How to make a pretty bunch of flowers – Flower arranging 101

Ever wondered how your florist gets their stems, you know..all swirly and pretty in a bouquet?

Before studying floral design I actually kind of assumed they did it much in the manner one might twist spaghetti before you put it in water, embarrassing huh? It is technically called stroussing & while it sounds easy in theory it is kind of tricky when you learn. Unless you find it easy, in which case you suck & I hate you! 

 I am going to tell you how anyway.

The basic idea is you want all your stems turning in the same direction so you just keep placing them at an angle & turning. I hold the arrangement with my left hand & turn clockwise but whatever feels comfortable is fine.

To begin with while you’re mastering the technique you will want to start with nice straight stemmed flowers with larger blooms & the same applies for foliage if you choose to use it. If you want your flowers spaced quite widely you’re going to need some foliage to add body & keep them whole thing in place.

Gerberas, long stemmed roses, spider chrysanthemums, narcissus (daffodils, jonquil such) are the kind of thing you are looking for. Obviously you can work with anything you please however you will have a hard time trying to strouss a bunch of gnarled twisty stems on your first try. Do not, whatever you do begin with tulips…they are the mongrel teenage child of the flower world & notorious for misbehaving.

Here I have chosen spider chrysanthemum, disbud chrysanthemum & jonquil. I really love the look of green & white flowers together, it suits almost any home. If you’re ever standing in the florist scratching your head over what colours to choose get green & white, they are both classic & modern. If they hate them, they are sick human beings who didn’t deserve your lovely flowers in the first place.

• Strip your flowers of most of their foliage or completely naked. Naked is generally better but because I am usually too cheap to bother purchasing foliage I have left some leaves on to give my bunch some structure. (In a shop I would never leave the leaves on because they die in a couple of days & look awful)

• Pick your best looking flower as your focal bloom. Place the next flower over the stem of your focal flower on an angle & hold on the palm of your hand. The greater the angle the more space there will be between your flowers. This arrangement was very tight as I like that pom pom look.

• Rotate the bunch & continue placing flowers on the same angle & turning making sure you regularly inspect the top of the arrangement  to ensure even spacing & correct placement.

• When you are happy with the arrangement, tie it off with some string & cut the stems to the desired length. Florists habit..I tend to keep the stems very long because when you study floral design eventually you begin to see stems like this:

• Place your arrangement in the receptacle of your choice with water (note that I have chosen entirely the wrong vase for this arrangement) & display your handiwork near a window to make your neighbours jealous.

As I have said it sounds easy in theory however when you have a fistful of thick stems wider than a coffee mug it can get a little tricky. Practice makes perfect though & remember when you choose beautiful flowers it is pretty hard to make them look ugly.

Thus concludes my first floral 101. I would love to know what you think & what you have always wondered how to do.