Fall is upon us according to the calendar. Well almost. The day I made this bouquet in Oklahoma, it was hotter than Hades. Nevertheless, my heart is longing for the cool, crisp days of fall. I long for the crows to crowd the sky, the sun to shine through the red colored leaves, and for the chilled air to cause me to pull out my favorite jacket from the closet. I long for pumpkins to line my front steps and apple desserts christened with cinnamon and spice, and all things nice.
See me in action designing this stunning bouquet. Keep reading for step by step directions.
I happened upon these beautiful cherry brandy roses, sunflowers, and spray roses at Whole Foods and they screamed to be put into a fall bouquet.
To make things more interesting, I romped through the yard and gathered these other leaves and textures. The red dappled maple leaves were collected from the only tree in town that had any fall color. Thankfully, I could reach the limbs and cut a branch. But what kind of fall bouquet would you have if there weren’t fall leaves included?
The first step was to prep all of the flowers that would be used. First I removed ugly outer petals of roses and spray roses. Then I trimmed the berries and maple leaves off the lower part of the stem, so that the stem would be exposed.
Here is what the blooms look like once all the stems are prepped and ready to use.
To start the bouquet, I began with the largest flowers first. I gathered the roses in to a rounded mound. This gave the bouquet a structure and base for which to guide the other flowers into the bouquet.
Next, I opened up space in between the roses to allow a sunflower to be tucked in. After each flower type AND during each step, I turned the bouquet round and round, checking the height of all the flowers. That was a game in subtlety. The height of each flower can dramatically change the look of the bouquet. I continued adjusting as needed throughout the process.
I continued adding depth to the bouquet by adding the spray roses. In this photo, I used my fingers to hold the bouquet open to allow a space for the spray roses in the middle of the bouquet. My favorite design scissors are the ones in the background of this photo. You can buy your set here. I have used many different types of scissors. These have little teeth set in the back. They are great for cutting through thick stems and your fingers don’t have to work so hard.
After all of the central flowers were added, next was time for the fun part. I included the maple leaves, berry, and nandina leaves.
My favorite flowers in this bouquet was a last-minute addition. The little pink flowers with yellow centers are named zinnias. The zinnias were in my sister’s garden, where we chose to set up this particular photo shoot. Halfway through designing, I spied the flowers and trimmed them. Shhhh. Don’t tell her that I incorporated part of her garden into my blog post! The delicate little flowers like zinnias are the last flower that you add into the bouquet. I decided exactly where I wanted them, then threaded them into the top, strategically placing them to be eye catching.
If you liked the tips in this post, be sure to learn more floral design techniques here where I design with blueberry and cappuccino roses, plus scabiosa and astilbe.
How to Design A Blueberry Rose Bouquet
Beautiful! Can anything be done with the trimmings leftover from preparing the flowers?
It depends on what parts are left over. If there are whole blooms, I will often use those for the corsages, boutonnieres, or cake. If there is left over greenery, that is often used in the bouquet itself. If I have completed designing the entire wedding and I still have a few blooms left over, then I get a new arrangement for my coffee table.