A Week of Arranging Flowers
I got to spend a fair amount of time playing with flowers last week, which is one of the real highlights of this work for me. It brings together the long stretch of growing flowers with the creative side of finally getting to put them into something beautiful. I wanted to share one of the arrangements I made because this one especially came together in a way I really liked, and I loved the flexibility of mixing purchased blooms with what I had growing here on the farm.
Like most things in farm life, arranging flowers starts with a little planning, and for this one that meant choosing the vase and picking up fillers and foliage. I knew tulips would be the primary flower, and the color palette I had in mind was pink, orange, buttery yellow, white, and green. Right now I only have tulips and anemone in bloom, so the supporting flowers had to be purchased — Italian ruscus, white cottontail baby’s breath, tan-blush carnations, and white alstroemeria. Shopping for flowers is such a fun part of the process for me!
I used a flared-neck glass vase, which gives flowers room to move and keeps enough space between them that your eye has somewhere to rest. Before adding any flowers, I made a tape grid across the top so the middle stems had something to lean on. That helps a lot when arrangements are traveling, since flowers shift more than you’d think — especially if you’re taking one along as a gift.
Once the vase was prepped, I started building the base with foliage and fillers. I began with three pieces of ruscus placed in a loose Y-shape, then added three stems of baby’s breath, cutting each stem at slightly different heights — think oblique triangle. I use X's and Y's a lot in my arranging method. That gave the arrangement some shape and height before the focal flowers went in.
From there I added two stems of alstroemeria and one carnation (an impulse buy - I’d never seen a carnation in that color before!), again using different heights and letting them settle into the baby's breath and foliage. Then came the tulips. This arrangement held four varieties: Parrot King, Purple Circus, Sweet’s Paradise, and Verona. I tucked the tulips into the open spaces around the vase and let the surrounding flowers help support them, which matters because tulips always want to move once they’re arranged.
The final flower was a single Panda anemone, freshly cut from the high tunnel and tucked in last so it had its own little place to stand out.
Once it all came together, I mostly just loved how much color and texture it held without feeling too busy. The tulips still carried the arrangement, but the extra flowers softened everything in a way I really liked. This arrangement was put together for a friend, and I think knowing where it was headed made it even more fun to build!
