Winter flower inspiration for your home arrangements
When the rain is tapping on the window, frost has threatened and you sit by a glowing fire at night, it may be hard to imagine that you can find and use seasonal winter flowers. I have come up with a few suggestions that you can keep an eye out for your next walk, pick from your garden or make a note of to plant in the future. It can be just as easy to create a unique arrangement at this time of year as it is at any other.
Whether you end up creating a beautiful vase of flowers to gift to a loved one, arrange flowers for a special occasion or simply pick flowers for your home, the results are sustainable and you get to be creative.
To start I like to collect and use any foliage from pruning that I do at this time of year. I often use these clippings to make arrangements for my home because foliage often lasts for roughly 2 weeks. This tends to be much longer than any flowers that you cut or buy in. To arrange, I start with a beautiful vase, fill it with sprawling foliage and swap winter flowers and berries in and out every few days. Simple can sometimes be best!
I have listed below flowers and foliage to look out for on your walks! Take a pair of secateurs, a bag and keep your eye peeled. Don’t be afraid to cut longer lengths that you need! This will give you more scope when you get home and put them in a vessel. You could also take a walk around your garden, most of us have something to hand that we tend to simply overlook. A note to remember is that herbs aren’t just for flavour, they can bring a lovely texture and scent to an arrangement big or small. Woody herbs are best at this time of year, think rosemary, sage and thyme.
Winter is a great time to get creative, even if you can’t find any winter flowers, hunt for seed heads, rosehips, branches or even a coloured stem like dogwood and pop them in a vase; beautiful!
I have some simple tips to keep cut flowers and foliage fresher for longer in a previous post which you can read by clicking here:
Winter foliage, flowers, berries and seeds to look out for:
• Gorse
• Hyacinth
• Hellebores
• Magnolia leaves
• Pine tree branches
• Ivy
• Holly
• Cotoneaster
• Rosehips
• Various Conifer
• Skimmia
• Woody Herbs
• Witch Hazel
• Dogwood Branches
• Ivy berries
• Pussy Willow
• Narcissi
• Dried Flowers!
• Seed heads or cones
• Old Man's Beard (Clematis vitalba)
For even more ideas, I suggest looking at this post by New Covent Garden Market!