Tips for the Perfect Flower Arrangements

Nothing instantly brightens up a home like a fresh arrangement of flowers. They're the perfect way to make a space more inviting and play up different seasonal colors. Here are a few general flower tips to help your blooms stay beautiful for as long as possible, as well as tips for arranging with three different types of vases.

General Flower Tips

1. Trim regularly. As soon as you get your flowers home, trim them be 3/4 of an inch with a sharp pair of scissors, at a slanted angle (this helps the stems soak up as much water as possible). Continue to trim the stems every 2 - 3 days.

2. Remove leaves below the water line. Trim any leaves from the stems of your flowers that are touching or below the water in your vase. This helps eliminate bacteria that causes your flowers to deteriorate quickly.

3. Change the water daily. That's right, don't wait until the flowers soak up all the water in the vase. Dump out the old water for fresh new water every day to help keep them beautiful.

4. Think about how your arrangement will be used. Are you making a centerpiece for your dinner table, or a grand arrangement for your entryway table? If your flowers will be at a table where people will be seated, make sure the flowers aren't so tall that they obstruct people's views of each other. 

Alto Chartreuse Vase

Tips for tall vases

For this arrangement, we chose flowers that were long and tall, so that they were not overwhelmed by this 26 inch vase. You'll want your flowers to be about one and a half times the height of your vase. Think about incorporating flowers that are complementary colors to your vase, like the bright pink and purple flowers we used for this striking chartreuse vase. To soften the look, add a bit of foliage in the back, as we did with this eucalyptus.  

Rochia Fusa Glass Vase

Tips for short, wide vases

Since this vase has a very wide mouth and a unique, playful shape, we used bright dahlias to create a full arrangement. While the dahlias were the main show, we also placed some smaller, white flowers around them to complete the arrangement.

Mist Vase

Tips for a Medium Vase

For this last arrangement, we played off of the blue, cool tones of the vase with two complementary colors in warmer shades. The sunflowers' and gerberas' shapes are similar and don't compete with each other, and we added some eucalyptus in the back for some extra greenery, depth and texture. For this vase of medium height (14 inches), we mirrored the flowers to be more narrow towards the mouth, and wider and fuller at the top, similar to the base of the vase.