Willow Armature Garden Rose Design

Video Transcription

The classic round design updated with depth and interest and foam-free, of course. You can see it's beautiful no matter which side you look, just the way a round should be. Let me show you how it's done.

The materials, amazing garden roses. This is the variety Catalina from Garden Roses Direct. It's grown at Alexandra Farms, the most amazing. The base, we're going to use a curly willow armature. When you choose your willow, it needs to be pliable. If you can't bend it and manipulate it, it won't work. So if you have dried willow, this is not the design for you. You can cut it, twist it, pull it down, adjust, set it back in, repeat, bring it in and adjust. And then once you have it just the way you want, using the bind wire, you can get this at directfloral.com. They have the bind wire. You can just tie it off. Now, through the miracle of television, I already have that done for you. So you can see a full willow armature tied off with bind wire. Then you can just set it down in your vessel and add fresh water premixed with flower food.

With the armature in place, go back and add in some foliage. Salal is wonderful, just cutting it and setting it in, radiating from that central binding point, so it gives you that perfect round arrangement. Think about basic floral design when you learn to create a round, everything radiates from that central binding point. Now you could do it with floral netting, you could do it with foam, or you could do it with willow. It all works just so well. You just need something to give yourself stability. Then going back, some carnations, the white will draw your eye in. Keep it low so that it just gives you a starting point, again feeding into that armature. And then once you have the salal and the carnations, you can go back and start adding in some of the Catalina roses, letting them be just a bit taller so that they shine over the top.

With the base level in place, you can go back and add more fragile blossoms, some beautiful freesia, letting them come out a bit longer, beautiful ranunculus, giving it a cut and then feeding it in. Again, following that central binding point so that everything makes sense and repeat out to the opposite side and continue filling in until you have a full and lush design.

As a final touch, just a bit of the Monte Casino, the European mini aster, pulling off the lower foliage and then letting it come lightly over the top and that combines the white and the yellow so that it unifies the entire design. It's just a matter of removing that foliage so it's not quite so heavy and then tucking it in following the same binding point.

The recipe, I started with one bunch of Curly Willow, pliable, to create the armature. Then I added six stems of Salal Tips, not the full stem, but just the tips. Then moved on to the beautiful Catalina Garden Rose from Garden Roses Direct grown at Alexandra Farms and used six stems, six of the White Carnation to add a bit of depth, pulling your eye in, six Freesia, wonderful fragrance that compliments the rose fragrance, then six of the Ranunculus, so luxurious. And lastly, used eight stems of the Monte Casino European Aster. So mostly sixes, but you can see combined together gives you a beautiful arrangement.

Combining a color with white sounds easy, but actually it's tricky and you can see by extending and indenting, it works well. You'll find more creative inspiration and instruction on the website, flowerschool.com. If you have questions, you can reach us through there, but now it's your turn. Pick a color and gather white blossoms and create away. Be sure to take a picture, post on social media and #FloralDesignInstitute. That way, we all can see what you do as you do something you love.