Polychromatic Spring Flowers
Spring has sprung in the Pacific Northwest and all the colors of the rainbow are represented in flowers this time of year. In this Flower School How-To Video Leanne uses the color wheel as her guide as she takes a mix of spring flowers including ranunculus, sweet pea, allium, scabiosa and more to create a joyful, foam-free, polychromatic design - enjoy!
Video Transcription
Polychromatic, picking every color on the wheel. That's spring. Yes, you can order the wheel at flowerschool.com, but let me show you how to make this bouquet.
The flowers? I turned to the color wheel, and picked a little bit of everything. I wanted it to be polychromatic, meaning five or more colors. So, I have hot pink, blue, orange, lavender, yellow. Add in green? It'll be stunning. The vase? I have a taped grid, clear tape across the top, then I mixed fresh water with flower food. Just add that in and I'm ready to design.
To begin, you want to create a nest that will support all the flowers. Dusty Miller will be beautiful. Giving it a cut, making sure that it gets deeply into the water so that it will drink well. Tucking it in, repeating, radiating around so that you use a central binding point. And every time you place a stem, it will help to support the next stem. Then shorter materials, like Tweedia, you can go ahead and place those in. Now, I'm not cutting it, because I've already cut and singed the end. You can go to the YouTube playlist for Tulip Tuesday to see Tweedia care and handling. It's a unique and beautiful blossom. Feeding it across, weaving, and then also tucking in the most heavy blooms, like the hyacinth, so that they go in low and tight, tucked inside.
The base layer is complete. Now thinking about the longer stems, a little bit larger, and letting them come out longer so that you have layers, creating depth in the design. Finding the perfect hole. And you can see by extending it gives you so much more visual value and draws attention to each of the blooms. The sweet peas in that hot pink contrasting to the deep violet. Some ranunculus in the orange, and lisianthus. Dividing the stems, but using both parts so you get full value.
You can see the base level, the extended. Now I want to just fill in with a few more lighter, more delicate blooms. Could be a little bit of butterfly ranunculus, getting the softer yellow, finding a spot to just squeeze it down in. Could be the allium, the soft white, tucking it in between the blooms. And even Scabiosa, bringing a little more of the lavender, and letting it dance over the top of the others.
The recipe? I'm going to add one more detail, then I'll tell you. A little bit of jasmine vine just to come in, give some movement. I'm going to use a total of six stems of jasmine vine. The base was the Dusty Miller. Then the flowers, I use six stems of hyacinth, six sweet pea, a dozen of the Tweedia, six of the orange ranunculus, six of the lisianthus in lavender, and six of the yellow butterfly ranunculus. Six allium. So yes, everything's in sixes, gives you a lush and full arrangement.
The essence of spring captured with flowers. Such a delight, when the color re-enters the world after the winter months. You'll find more creative inspiration on the website, FlowerSchool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. Now it's your turn. Gather the most wonderful blooms, bring them in, and create away. Take a picture, post it on social media, and #FloralDesignInstitute. That way, we all can see what you do as you do something you love.
