Valentine hearts bouquet
Post categories: flower arranging,Ìýinspiration
| 08:14 UK time, Friday, 11 February 2011
Capture the heart of your loved one on Valentine's Day with a homemade romantic arrangement of flowers and plants picked from your garden or hedgerow, plus a few choice tulips, designed by leading floristry teacher
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You will need:
- Long lengths of red dogwood: the young stems of Cornus alba 'Sibirica' are a particularly vivid scarlet at this time of year
- Berried tree ivy
- Tall rectangular container - mine is 30 cm high and 15 cm square
- Floral foam
- 10 - 20 pink or red tulips
- Bindwire, garden twine, raffia or decorative wire (this may not be necessary if your tulips are strong). Cable ties from DIY stores work well too.
Method
- Fill the container with soaked foam, so that it's just a little higher than the container. To soak the foam, allow it to sink under its own weight in deep water. Don't try and submerge it or it will not soak thoroughly.
- Take short sprigs of the berried tree ivy, which is prolific at this time of year but not for much longer. Insert the freshly cut stems into the foam to cover and to fall just over the rim of the container.
- Cornus is wonderfully flexible, but if you wish to make it more so submerge it under water or warm it with your hands. Place two stems together and bind with paper-covered wire or cable ties. Bring the two tips around and down and bind to the vertical, about half way down the stem. Create as many as you wish in a size to suit your container.
- Insert the free ends in the foam through the mass of ivy.
- Place the tulips in the foam more or less equally positioned. Support the tulips with the stems, loosely tying with bindwire, garden twine or raffia if necessary.
Top Tip
Tulips continue to grow once cut so you will need to check them daily and cut a small amount off the end of the stem to keep them within the design.
Judith Blacklock has written nine books on designing with flowers and teaches floristry all around the world. She arranges the flowers at Kensington Palace regularly and runs her own floristry school in Knightsbridge, London.
If you decide to make a floral display for Valentine's Day, either this one inspired by Judith or one of your own design, why not send us a picture? If we get at least a handful of photos we'll publish them on this blog. Email your photos to gardeningmessages@bbc.co.uk
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