With less than nine weeks until Christmas (yes, really!) we wanted to share a few tips on how to make Christmas flower arrangements.
Incorporating flowers into your Christmas decorations adds colour, fragrance and beauty. And don’t be put off by thinking it’s all too hard. Our flower arranging tips will help your home to bloom beautifully this Christmastime.
How to make Christmas flower arrangements, our step-by-step guide
With a little planning, preparation and know-how, you can elevate your Christmas décor with beautiful florals. Create a memorable floral centrepiece or smaller vignettes. No matter your style or colour palette, our tips and techniques will take the guesswork out of flower arranging and help make Christmas decorating stress-free and beautiful.
Step 1 – Plan your Christmas flower arrangement
The first step in how to make Christmas flower arrangements is to decide on the basics:
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How would you like to decorate your home for Christmas? An abundant, floral centrepiece, or smaller arrangements in vases? We’ve shared our floral ideas for decorating your Christmas table and holiday home, which could be a good starting point.
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What flowers would you generally like to use? Your home décor and personal style could guide you in which flowers to choose. If you’re working to a festive colour palette, that will also help simplify your choice of flowers.
Your arrangements will feature ‘starring’ blooms – perhaps vibrant gerberas. They’ll also need ‘supporting acts’ such as baby’s breath or carnations. And an all-important ‘chorus’ of greenery is important to consider too. This could be Australian natives or even branches from your garden. Different colours, tones and textures will all help create layers of interest in your Christmas arrangement.
- Have you considered what’s in season? As farmer florists, we’re always thinking seasonal when it comes to fresh, beautiful flowers – at Christmas time and all through the year. We’ve explored which flowers to use in an Australian Christmas flower arrangement, and what will best thrive as part of your Christmas décor.
Our suggestions: Gerbera Mix Bunch, Bright Seasonal Bunch, Mixed Carnation Bunch,
Step 2 – Choose your vases
Before you go shopping for Christmas flowers, it’s important to know how you will arrange them. We find that flowers choose the vase, so it’s important to know which Christmas flowers you’ll be arranging, before you decide on their vessel (or vessels!).
Once you’ve chosen your vases, clean them well and gather any additional items you might need to help support and showcase your Christmas bloom. For example, long stemmed flowers may need the additional support of foam or wire. Shops like Apack and Spotlight sell affordable basic floristry supplies such as foam bricks, wire and tape.
If you’re not sure what you might need, give us a call at The Flower Farm as we’d love to help.
Step 3 – Choose your extras!
This is also the time to gather all your festive decorative ‘extras’ – fairy lights, small decorations, baubles, ribbon and twine – all the little elements that will elevate your Christmas flower arrangements. The decorative extras will help your arrangements to be stylishly cohesive as well as giving them some extra, festive ‘oomph’!
Step 4 – Buy, cut and prepare your flowers
To ensure your beautiful blooms live their best life at Christmastime, it’s important to prepare them prior to arranging. Our How to Care for Cut Flowers article is a great starting point. But here are a few quick preparation tips (for all your flowers and greenery):
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Fill a clean vase or vessel with fresh water and our Flower Farm flower food (or make your own!). This doesn’t need to be your blooms’ ‘final’ Christmas arrangement vase – it’s so they can be prepared, ready and remain at their freshest.
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Trim the stems so they are ‘clean’. This means carefully removing leaves, unwanted buds and any damaged petals from each flower.
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Using clean secateurs, make a diagonal cut at the base of each flower stem.
- Place your blooms into water to await their final Christmas arrangement.
Step 5 – Time to arrange your flowers!
You’re prepped and ready. It’s time to arrange your beautiful Christmas flowers. Recut the stems before adding them to the fresh water in your Christmas vases. The best order to work in is:
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Create a ‘base layer’ with greenery. Work with different greenery to add colour and texture.
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Arrange your ‘starring’ or ‘focal’ flowers. Place them in odd numbers as this creates a natural, artistic look.
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Place your ‘support act’ or ‘filler’ flowers. These will be smaller flowers than your ‘starring’ blooms – but no less beautiful and important. Fill your vases between greenery and focal blooms until you are happy with your Christmas arrangement.
- Add the finishing festive touches. This could be strands of fairy lights, baubles, small decorations, ribbon or twine – whatever will add a final layer of ‘Christmas’ to your beautiful arrangement and tie in with your seasonal theme.
Step 6 – Enjoy your beautiful Christmas flower arrangements!
Whatever your Christmas colour palette or theme, The Flower Farm has the flowers to elevate your festive celebrations. We’d love to help you how to make Christmas flower arrangements, so please give us a call today!