Foraging Florals!

Flowers can be expensive! If you don’t want to buy them and you also don’t garden much…here are some tips!

1. Forage in your own yard. Use the seasons. Each time of year offers gorgeous foliage from trees and shrubs in particular. Colors and textures are always changing.

2. Collect from a friend of family member who gives permission (they may not know the value of what they have!)

3. Find flowers in public spaces like the side of roads. I love collecting Queen Anne’s Lace when I drive around town.

4. Sometimes a business owner won’t mind if you clip from their spring trees. Make sure to ask and specify you don’t need much.

5. If you must buy flowers, invest in focal point blooms that are hard to find for free (like roses, peonies, etc). Then forage for filler (leaves, branches, wild flowers) to compliment those larger blooms.

6. Search second hand stores for vessels to put the floral in.

It’s amazing how many beautiful things you can find for free. No matter how tempting it is to steal gorgeous peonies from someone’s yard…don’t. Trust me, the guilt will get to you when you sleep at night ;)

xo jenni

Modern Ikebana

Ikebana is a Japanese artform of arranging flowers as art…like a floral sculpture. The idea is to convey a feeling and the natural way a plant would grow in nature. Historically, a poem would often be attached to a blossom branch to convey admiration for another person. The practice expanded from there.

A Kenzan is used to secure flowers so they may stand on end, organically. What is a Kenzan? it’s a flower “frog” (the term we use in the West). A frog is a heavy metal base that has needles sticking up on it’s top. You can then secure stems by pushing them down on the needles. A flower frog is helpful for all flower arranging, but absolutely necessary for Ikebana.

Jenni