Simple Orchid Arrangement

Video Transcription

At times, we get so excited with so many flowers. Other times, you want to pare it down, simplify, make it easy, but fabulous. Let me show you how it's done.

The vessel? Just a simple vase filled with water, premixed with flower food. The flowers, then? Key is preparation. We're going to be using some eucalyptus, and I want to prepare it ahead of time by cutting it down, stripping off the lower foliage, so I have a nice, clean stem to work with. Some baptisia foliage, same thing, stripping down the lower leaves so you have nice and clean. Deflexus, beautifully draping, pulling off the lower needles. Little bit of sedum, all the foliage off. And then the orchids. They're already clean and ready to use.

With everything prepared and laid out, you simply start assembling in your hand. The sedum, it's going to become a natural armature to support everything else. I hold it with just a thumb and one finger, very loosely. Then I can feed the other materials in. Some eucalyptus. Little bit of the baptisia. And just holding very loosely. If you hold too tight, it won't work correctly, you've got to be nice and casual, just feeding it into one hand with one finger, one thumb, kind of like you're saying, "Okay". And let everything support the next thing that it's with, so you're weaving from one side to the other, letting it drape a bit. If you don't like where something is, since it's woven, you can just take it back out. Reinsert. Say, "Ooh, I like it better here." And then add it back in. Sometimes it's easiest if you do this looking in a mirror, so you can see what it looks like from the front.

When you have everything just the way you want it, go back, give it all a cut. Easiest is to set your vessel next to the edge of the table, hold it, and then you can see how long the stems need to be. Cut it down. Then set it down into the water, letting it nestle in place. You can give it a little bit of a tug to loosen it up. Double check it from the different angles, see if it's exactly the way you want it.

You can see the textural nest has its own beauty, but now it's ready for the orchids. Just giving them a cut, and placing them in, radiating from one side to the other. And as you're working, think about front and back, or all-sided. What do you want? I'm going to do mine all-sided, so it comes from the front, and then all the way around to the back. Making sure that it looks good from every direction, coming in more towards the center. And then another. And then turning it, checking to see if you need to adjust anything for perfection.

To finish, you can go back, add a little more foliage if you want more draping, even use longer pieces coming up through the center, giving it a cut, placing it down in. And you can even wrap it around the orchids, weaving it in and out. Adding a touch of texture. The recipe? I used five stems of the miniature phalaenopsis, five stems of the deflexus, three stems of the baptisia, cut apart, and three stems of sedum to create the armature, and then just a bit of eucalyptus for that soft blue-gray hue.

Focusing on one fabulous bloom, and then just filling in with supporting accenting flowers makes it for a simple but dramatic design. You'll find more creative inspiration and floral education on the website, Flower School .com. Look through. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. But now it's your turn. Find your single favorite bloom, find the supporting flowers and foliage. Create a beautiful arrangement. Take a picture, post it on social media, and hashtag hash tag Floral Design Institute. That way, we all can see what you do as you do something you love.