Green growth is visible under the snow. Signs of hope and renewal are everywhere, as nature prepares to spring forward with the first snowdrops, crocus and scilla.
But why wait? When it’s neither winter nor spring, fresh cut flowers can improve our attitudes and homes. Endless varieties of colour and scent can be found at the florist's.
Writing at a desk with a fresh gardenia next to the computer is a high intensity ticket to springtime. A gardenia is a reliable and inexpensive bundle of joy with a sweet spicy scent and thick, rose like blossoms.
Spring bouquets are surprisingly easy to arrange, if you know what to do. and with the proper care, you can maximize the all too short brightness of cut flowers.
The difference between a room with flowers and a room without is day and night. Times ten in the winter.
I had the great good fortune to spend an afternoon learning to arrange spirit lifting flowers with Karina Lemke, the hardworking and ingenious star of HGTV’s “Petal Pushers” and owner of “Posies Flower Shop” in Toronto’s Markham Street Village. Lemke shared secrets of the trade and masses of gorgeous, fragrant flowers, greens and shrub branches. She numbers among her clients Elton John and Bill Clinton.
Tools Required to Create a Gorgeous Bouquet in a Vase
You’ll need secateurs (garden scissors, a small blade cutter, floral tape, and a wide mouth vase, a prepared hydrating preservative of sugar and bleach and fresh water.
Elements should include a variety of green leaves and branches and a selection of closed, budding and open blossoms to ensure a continuous show. Imagination is the most important tool.
How to Make a Bouquet
Run a strip of floral tape around the outside lip of the vase, close to the edge and criss cross tape across the top three times in two directions to create a grid. Floral oasis and frogs also work well as bases, but Lemke’s floral tape method is foolproof.
“Green up” with at least two colours and types of greens, like gardenia and lemon leaves. Strip low leaves off that would otherwise be submerged in water and place in each of the grid squares. Fill, fill, fill.
Prepare flowers for the vase by dripping freshly cut stem ends into floral hydrators mixed with water and popping them next to the green leaves. Fill, fill, fill with an eye to balance in shape and colour.
Add unexpected touches like one large vivid hydrangea blossom, a spiky branch of contrasting berries or masses of miniature lime green mums. Lemke suggests placing oversized pale yellow orchids in water tubes resting inside the bouquet. Eye the bouquet from every angle and make sure it is consistently beautiful, balanced and unique.
Maintaining Your Blossoms
Keep the beauty alive by changing the water and occasionally re-snipping and dipping. Funky water kills. Remove elements as they fade; the bouquet will be altered but continue to bring joy. Sometimes a large bouquet can be deconstructed to make several smaller bunches. Blossoms float attractively in decorative vessels.
A bouquet will have a greater chance of longevity if the floral elements are locally grown. Specimens from far away are less hardy as they deteriorate on the road, subjected to various uncontrolled conditions. These are the cheap and cheerful bunches found at grocery and convenience stores. Avoid them in favour of markets and florists.
Flower Power
It’s a good idea to flip through an online flower encyclopaedia to learn what plants appeal to you. Explore shapes, colours, tones and themes – monochromatic, romantic, formal, architectural, modern, spare, and massed. Whatever you can imagine, you can create.
Meanings have been attributed to flowers for millennia. Today, red roses symbolise passion and white means purity. Beware of yellow roses which say the romance is over. Our romance with flowers never ends and spring brings it back into sharp focus.
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