One of the pleasures of any winter holiday is making table arrangements using backyard greens and flowers from the supermarket. Here is the basic process for creating a centerpiece or other floral arrangement using an assortment of containers.
Pick your containers first. I used a silver-plated Revere bowl, a white garage sale vase, and a basket lined with a washed cottage cheese carton.
Next, pick assorted evergreens from your yard. I used Green Giant arborvitae, eastern red cedar (J. virginiana), hinoki false cypress, Gold Mop cypress, Pieris (aka andromeda), pitch pine, blue holly, and variegated Osmanthus.
Add flowers from the supermarket – I picked roses and Hypericum berries.
You also need Oasis floral foam, waterproof tape, and ribbon if desired.
Next soak the oasis in water for about 20 minutes.
Put the soaked Oasis in the containers and use waterproof florist’s tape to secure it in the containers.
I put in the Green Giant arborvitae foliage in all three containers first. Then I customized them from there.
This is the arrangement in the basket.
I used the the baby’s breath that came with the red roses in this arrangement because the white of those flowers echoes the white color of the vase. I love how the variegated Osmanthus looks in this bouquet!
This was the last arrangement I made and when I was putting it together I wanted an element that was lighter in color. So I went out into the yard and picked up a bunch of twigs that had lichen on them, and added these to the arrangement. Plus the checked bow.
Here’s an arrangement I did last year using roses, carnations, white pine and variegated boxwood.
