Tropical Flower Arrangement
Wish you could get away to a tropical paradise somewhere? Do the next best thing and bring the tropics home to you! In this Flower School How-To Video Leanne creates a bold design with tropical flowers, featuring parakeet heliconia, anthuriums, beehive ginger and more -- it's a long lasting design sure to brighten your day. Ahhh, you can almost feel the warm, salty breeze. Enjoy!
Video Transcription
If you can't escape to the tropics, bring tropics to you. Parakeets, anthurium, ginger. So many beautiful blooms. They bring the tropical paradise to your home.
The key materials, start with the tropical. There's some red anthurium, orange parakeet heliconia, and then the yellowy beehive ginger. You can see it's bloomed out. It looks like little bumblebees on the hive. That doesn't hold very well, so sad as it is, it's best to go ahead and remove those so that you have just the beautiful hive. The mechanics. Working with a watertight container, midnight foam, and then angel vine. It comes in strips, and I just anchored it with wood picks to create a handle.
The heliconia are perfect for establishing line. Thinking about them from small to large, nice heads, then determining the height. I want it to go above the handle. Giving it a cut. Then I'm going to actually weave it through the handle. Then down into the foam. Repeat that with another. Judging my height and also going through the handle, then coming in with one more down low below the handle.
To establish the emphasis, that's where the beehive ginger will be so fabulous. Their stems are so thick, you need to be a little bit careful. I like to cut them in a wedge and then turn it and cut it in a wedge again, so it gives you a little less space chewed up in the foam. You can bring one down, very low. Helping to break the line of the container. Then coming it up a little higher, drawing your eye back, and then one more shadow behind all the way in the rear.
To add excitement and drama, a little more pizazz, bringing in the anthurium. Coming out to the side and then bringing another and shadowing underneath. Letting it tuck down in. Pulling your eye through, and then another on the opposite side to carry the red through. Once you have your lines and secondary lines and the emphasis, then you just fill in. Making sure you cover your mechanics. Add contrast, get a little movement coming out towards the front, maybe terracing fatsia leaves, two of them. Drawing your eye back into the arrangement. Adding some leucadendron to reinforce that vertical movement. Pulling the eye upward. Basing with red carnations to draw your attention to the center. Leucospermum is another wonderful basing mechanic. Just tucking it right down in.
The recipe, it started with three parakeet, heliconia, then three of the beehive ginger and three anthurium. Then I started filling in. I used six leucadendron, three of the leucospermum, six of the red carnations, two fatsia, a little bit of variegated pittosporum. And you can see it starts filling in beautifully. To add dynamic line and a little more interest taking two stems of flax, cutting them down, feeding it in. Getting it secure, and a second one. securing it. Then just lightly fold it over and into the parakeets to create wonderful movement in the arrangement.
When you work with tropical blooms, focus on, line, space, and emphasis. That way each bloom shows off to full glory. You'll find more creative inspiration on our website, Flower School .com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. Now it's your turn. Gather your favorite tropical blooms. Create a linear style design. Take a picture, post it on social media and hashtag Floral Design Institute so we all can see what you do as you do something you love.
