Fifty years ago, after the Depression, I started a flower garden with seeds and small plants. I love to make flower arrangements, and have found that I get flowers in larger quantities, with more variety and better quality if I grow them myself. Maintaining the garden, harvesting the flowers and making arrangements has kept me busy and healthy at 88 years old. Producing original designs for so many occasions – birthdays, hospital visits, weddings, funerals – has led me to consider more creative ways to put flowers together.
FRESH ORANGE
If you have pansies and nasturtiums in your garden and oranges in refrigerator, you can make an attractive arrangement at a moment’s notice. The secret that keeps the short-stemmed flowers fresh are 4-inch tall waterpicks and 2-inch tall orchid tubes, both of which contain water. These are available from florists who either sell them for 10 cents or throw them away.
Choose a large Navel orange that will stand up straight. Cut a wedge in the top 2 or 2 1/2 inches across, cutting down to 1/3 of the orange. Use five fronds of Boston (or sword) fern, 1 1/2 to 3 times the height of the orange. Pull off the leaflets 2 inches from the end and stick the ferns right into the fruit at the top of the wedge. The orange juice will not hurt fern but will hurt flowers.
In front of the ferns stick four water-filled waterpicks. Insert Johnny jump-ups and nasturtiums in them. Below these insert three or four orchid tubes into the orange. The orchid tubes have rounded bottoms, so you will have to punch holes in the orange before putting them in. Fill the orchid tubes with water. First, make a row of solid purple pansies and then, a row of two-tone purple and orange pansies. Let the orange petals rest on the fruit. On each side of the ends of the wedge, put a sprig of small ivy or Maidenhair fern. Place the orange on a green or purple plate.
Table Arrangements
Put this large arrangement on the back of a table against a wall. Use an orange tablecloth. In a large flat basket holding a container of water and pinfrog, put tall branches of loquat, Boston fern and orange calendulas for height. In front, add purple cabbage, purple onions and green peppers. Space the four decorated oranges around the table on purple crystal plates. At either side of the oranges add two purple crystal goblets holding wet moss and filled with Maidenhair fern.
In early spring I had another opportunity to make another table arrangement. My flowers had not started blooming very much so I decided to use the decorated orange again. To make a large arrangement I used a 2 1/2 inch deep container 12 inches in diameter which I filled with floral foam. I taped the foam down to keep it from floating. On top of the foam I put a yellow plate 8 2/4 inches in diameter to hold three decorated oranges. This left a space between the edge of the container and the yellow plate. I filled this space by sticking pink Indian Hawthorne and orange calendulas and sprigs of greenery into the floralfoam. Be sure the floral foam is full of water. The plate will keep the oranges dry.
Honeydew Mellon
One hot summer day I needed an arrangement. My white crepe myrtle tree looked like a giant bag of popcorn. My bougainvillea tree in a large pot stretched out its fiery branches in the hot sun. Two bell pepper bushes had peppers hanging on them like long green earrings. I had a huge honeydew melon that I decided to use as the base. After cutting a wedge in the top about 3 inches wide and pulling all the seeds out, I had lots of space and about 3 inches of melon in which I stuck five water-filled waterpicks. Into them I stuck branches of Angelwing begonia to give a dark contrast to the white, as well as bell peppers hanging down.
Amaryllis Bulb
Over the Christmas season while visiting the home of a friend who needed a table arrangement, I found her dining room had pastel peach wallpaper accented by an oil painting of peaches. Although I prefer to use garden flowers, when I received a growing peach Amaryllis, I decided to use it because it was the exact color I needed. I gathered my garden flowers and the Amaryllis and went to my florist. He showed me how to dig a hole into the floral foam where I laid the bulb and root. I was surprised and happy to preserve the whole Amaryllis. Then I stuck the stems of the dark red Ti leaves (from my houseplant), along with rosemary and red cigar plant for height into the floral foam without disturbing the bulb. I had lots of peach color nandina berries from my bushes and baby oranges from a neighbor. My Maindenhair and holly stems covered the edge of the silver bowl. Peach coxcomb and peach snapdragon had not frozen yet and came in handy.
Pink Grapefruit
Cut a wedge in the top of a pink grapefruit. Add four waterpicks and three or four orchid tubes filled with water. For height stick the long stem coleus and zinnias in waterpicks. In the orchid tubes insert short-stemmed marigolds and new baby sprigs of coleus. Place on a yellow plate. I added two pieces of green glass rocks and a sprig of coleus on the plate as an accent.
Purple Cabbage
Purple cabbage purchased in the supermarket, inexpensive, always available and full of rich color, becomes a versatile vegetable for flower decorating. Cut the cabbage head four ways across, cutting down as far as you can without going all the way. Soak overnight in water and watch it open up like a flower. Use greenery around it on a plate. Maidenhair fern is the prettiest. To keep flowers fresh you will have to put their stems in waterpicks and stick the picks among the cabbage leaves. The pictures shows for height Blue Salvia (farinacea), orchid color periwinkle and orchid color Globe Amarantha (bachelor button).
Thinking of new ways to arrange flowers challenges me. It gives me the opportunity to give gifts at little cost to friends and has led to speaking engagements on flower arranging in Houston and Navasota. More importantly, it has given me the opportunity to make a contribution even in old age.
Note: This article appeared in the January/February 1998 issue of “Texas Gardener” on pages 26- 28.