There are few things more satisfying than picking a bunch of home-grown flowers from your garden. If you’ve got a resplendent flower box display and you’d like to create a gorgeous bouquet from your blooms, read on!
Create professional-looking bouquets with fresh flowers from your garden. Image credit: @mossandmeadow
Which flowers should I use?
If you’re creating a hand-tied posy, you’ll need similar-sized flowers with round heads to achieve the best results. Flowers that work particularly well in posies are:
- Roses
- Dahlias
- Ranunculus
- Gerberas
- Hydrangea blooms
- Sunflowers
- Tulips
- Peonies
Round peony blooms are perfect for adding to bouquets. Image credit: @goantakafka
If you want to create a more wild looking bouquet, you can select a range of different flowers and foliage. Some of the top garden flowers for bouquets are:
- Tulips
- Sweet peas
- Roses
- Sunflowers
- Lilies
- Gladioli
- Delphinium
- Dahlias
- Daisies
- Gladioli
- Cosmos
You can add texture and interest with foliage. Ivy, leaf ferns, seeded eucalyptus and rosemary are great options.
Home-grown dahlias make ideal bouquet flowers. Image courtesy of Frogmary Flowers
Before you start
What you’ll need:
- Scissors
- Gardening gloves
- A bucket of water
- A jug
- String or twine
- Florist tape
- Paper
Cut and condition the flowers
Before you cut your flowers, think about which colours will work well together and also whether you want to create a posy or a more informal, textured bouquet.
- Select the flowers you’d like to include and cut them with scissors. Be sure to include as long a stem as you can. You’ll cut it down later. Take care of thorns and wear gardening gloves if you’re cutting roses.
- If you can, put the flowers straight into a bucket of water. All stems will contain air when cut and wilt quickly.
- The next step is to condition your flower stems. This will enable your flowers to last longer, improving water uptake and helping to prevent wilting.
- For softer stems and hydrangea blooms in particular, cut the stems at a sharp angle and place them in a jug, filled with about an inch of boiling water. Let the stems stand for about 40 seconds. This forces any air out of the stems, improving water uptake. Once done, cut the stem ends again and place them in a bucket of tepid water.
- For other flowers and woody stems, cut the stems at a sharp angle and let them soak overnight in a bucket of tepid water with added flower food before arranging.
You can create stunning displays with flowers from your garden. Image credit: @mossandmeadowuk
Making a bouquet
Posy bouquet
These are densely packed, rounded bouquets and they make wonderful gifts as well as beautiful wedding bouquets.
- Take your chosen flowers from the bucket of water where they’ve had a good drink and gently strip the leaves from the stems. Carefully place each stem on a flat surface as you complete this. You can create a beautiful posy with as few as 10 flowers.
- Next, choose a focal flower if you have one that you’d like to take centre-stage. If all flowers are similar, it doesn’t matter which one you pick first. Choose a second flower and place it next to the first flower diagonally and angled to the left, making sure it’s the same height.
- Rotate the two flowers slightly to the right before adding another flower in the same way. Keep adding flowers diagonally and angled to the left. You’ll be turning the posy in a circle as you add more flowers.
- The aim is to keep your flowers tightly packed together in a ball shape. Don’t worry about different stem lengths at this stage!
- Once you’ve added your flowers and have a compact bunch, you can add some smaller filler flowers if you wish.
- Now take your string and tie a knot as high up the stems as you can.
- Relax and shake your hand out!
- Cut off any excess string and cut the stems to the same length.
- Now you can add florist tape or more twine down the stems to secure the bouquet.
- Cover the tape or twine with ribbon or jute for the finishing touch and wrap it in paper if your bouquet is a gift.
Add flowers to the bouquet at an angle, spiralling the bouquet as you go. Image courtesy of Frogmary Flowers
If you’re making a posy with the same flowers and want a really dense bouquet, you can make and tie several small posies together (using 3-5 flowers), then bunch them all together. It’s slightly easier on your hands, particularly if you want to include a lot of flowers.
Hand-tied bouquet
You can make a hand-tied bouquet in a similar way to a posy, but you can incorporate different sized flowers to make a striking display.
- Prepare your stems by carefully stripping away the leaves.
- Choose your focal flower
- Add the next flowers in the same way as above, angling each flower you add and spiralling the bouquet as you go.
- Don’t be afraid to add different shapes and sizes of flowers and foliage to your bouquet.
- When you’ve finished, tie your bouquet stems together at the highest point.
- Trim the stems to the same length and secure the bunch with the florist’s tape.
- Wrap, deliver and make someone’s day!
Read more: What can I plant in a flower box?
Use your flowerbox blooms to create elegant, hand-tied bouquets. Image credit: @mossandmeadowuk
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