Summer Flowers in a Vase
Picnic, long days and soft breezes -- ahhh, summertime! Summers are wonderful for entertaining outdoors, and summer celebrations call for casual and carefree flowers. In this Flower School How-To Video Leanne uses beautiful eryngium to create the supporting structure (no foam! no floral netting! no foliage!), then a beautiful mix of cosmos, scabiosa, bachelor buttons, and veronica, to create a summer stunner in shade of blues, lavenders, and pinks. Enjoy!
Video Transcription
Casual and carefree, that's summertime. Flowers in a vase? How perfect. Let me show you how it's done.
The vessel? A ceramic vase filled with fresh water, premixed with flower food. The mechanics? You've all seen the foliage mechanics, hydrangea. There's so many different options. But today, let's use Eryngium to give it a wonderful base to support all the flowers.
Using the Eryngium as the base, just going through, giving it a cut, and keeping it low, so it will create a grid over the top of the vessel. Create a base layer that looks beautiful with the flowers, taking off all lower foliage, you don't want that in the water. Giving it a cut. Pulling off any side shoots that are maybe a little too low, and then place it in and repeat to have a full, lush, round base to support all your flowers without using foam or foliage.
The blue-gray hue gives it a casual beachy vibe. Then tucking in the cosmos. Look how graceful. They just flow outward. And that soft pink, brightens. Starting on the outer edges first, and then once you have that in place, you can go back into the center. But you always start on the sides, that way you can get good placement. And you're adding to that grid in the center that then will support all the remaining flowers. And once you have the cosmos, you can go back and add in the Veronica, giving it a little more linear look, placing it up through the center. And now it will stay in place, because all the other stems support.
To finish, adding in smaller blossoms, maybe some Scabiosa, letting it come out just a bit longer and graceful. And repeating. Some bachelor buttons to get depth of color. Feeding it in. And each of the summer flowers adds a little bit of weediness to the design, picking up on the textures and enhancing the beauty.
The recipe? Fairly simple. I worked in full bunches, starting with one bunch of the Eryngium, then one bunch of the cosmos, one bunch of Scabiosa, one bunch of Bachelor Buttons, and one bunch of Veronica. So, four bunches of flowers, plus a bunch of Eryngium. Casual elegance, perfect for summertime.
There are so many different approaches to the vase. Sometimes thinking casual is the way to go. You'll find more inspiration on the website, flowerschool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. Now it's your turn. Find a favorite vase, favorite flowers, and create a casual design. Be sure to take a picture and post it on social media, #FloralDesignInstitute. That way, we all can see what you do as you do something you love.
