Grow your own Wedding Flowers

by Georgie Newbery

  2. Twist the wire around the stem to reinforce its strength.

  Hide any wire you may have used by binding your buttonhole with something more attractive: I like raffia, but a little twist of ribbon or wool, or just plain garden twine, can also look good.

  Bind your buttonhole with something attractive like raffia, ribbon or wool, to hide any wire you have used.

  You can wire any number of stems in the fashion I’ve described. If you cut the stems off and bind the wire ‘stems’ together, you’ll end up with a very fine ‘stem’, which you can then bind with Stemtex, and which really can be tucked through the buttonhole in the lapel of a jacket – the reason buttonholes are so called. However, these days most people pin their buttonholes, and we find that our customers like the posy style we give them. How you make your buttonholes is, of course, up to you, but I’ve described the posy style in this chapter because I think it’s prettier.

  For these kinds of posies, I might wire just one flower – the central flower in the mix – and I would use the strength of that one stem to support the rest of the flowers in the posy. Although the wired stem is in the middle, tying the other flowers tight in against the wired stem gives the whole posy the strength you need.

  BUTTONHOLE FACTS

  Traditionally, buttonholes are worn by gentlemen on their left lapel, and corsages by ladies on their right-hand side. Gentlemen wear their buttonholes facing upwards, whereas, traditionally, ladies would wear them facing downwards. Why gents on the left and ladies on the right? Because when dancing in the olden days, a gentleman would put his right hand round the lady’s waist, and the lady her left hand on his shoulder: on that side, the flowers risked getting squashed or tangled up with each other. And so they were worn on the other side – the side on which the lady and gent held themselves a little further away from each other.

  A TABLE CENTREPIECE

  I’ve already described how to make a hand-tied posy, but not everybody wants posies for their wedding reception tables, so here’s another idea. It doesn’t involve any more material than a similar-sized hand-tied posy, it avoids the use of flower foam, and it has a light and elegant feeling but is low enough for guests to look over to talk to people on the other side of the table.

  A grid system over a container offers lots of possibilities. For example, it means you can have candles standing tall in a water-based arrangement, because the tape grid can keep the candle upright. (If using candles, remember to check whether your venue has restrictions regarding open flames.) But the way we usually make our table centrepieces is with our collection of vintage trifle bowls, which are easily available from charity shops. Indeed, charity shops are really fantastic treasure troves for glass containers and vases for flowers.

  Here the grid system has been used to keep a pillar candle in place in the centre of a glass bowl, which is then popped inside a boater hat to make an unusual table centrepiece at a wedding in a boat house.

  What you’ll need

  Suitable containers.

  Tape to make a grid. You can use ordinary Sellotape, or, for a bit more in cost, narrow Oasis tape is stronger and stickier, although it’s also dark green, so will show unless you take care to hide it.

  Flowers and foliage. Because these arrangements are shallow, you can use all the side shoots from flowers and foliage, meaning you get more for every stem you cut.

  Here a 1950s Constance Spry-ish vase is filled with flowers for a table centrepiece, using the grid system described below.

  How to make your table centrepiece

  Take your glass bowl, or whatever container you’d like to arrange your flowers in, and first make a grid of tape to crisscross over the top of the bowl. If you arrange the tape so that it doesn’t actually cross the middle of the bowl, then you won’t end up with a hole in the middle of the arrangement. It’s useful to have a grid, so that you can keep short-stemmed flowers upright in the middle of the bowl, which will allow you to create a cushion shape to your arrangement.

  Next, fill the bowl with water, then add your greenery to make a base for flowers to sit on, and to cover up the grid of tape. I often find that the greenery base is so attractive that I’d quite like to leave it without any flowers. Make sure that the greenery hangs over the sides of the container, so as to cover up any tape stuck part-way down the sides.

  Then add the flowers. Make sure that you cut the stems long enough to reach well into the water, but short enough that they hang down from the greenery on which each flower head faces up, without having long stems lying on the bottom of the bowl. This will mean that there’s no battle going on under the water line between a crowd of stems, making it easy for you to pop flowers into the mix without coming up against obstacles.

  1. Make a grid of tape on your chosen container. A small container like this may need only a couple of strips each way.

  2. Add greenery to make a cushion for the flowers to sit on, and to cover up the grid.

  3. Add the flowers, which will be supported by the greenery.

  Enjoy yourself with these arrangements. Having practised, you may find that a greenery cushion with just one wide-open rose, say, as the focus of the arrangement, is what you’d like. This is your floristry – there are no rules. My aim here is to inspire you to have a go, and to be creative!

  Remember, though, that you shouldn’t get overexcited and make your table-centre arrangements too tall: you don’t want to stop people talking to one another across the table . . .

  A GARLAND

  Garlanding can be used to dress any number of different places. Here it’s climbing a marquee pole to give some height to a wedding scheme.

  Whether to adorn a long ribbon down a table centre, to hang over a mantelpiece, to swag a stairway or to make an arch over a doorway or gate, a long garland makes a stunning focal statement for a wedding.

  Garlands do, however, use a fair bit of material, so I suggest you have a go at making one before you decide you must have garlanding. Perhaps just make a length 1m (3’) long, so that you can see how much material you’ll need, and how much time the garlanding will take you. Making garlands is not complicated, but it is time-consuming and fiddly, and requires skill to ensure that there’s a good balance in the garland, and that the weight sits right. It is for good reason that garlanding is expensive when you ask a florist to make it for you.

  And garlanding really needs to be done on the day, so it’s not a job for anyone in the immediate wedding party. But for a keen helper, and if you have enough material, then it could be fun. Anticipate a little (ahem!) stress – and, as ever, do practise.

  If you plan to use a garland to arch over a church or venue door, do check in advance that there are places you can attach the garland to. Churchwardens and venue managers won’t take kindly to your attempting to stick a garland to old stone if there are no hooks already there.

  Here a garland is used to dress a church pillar. Be careful with old buildings: the custodians won’t thank you if you start tying up wet chunks of flower foam which will drip greenly down the ancient stone and appear to stain it. Any flower foam, or reservoir arrangements within your garlanding, must not drip or stain.

  What you’ll need

  The flowers to use in garlanding are those that won’t wilt or bruise easily: well-conditioned roses, dahlias, or other larger-headed flowers with strong petals are good. You can use delicate flowers like sweet peas or cosmos, but they’ll do better if there’s a reservoir of water for them to drink from (more on that later).

  A good deal of sturdy greenery, which will help support the flowers as you tuck them in – ivy is good, or pittosporum; laurel if the garland is to be heavy; asparagus fern if it’s to be light.

  Reel wire. You can source this online through a florist’s wholesalers (it’ll probably come in a pack of ten or so reels – a lifetime’s supply for the amateur), or ask your local florist if they’ll supply you one reel.

  String or rope, if you want to attach your garland to
something to keep it hanging in smooth curves: this avoids the risk of it developing sharp corners where posies are attached together.

  Carbon-bladed florist’s scissors.

  Some kind of reservoir of water for the flowers.

  Choosing your flowers

  Choose flowers that will survive well out of water, and often under some stress: think of the photographs you’ve seen of happy couples standing under a garland in full sun framing a church porch – tough conditions for flowers to do well in! Even if the flowers have a clever arrangement of water reservoirs, full sun in the heat of the day is a difficult environment for any flower to keep looking its best. Try out the material you intend to use in the weeks before the wedding, and you’ll see what stands up under stress – and what doesn’t. As ever, practice will make perfect.

  How to make your garland

  Here I describe how we do it (shown in Method A, below. A different approach is shown in Method B).

  First we make a green garland with our foliage, wired together with reel wire to make a long ‘rope’ of greenery.

  Although I don’t use rope or string myself, it is useful as a measuring tool (to know how much further you’ve got to go). If you do use it to attach your material to, as illustrated below, it will give your swag weight and help it to hang nicely. By using reels of wire (‘Method A’), we ensure that each piece of material is attached to the next – this way you can avoid there being any gaps, or the risk of the garland falling apart.

  Then we add the flowers. Basically you simply wire little posies together and then wire them to the reel wire (or rope). The posies can be as small as buttonholes, or larger. Give some thought to how much material you have at your disposal: large posies of course use more material. You could make all your posies first, and leave them in water to condition while you make your greenery swag.

  Method A

  1. Make a ‘rope’ out of greenery wired together.

  2. Wire in the flowers: either small posies wired together, or larger flowers individually. Add them at the last minute, or with a reservoir of water.

  Method B

  1. Take a piece of rope of the length you plan to garland.

  2. Wire in the greenery.

  3. Add the flowers, as in Method A.

  Alternatively, you might want to simply add one kind of flower at a time into your garland – say, large hydrangea heads, or peonies, or sunflowers. These look stunning when massed, but will need a water reservoir to keep them happy (see below).

  We then take the garland to the venue, and hang it, attach it or tie it where it’s going to be installed. It’s a good idea to take a bucket of spare flowers and foliage with you, so that you can fill any gaps or cover corners when the garland is hung (we call this process ‘pudging’). If you’re using flower foam or test tubes for your water reservoir, take spares of those as well.

  Remember to measure the length of garland you’ll need, and check the length at an early stage – and remember that you’ll need more material than you think!

  You see how versatile garlanding can be?

  The water reservoir

  It’s a good idea to give your garland flowers some sort of water reservoir, especially in the hot summer months, and there are various ways to do this. You can make little cushions of wet moss to keep the stems damp. You’ll need moss pins to twist the moss on to your garland, then pop your flowers, wired so that they won’t fall out, into the moss. It is also possible to buy ready-made garland nets, with flower foam inserted at regular intervals. These are easy to make garlands with, but you’ll need a great deal of material to cover up the large chunks of foam.

  Alternatively, you can buy little flower-foam nobbles that can be wired into the garland. These are my favourite option. My godmother, who has been a wedding florist in London for over 40 years, makes chicken-wire tubes into which she stuffs flower foam for garlands. A final option is to invest in little floristry test-tube water reservoirs. The flowers are put into the tubes, and once the garland is installed, the test tubes are tucked into the greenery so that the tubes don’t show. This was how the peonies on the giant swags on the royal barge at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee were kept fresh: each peony had its own individual phial of water.

  Flowers used in garlanding without any reservoir of water will need to be extremely well conditioned, and the garland put up at the very last minute, to keep it fresh for the photographs. This is why you need careful planning and plenty of practice!

  Garlanding in the making. We make it at home then transport it to the venue: it will make a terrible mess if you garland in place, so to speak. Better make the garland, then lay it flat in a car and take it to the place where it is to hang.

  This is the same garland shown in the picture above, here used to ‘crown’ a marquee pole.

  A FLOWER CROWN

  Encourage people to wear flower crowns on the back of their heads, to keep the look light.

  Flower crowns are fiddly to make and require a good deal of material. When your florist quotes you a surprisingly high price for your crowns, this is why. There’ll be a lot of rosebuds, or dahlias, or daisies, or whatever it is you’ve asked for in each crown, plus greenery. The flowers have to be super-conditioned to be able to last the day. The florist will have had to finish making the rest of your floristry before starting on the flower crowns, and may need to employ an extra pair of hands especially, and somebody will have had to wire all those flowers the day before . . .

  So by all means do make flower crowns, but be warned! Again and again I say: “Practise!” Practice will show you how much of everything you need. If your eyes are welling up now at the thought that you won’t be able to have the crowns you’ve always dreamed of, don’t worry. There are simpler alternatives (see box below). A flower crown is a stylistic commitment, which might distract you from the more important things that day.

  But have a go. If everything else is ready, and you have plenty of material, and you’ve practised and are ready to do it, then flower crowns are certainly beautiful.

  What you’ll need

  A lot of well-conditioned, individually wired flowers (at least 20, if you’re planning to have flowers all the way round the crown).

  Long trails of greenery – ivy is good.

  Carbon-bladed florist’s scissors.

  Reel wire.*

  Stemtex.*

  Very fine stub wire.*

  Ribbon is useful for finishing: for hiding any problems, but also to give extra strength to the hook at the back.

  These heavier crowns are made with a tiny sausage of flower foam, wrapped in Cling Film and wired on to the frame, so the delicate, potentially wiltier flowers have a reservoir of water to keep them fresh. This is a much heavier look, and each crown takes as much material as a bridesmaid’s posy.

  Choosing your flowers

  Don’t use wilty daisies or any flowers that are easily bruised. However much you’ve practised, you should still use flowers that don’t wilt easily out of water. Well-conditioned roses, sturdy dahlias, cornflowers, nigella, astrantia, statice and pinks all make good material for flower crowns.

  Alternative flower crown ideas

  You can simply twist long strings of ivy into circles and wire in just a few flowers. This is a delicate and very light look.

  A few single flower stems, beautifully conditioned, and perhaps wired for extra strength, can be just tucked into a simple hair up-do. This is an even lighter look, requires much less time and preparation, and is just as pretty – if not prettier. A single rose tucked into a chignon and secured with a pin will hold all day and be stunning, and won’t ruin your hair-do when it falls out.

  How to make your flower crown

  First wire the flowers you’re going to use, and put them to one side in water (see ‘How to make a buttonhole or corsage’ for how to wire). You could do this the day before. Leave enough stem length – perhaps 5cm (2”) – when wiring so that a little of the flower stem can re
ach a water reservoir while it’s waiting to be used in the crown.

  Roughly measure the head of the person who’ll wear the crown, and twist three lengths of reel wire together so they’re nice and strong. The twisted wire should be long enough so that when held around the head, one end will hook into the other to join the circle.

  Bind this with Stemtex, to cover the wire and give you a strong base upon which to add your flowers and greenery.

  Twist a long stem of ivy around the crown shape, and you can see you’re beginning to get somewhere.

  Now, one at a time, starting at one end, wire your flowers on to the crown. Start with the first flower head facing one end of the crown, and wire the flowers and foliage you’ve chosen on to the crown all facing the same way around the circle, or you’ll be bruising flowers as you go round. This way, there’ll be a pleasing regularity to the crown. Also, it’ll be nicely balanced and won’t fall off the wearer’s head.

  Use ribbon to cover up the workings if your wire shows, or just to give a little finish to the hook at the back. I use 16mm (⅝”) ribbon, because anything wider tends to clash with the flowers. You could use narrower ribbon: a handful of different-coloured 3mm (⅛”) ribbons is very pretty, making the flower crown look like the top of a mini maypole.

  A lighter crown can be made using ribbon to dance between the flowers around the crown. With fewer flowers, this takes less time to make, and can be a good idea for children, who sometimes baulk at the idea of a heavy crown on their heads. Be aware that with heavy crowns, the people who are going to wear them will need to be able to handle the weight without messing up their hair-dos.