One bouquet + six stem wraps

Last week, while I was picking up flowers for a wedding at the Detroit Golf Club, I had an urge to pick up a few flowers for myself. I grabbed chocolate cymbidium orchids, Ilse spray roses, Cameo mini callas, berzelia, “Pisa” leucadendron, and seeded eucalyptus. On Sunday I finally had a chance to combine my purchases with a few stems of grasses and ‘Powis Castle’ Artemisia from my garden. I made a bouquet and six different stem treatments to go with it. Here is a view of the top of my bouquet:

Let’s start with the most tame wrap – rust silk paired with ivory lace trim. The silk is a good match for the cymbidium orchids, and it works easily with the color scheme of the bouquet.

The second wrap is also very safe – espresso silk with an overlay of beige lace.

The third wrap - antique gold silk, with an ivory lace overlay and ivory satin trim - fits easily into the muted color palette too.

The fourth wrap is a lemongrass silk with an ivory lace overlay. Unfortunately, this silk didn’t photograph quite as green as it really is.

The fifth wrap - seafoam silk, with a lace overlay and satin trim - is one of my favorites. It picks up the hint of silvery-blue in the Artemisia.

The final wrap - juniper silk, with a lace overlay and ivory organza trim - is even more daring. It really stands out against the flowers in the bouquet, and would make a great “something blue.”

I tend to like the wraps that aren’t matchy-matchy with the bouquet. The seafoam and juniper silk are my favorites. Which wrap do you like best?

Silver Tree Composite Bouquet

Great foliage is an underutilized resource in the cut flower world. Maybe I feel this way because my favorite color is green, or because I am a sucker for textural items, but I get just as excited about interesting foliage as I do for an unusual flower. Silver tree (Leucadendron argenteum) is one of those amazing foliages that the general public just isn't familiar with. It is an evergreen native to South Africa. The silver shine on top of the blue/green foliage comes from a dense coating of silky hairs. Each leaf is unbelievably smooth and luxurious. Two weeks ago I called my wholesaler to tell them I was itching for some silver tree. The next Tuesday I had five perfect stems in hand. I could hardly wait to finish my quotes for the day so that I could start arranging the foliage!

That evening I removed the leaves from three stems of silver tree and went to work reconfiguring them into a composite flower. It's amazing what you can make with a few stems of silver tree, a half tube of glue and a couple hours! This hand-crafted bloom is twelve inches across and would make a great bouquet for the bride looking to make a statement!

The underside of the bouquet is finished off with more silver tree foliage, an espresso satin wrap and a few pearl-headed pins - simple and clean.

The top of the bouquet looks like one giant blossom, or maybe a single large echeveria.

The simplicity carries through to the matching boutonniere. Silver tree foliage creates a shimmering backdrop for two perfect uluhe fern curls.

I was having so much fun with the silver tree that I just couldn't stop there. Here are a couple other personal flowers that I whipped together.

To create this corsage I mounted a pair of green mini cymbidiums on a base of silver tree foliage. Then I attached the whole assembly to a pearl wristlet. I echoed the pearl wristlet with pearl accents in the throats of the cymbidiums.

Here is the matching boutonniere.

If you want to see more work with silver tree check out the Kuga Designs blog to see their amazing entry in the Bouquets to Art 2009 fashion show.