Our Sunday flower school - A Spring bulb grouping about to dance
A show-and-tell on how to make
"The objects in front of you are flowers, but the subject is colour" - Michelle Cooper
Today, our Sunday Flower School is all about Spring bulbs who stay out of the limelight, colour-wheeling as we contrast hues and show you how to style flowers in vessels simply so you don't always have to have them in a bunch.
This week, we are using French tulips, ranunculus and muscari. I tried to be a perfectionist in orange & blue shades when sorting out the ingredients for this piece. I had intended to use punky blues, the boldest of oranges, the most fiery shades together to make an attention-grabbing statement & a play to highlight how these 2 colours can really bring each other alive in a fizzy Fanta kind of way. It was not to be. The poor French tulips arrived a paler shade of themselves, the magical deep blue muscari went off to dress an event display whilst their pale cousins were left for me and my ranunculus started life almost as little nuggets of heads. What ho! you say. So like any florist who hates waste, I placed each of these below par bunches into water at home near sunlight, warmth and joy and didn't they start to peak back up so soon.
And then, our Roman had forgotten his Art project elements, lo and behold, several of each flower bunch & some washed snowdrop bulbs were duly removed and brought to school. Not one to accept failure, I grouped my favourite porcelains to give each set of blooms a chance to pretty themselves up and after 3 days, we were ready to rock.
"A flower ... is never just ... a flower, but a resource for the exploration of colour possibilities, of the evanescence of light and movement, the study of form and structure. - Penelope Lively
Time to start. Simplicity and structure are the support words for this grouping. It is a classic grouping floral design to show how floristry is the pulling together of parts into a unified whole.
The Setting
Before you even start to use your flowers or fill a vase, the actual position of the grouped bloom placing is your first decision. For this show-and-tell, I have made a front-facing arrangement. The idea is that it could be placed on a console table, on a shelf with a wall set behind. The flowers are facing frontwards, the house wall a backdrop. I usually love a tray, cool plate, board too as it can set the floral story straight and make the grouping feel special too.
The Vessels
The first thing I learned in flower school many moons ago, was that the vase is the most important element to choose, it's shape, form, height, texture, colour will dictate the style of display you will decide to do. When we used to design more for large hotels and buildings, the vessels were the first things pulled out, placed on the work table and then we moved to make our flower magic. You can have containers of similar size and create a table runner of flowers or group different sizes, textures, colours together to make a distinctive grouping and that is what I am showing today. We had just got these nifty pink posy vases in as trials for Mother's Day idea and then the DBKD Airy vase is a great basic so off I went to work with my now ripened bulbs to dispel a notion that flowers at home can only be in a bunch.
The Flowers
The French Tulip - meaning : 'Fame and renown' - Shane Connolly
This variety Avignon is a more unusual tulip with it's long elegant & petal head, they remind me of the elegant ladies portrayed in fashion illustrations of old as they curve. Botanically, they are Dutch produced bulbs who grow upto 20cm in a vase but they are grown in southern France. They make a lovely statement at home and their bunches fly as soon as we bind them to sell instore too. In case you are not aware, tulips are phototropic - this means that they keep growing, bending, curving, drooping, stretching to the light. They lend themselves to Dutch Master style multi-flower arrangements as their stems & heads can be manipulated to suit the style of display you have designed. You can also simply style them in a contemporary more minimalistic fashion and watch their wonder as each stem starts to dance once it hits fresh water in your chosen container.
The Muscari - Muscari - Bú fíniúna - Muscari Armeniacum - wild irish flower - they symbolize sincerity, trust, and the renewal of life - - Shane Connolly
These baby grape hyacinths, a wild Irish flower, are always a florist's favourite. The joy for someone sacriligeous like me, is that they don't overwhelm with scent like a full hyacinth and their prettiness abounds beyond the short season of the snowdrop. We love to add them into our mixed posy style bunches but this time, I made sure that they didn't have to share a vase with any bloom else.
The Ranuncula/Persian Buttercup - Fearbán - ranuncula asiaticus - 'I am dazzled with your charms' - Shane Connolly
A cousin of our native buttercup, ranunuculae with their papery petals delicately cupping each other are a true thing of Spring beauty, These particular ones are called , chosen for their vibrant sacral chakra core of creativity and the simple reason that orange is my favourite colour...again, they are phototropic. I made sure I made space for each of the petals to prettily open their heart.
The Colours
The play with palette here is deliberate so that each informally styled posy allows you to see each stem dance as it spends a few days in your house.
The Dancing & The How To
As humans, we admire visually left to right. Taking this adage on, I stripped the tulips of their leaves, simply snipped their bottoms at a slant and plopped into the tallest vase so that they could lean over the consecutive creations. Although they appear over-arched here, within days they will have formed a freestyle display with some drooping, some curving up, some opening their heads in reflexed style to give a more casual feeling to the current formal vibe.
Then, a simple binding of muscari at slightly different heights to allow for their beaded heads to burst to bloom and fill the airy spaces between. This vase was then placed left bottom of the grouping.
An indulgent bold but unravelled looking dome of ranunculae with all leaves removed, was spiralled with heads bobbing at different angles and perspectives to allow for gradually opening petal fronds & flirtatious movements by the stems. I allowed myself to overfill the bunch going against normal proportions of grouping design but sure we are all allowed to enjoy what we love to make especially when it's for our own home.
Each gesture took the formality out of what could be a static sculptural piece and by allowing air between each bloom, the grouping permits expansion for each petal
The Enjoying
Keeping the display away from any fruit as although good for our fibre, they are not friends to flowers and make them wilt with their pithy power. With that in mind, then just enjoy how your grouping goes rogue by wriggling, drooping, opening, petal dropping each morning after the night before. And bulbs only enjoy about 5-10 cm of water so you don’t need to be too enthusiastic about their hydration but do check them each 2 days and change the water too so they last longer for you to love.
How lovely to appreciate nature's way of keeping us on our toes with dancing blooms always looking to the brightest light.
Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Love simplicity!!!