My in-laws came over to dinner at our apartment for the first time last week (we were married in December). Now, I'm normally a relatively confident cook and house-keeper, but you know how it is. They're not big talkers so I have to be extra conversational (I'm normally kinda quiet), plus I want them to like our place, be satisfied with my wifely skills...so I was a bit on edge about it. I'll skip all the extraneous details, but I wanted to get some fresh flowers for the table, to add some homey-ness. Now, we don't have a fancy fresh flower market here in Raleigh like they do in many big cities (that's something I reaaaaaaally want here), so I rely on the farmer's market and grocery stores. Around here, the farmer's market doesn't have a lot of flowers this time of year, so I headed to Earth Fare to do some recon. Trader Joe's has a great selection too, but Earth Fare is a lot closer to my apartment and since I was doing this arrangement after work (and right before my in-laws arrived), I didn't have time to make the trek. The good thing about Earth Fare is that they usually have a few smaller bunches that you can mix and match, allowing you to pick three types of flowers for $12-14. Each bunch includes around 4-6 stems, so it's a pretty good deal. Anyway, I was immediately attracted to some green chrysanthemums (don't hate on mums, they can be awesome) and purple snapdragons. To add some bulk and to continue the color scheme, I grabbed some purple/pink mums as well. Okay, back up--two kinds of mums??? Wait, don't judge, they look quite different:
See? Plus, the purple mums have several buds per stem, which add volume and a nice structure for the arrangement. (Tip: The multiple offshoots per stem allows you to build your arrangement using this flower as a backbone, without having to use floral foam, a floral frog, etc. This is soooo handy! Dendrobium orchids work well for this too.) And the snapdragons add height and a little variation. So here's the final product:
Nice, right? And for only $12. So here's another tip. The floral food that comes with the grocery store flowers is good, the flowers like it...However, bacteria and mold also like it. So what do you do? Sacrifice flower staying power to prevent bacteria? No. Add some bleach!
.....
Have you stopped scrunching your face and looking at this post thinking I must be crazy? Okay. Trust me. While it is a somewhat corrosive chemical, in small doses it can do wonders for killing microbes (ahem, "bleach" aka hypochlorite aka chlorine is used in most drinking water supplies in the United States, so in small doses it can do a lot of good). I put a half-capful into the arrangement above; so just adjust depending on the size of the arrangement. I may not be a botanist, but I have done the floral arrangements for 2 weddings now (more on that later) so I know a little about dealing with flowers.
So about the rearranging part--unfortunately, the snapdragons began to wilt a lot faster than the mums. The mums still looked great tho, so I didn't want to waste them. I took out all the flowers, threw away the dead ones, and trimmed the stems of the ones that were still healthy (this gives them a fresh 'straw' with which to drink). Because I didn't have snapdragons any more to add some contrasting texture and height, I decided to separate the flowers and make two arrangements, one for the pink mums and one for the green.
What do you think? Sometimes arrangements composed of a single type of flower pack more of a punch, and allow you to appreciate the beauty of a particular flower type. Plus, I think the contrast of the green mum arrangement next to the pink one really sets one off of the other. I added the creamer with the thistle to the set-up because my mom the designer says odd numbers usually make the most interesting design. And who am I to argue?
Check back soon; I'll be sharing more about some new design inspiration, and soon I'll talk more about wedding flowers (and perhaps a guest post from my sister!).
Ashley
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