jooly's profile
I don't think stems are "unsightly" at all.
view Griffin's profile
I'd love to see some suggestions on how to match the shape of the vase with the shape of the flowers.
view Erika in Seattle's profile