Church Altar Flowers for Spring

Video Transcription

Spring brings the opportunity for church altar flowers. So many different flowers, so many wonderful things. Let me show you how it's done.

The materials, everything is from our friends at Florabundance.com. So many beautiful flowers. Acacia, it's fragrant, it's fabulous, and it has that soft yellow color. Delphinium, look how great that soft lavender. And then viburnum, bringing in the chartreuse green. Isn't it great to have seasonal flowers available? Lisianthus, a little different. That single variety, so delicate, the buds giving draping movement. And then beautiful garden rose. The name is Enid, which picks up that soft yellow, but it actually moves towards almost a chartreuse green at the tips as it opens. The container, an amazing urn. So it elevates to make it large, filled with floral netting to give us support, and then adding fresh water pre-mixed with flower food.

As you begin, build a nest of foliage. That will give you a broad base to start with everything else. Italian ruscus is wonderful because it comes out, gives you that movement. It goes so far. It's probably even off camera, but it gives you large size without even beginning your flowers. So tucking that in, pulling some foliage a little tighter. Salal is good. Letting it come in to help close off your breaking of the line and covering your mechanics, all the things you learned in flower school, tucking it. And then come back with your third foliage. You know Leanne's rule, you want at least three different foliage to give you nice movement. So maybe a bit of palm, how perfect for Easter, bringing that in. So you've got salal, palm and Italian ruscus to fill in and create a nest.

With the foliage nest established, it's time to add flowers. I'm going to lower it so you can see a little better. Just dropping it down. Then bringing in beautiful delphinium, placing it in, filling. If you've had basic floral design, think about your symmetrical fan. That's what we're doing. A large symmetrical design coming up through the center, filling in and create that fan that gives you the color that you like. Acacia, perfect for this, bringing it in, letting it expand outward, and it adds beautiful fragrance as well. And that yellow and violet together, such a wonderful, complementary harmony. And just continue filling in, following that binding point, but working from the back so you get a full lush design before you add the rest of your flowers.

Once the base is set, you have a beautiful fan and it gives you a nest for all your other flowers, tucking in the gorgeous, gorgeous garden roses. Enid is perfect. Just giving it a cut, setting it down in, drawing attention to the emphasis area, finding a spot to get it down into the water. Well. Then coming back. Viburnum, so bright. Sometimes it's better just to give it a break and then a cut so that it drinks well. And then to bring the white of the container upward. The softness of the lisianthus with its draping buds just brings that white upward and it adds lightness to the design.

When I work on a recipe for a large design, for efficiency and profitability, work in full bunches. So I have an entire bunch of Delphinium, an entire bunch of Viburnum, entire bunch of Acacia, an entire bunch of Lsianthus. Then for the Garden Roses, I used 10 stems, the entire bunch. Enid from Garden Roses Direct. All the other flowers from Florabundance.com. It's such beautiful product. Foliages, I used a portion of a bunch. Didn't do the whole. Some Palm, some Italian Ruscus and Salal.

Designing flowers for the church altar in the springtime? There's so many festivals and events, and celebrations. Moving into the wedding season, this is the perfect design. You want more creative inspiration? Check out the website, flowerschool.com. You can reach us through there if you have questions. But now it's your turn. Design on the larger scale. 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.