Rustic Hand-Tie Bouquet
In this Flower School How-To Video, Leanne creates a lush, garden-style hand-tied bouquet with a warm, rustic flair. Featuring creamy roses, golden ranunculus, textured grasses, and soft rust accents, this design feels right at home in summer’s golden light. Designed in the hand and finished in a clear vase, it’s a perfect blend of casual elegance and floral artistry. Watch and learn the techniques to make your own rustic bouquet — perfect for gifting or everyday beauty.
Video Transcription
The rustic hand-tied bouquet, so easy to make using an armature of curly willow. Let me show you how it's done.
The base, using curly willow. Now, it has to be fresh, pliable. It can't be dried. But gathering it in your hand, putting it all together, and then pulling it down, creating an armature, the thing can support your flowers. Then tying it off with a bit of bind wire to hold it in place. I have one that's totally finished so you can see. It gives you a perfect base to support all your flowers.
As you begin, you want all of your flowers ready. I've removed all the thorns, removed lower foliage, beautiful roses, yarrow, again, lower stems, released like so. Then chrysanthemums, same thing, no foliage. You have that all ready ahead of time, it's quite easy. Then you just take your nest of willow and start feeding the flowers in, creating a perfect supporting armature. You can feed it through and you can turn it coming in at a nice slant. Turning, repeat, coming back in with some of the yarrow. And since everything is prepared ahead of time, you can just slide it right into your hand, set it in place. Coming in with the chrysanthemums, feeding it through that weave, and thinking about a central binding point where everything dissects and stays in place. Every time you place a stem, it helps to support the next stem.
To add depth of color, bringing in with a bit of leucadendron picks up the color of the chrysanthemums. Tucking it low because it's a heavier flower, color-wise and density, and feeding it through, turning, repeating. Everything's still going through that central binding point, and come back with another of the chrysanthemums, finding the perfect spot. Then for a little bit of lightness, some hypericum berries. You can see I've removed all the leaves. The leaves can be pretty, but that green distracts from the color harmony. I've removed those so I have just the beautiful berries, tucking those in, feeding through. Then for a little bit of softness, butterfly ranunculus, just letting them come in. Maybe leave them a little bit longer so that they dance over the top, adding that touch of lightness. Turning, feeding them in, letting everything weave together with that central binding point.
As I finish, turn it and look at it from all sides. Determine where you might need another stem that just fills in a little more color, a little more depth. Then turn again, double-checking. And then once you're happy, creating a collar. We're going to use explosion grass, one of my favorite things, the botanical name panicum. Just tucking it in, letting it come outward, turning, adding that little bit of softness all around. You can see how beautiful it is with just that little bit of lightness, creating a collar all the way around. Then once everything's in place, you can go back and tie it off using a bit of bind wire, and cut the stems, ready to set into a base.
Once you have the bouquet ready, you tie it off and cut it down. It's ready to just set into whatever favorite vessel you have. It'll be long-lasting and fabulous. The recipe, I started with five stems of Curly Willow. And that way, I could weave around creating the armature. Remember, it has to be pliable. No dried willow for this one. Then adding in the flowers, seven stems of the beautiful Spray Rose, five stems of the Chrysanthemum, Hypericum I did five stems with the leaves removed, Yarrow, seven stems to add that bit of texture. Leucadendron five stems for depth of color, and then for a little lightness, the Butterfly Ranunculus, seven stems. To complete the collar, the Panicum, explosion grass, ten stems to go all the way around.
The hand-tie technique, it's a little tricky. When you start with an armature of willow, it can make it slightly easier. And that rustic touch, how fabulous. You'll find more creative inspiration and education on the website: flowerschool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there. Now, it's your turn. Create an armature, gather your favorite blooms, and create. Be sure to take a picture, post it on social media, and #FloralDesignInstitute. That way, we all can see what you do as do something you love.
