Flower Arranging: How to Get Started

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Flower arranging is the art of arranging cut flowers to make them look even more attractive. It’s a fantastic way to connect with nature and soothe anxiety.

Just having flowers in the home can lift your mood and help alleviate stress. If you take up flower arranging, the benefits multiply. Read on to find out more about what arranging flowers can do for you and how to start creating beautiful arrangements of your own.

Later, I’ll share some of the best tips I’ve found to help you create gorgeous arrangements. First, let’s explore the benefits of taking up this hobby and why people react so well to flowers.

Let’s get into it.

How Flowers Can Benefit You

The upsides of having a hobby like flower arranging go beyond the fact they look pretty and exude a lovely fragrance. Here are the main ones.

They help reduce stress

A study published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine in 2017, found that giving young women fresh roses to put in their college dorm rooms helped them relax. Furthermore, participants recorded lower blood pressure. Simply smelling flowers can lower cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress hormone. Orchids have a particularly calming influence on people.

They make you happy

There is plenty of evidence that having flowers around, particularly fresh ones, can increase happiness. Research conducted by Jeannette Haviland-Jones at Rutgers found that flowers have an instant effect on happiness. They also have a great long-term impact on mood that helps you feel more positive and helps foster closer bonds between family and friends.

Can improve your physical and mental health

Certain flowers have a positive impact on health.

• Roses -Are said to relieve headaches and boost your memory.
• Lily of the valley – Can ease dizziness and calm you down.
• Lavender – Slows your heart rate, improves the quality of your sleep, and can help lower your blood pressure.
• Tulips – Can help relieve exhaustion and ease tension.

On top of that, the act of creating flower arrangements is therapeutic and can help you enter a state of flow. This, in turn, can boost mental health and wellbeing and even improve some cognitive functions. It can also help ward off depression.

They can increase productivity and creative thinking

One study discovered that having flowers in the workplace helped increase productivity and meant that people were able to come up with more creative solutions to problems that arose. Who knew flowers could help give businesses that competitive edge? Cool, right? It might be worth creating a few beautiful arrangements for the office when you’ve practiced your craft a little more.

Why People Respond Well to Flowers

People have cultivated plants and flowers for medicinal purposes, as well as for their beauty, for over 5000 years. It turns out flowers stimulate the production of various chemicals in the brain, including oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. The production of these so-called happy chemicals helps us recognise when something is good or rewarding. This may explain why people remain attracted to flowers and tend to feel good when around them.

To help you understand the role of each neurotransmitter better, here’s a bit more detail.

Oxytocin – Being around flowers stimulates the production of oxytocin which creates feelings of trust, love, comfort, and wellbeing. This makes sense, as when you receive flowers it’s often a sign of affection or love.

Dopamine – Receiving flowers is a positive, lovely experience. Dopamine is released whenever people experience something pleasant. It’s what gives us a hit of pleasure. Therefore, just being around flowers and smelling their scents increase your dopamine levels and make you happier. This is especially true if you get given flowers because this is more rewarding than just having them around.

Serotonin – The production of this neurochemical is often triggered by pride. When you take pride in flowers you’ve grown it can feel special. Serotonin will be released, thus reinforcing the feeling of wellbeing, pride, and happiness we experience.

When you know all this, it’s no wonder we find flowers so attractive. Before I go through the steps of making a glorious flower arrangement, let’s find out which flowers we find most uplifting of all.

Exploring Uplifting Flowers

Some flowers work harder to make us feel great than others. Here are some of the most uplifting blooms you can have around. It turns out that colour matters. Certain colours can make us feel happier than others, with yellow being particularly cheerful. White flowers tend to have a more calming effect.

• Sunflowers – These beauties are bound to lift your mood and make you smile.
• Daises – Daises are one of the most popular flowers. They give a warm ambience to any room they grace. If you’re growing your own, make sure you plant them in direct sunlight and water them every other day in summer. They will flourish and bring cheer to any room.
• Tulips -They may bloom for a shorter period than other flowers, but they are prized for their more unusual colours. They can add a feminine touch to a room and are sure to make you happier.
• Lilies – A flower typically associated with Easter, these can be tall, alluring and give off an intoxicating scent. The large blooms make them fantastic for flower arrangements too.
• Roses – As explored in an earlier post, roses come in many hues and varieties, and can signal anything from love and romance to remembrance. Whichever variety you choose, and regardless of whether you’re growing your own, buying them for yourself or giving them to someone you care about, they will bring you joy.
• Hydrangeas -These are some of the most popular flowers that bloom from spring to summer. They can boast beautiful shades of pink, purple and blue. White hydrangeas can have a particularly calming, uplifting effect.
• Daffodils – Daffodils have been rated as the best flower for boosting your mood and making you feel better, partly because of their cheerful, bright yellow colour. These will perk you up all through spring and summer when in bloom.
• Gladioli – These flowers in late summer and are some of the most dramatic blooms you will find. Research suggests that gladioli can help increase motivation. They can make a beautiful addition to your garden and can vary in colour from yellow to coral and red.

Soon, I’ll take you through the steps of creating a great flower arrangement. Next, let’s find out what you should think about before arranging flowers.

Things to Look for When Choosing Flowers for an Arrangement

A good first step to take when selecting blooms for your arrangement is to choose a flower you love and build the rest of your arrangement around it. For the most attractive arrangements, look for variety in the shape and texture of the flowers you pick. You might go for a flower with a rough surface and pair it with one that’s smooth and has blooms of a different shape. Bear in mind that balance is the key to an impressive arrangement. You want to have a good mix of visual impact and simplicity, so there’s no need to go crazy with colours. Using just three colours can look super attractive.

To create a wonderful flower arrangement, you will often also need:

• Chicken wire.
• A medium-sized vase that’s not too narrow nor too wide.
• Stem tape.
• Floral shears.

Later, I’ll take you through popular designs you can use as inspiration for your own flower arrangements. Now, let’s talk about how to make your chosen flowers look sensational.

How to Build a Flower Arrangement

Here are some steps you can follow. Soon you’ll begin to master the fine art of flower arranging.

Take care of your cut flowers

Trim a quarter of an inch off the end of the stem and transfer them to water as soon as you can. You will need to trim them again you’re deciding where to place each flower in your arrangement to get the best effect.

Prepare the flowers and pick a vase or vessel

Before you begin your arrangement, you need to prepare your flowers by removing any damaged petals, surplus leaves, and buds. Then you can choose a vase. You should think about the kind of flowers you have. For example, if you’ve chosen to include tulips, it may be better to choose a narrower vessel to support their tall stems. If you’ve chosen top-heavy blooms, it might be wise to use a weighted vase.

If you want to go a less traditional route and use a basket to create a more natural feel, make sure that you line it with a plastic container so that you can add water and keep the flowers in place.

Prepare the vase and create a base of foliage

To ensure that your flowers are well-supported and stay in place, use stem tape on the mouth of the vase and create a grid. Then you can put the stems of the flowers through the holes in your grid.

Use fern fronds or ivy to make a base of foliage. Eucalyptus can work well too. Make an inverted triangle with the stems of the foliage to make certain it will look great from all angles. Remember to recut the stems of all your flowers before adding them to the arrangement.

Arrange your focal flowers

 It’s time to add the largest blooms to your arrangement. Sometimes your focal flowers will be the ones of the most unusual colour and texture. Add an odd number of blooms to give the arrangement a more natural, asymmetrical look.

Don’t arrange them so that they’re sticking out of the sides because this will make them appear heavy and droopy.

Incorporate filler blooms

Now is the time to put filler flowers into your arrangement. These flowers are smaller and are often a different shape and texture to your focal blooms. Just as with your focal flowers, don’t place all your filler flowers straight up or sticking out the sides. If you visualise your arrangement as a dome, you will see you need to fill all the angles to make it look finished. You could place smaller flowers together in clusters, to make it look natural, as clustering happens all the time in nature.

Add the finishing touches

You can add some finesse to your arrangement by finishing it off with some delicate flowers such as baby’s breath. It’s important to place these last so that they don’t end up being buried by larger, heavier flowers. Then spray your arrangement lightly with water and hey presto, it’s ready to display. Remember to add more water to your chosen vessel every day or two to keep your arrangement looking its best.

Let’s discover the most popular styles for your flower arrangement, so you can give it a crack yourself.

5 Popular Designs for Flower Arrangements

I hope you find some inspiration that helps you build your own wonderful arrangements.

The fan-shaped display

In this arrangement, the leaves and blooms are arranged to resemble the shape of a fan. You can either use the same kind of flower or a few different flowers in this design, but the blooms should be different colours. Gaps in the fan shape are filled with filler blooms of various shades. Roses look particularly attractive in this arrangement.

An elliptical arrangement

The idea behind this design is to place your blooms in such a way as to create an ellipse. Sunflowers, roses, dahlia, and lilies are commonly used in this type of arrangement. Whatever you choose, bright, sweet-scented flowers work best. Any combination of colours you favour will look astoundingly beautiful. This arrangement is ideal if you want to present the finished arrangement as a gift.

The horizontal arrangement

This one is used by florists around the world. Flowers of different colours and textures are arranged in rows or in a zig-zag pattern. Fragrant blooms are used to create this design. You can also build a vertical flower arrangement by placing the flowers in columns rather than rows. Like its sister design, the horizontal arrangement, a combination of flowers that boast different glorious shades and shapes would be perfect.

A crescent flower arrangement

In this type of arrangement, freshly picked flowers, along with their leaves and stems, are used as the focal blooms and stem flowers are used as fillers. When arranged, these flowers are bound together with colourful ribbons made of satin or silk.

The cascade arrangement

This is one of the most glorious of all. Lots of fresh grass is used in this special arrangement. These are usually presented at weddings or anniversaries. The beautiful colours and heady aroma make this one popular worldwide.

Wrapping Up  

After learning how flowers can benefit you, how they can affect your neurochemistry and finding out which blooms can really lift your mood, you might be ready to try flower arranging. You’ll soon find out if it’s the right hobby for you. I hope this has given you the confidence you need and that the designs I’ve gone through have given you some ideas. So, start choosing your favourite flowers, and get experimenting to see what fabulous flower arrangements you can create.