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)
Witch Hazel
Seed Heads
Herbs
Holly
Skimmia
Narcissi (daffodil)
Dried Flowers
Seed Heads
Pussy Willow
Dried Flowers
Dried Hydrangea
Narcissi
Gorse
Rosehips
Hyacinth
For even more ideas, I suggest looking at this post by New Covent Garden Market!