When it comes to designing flowers there are days where I have total creativity blocks. I’ll harvest buckets of flowers and as soon as I get them inside I can struggle to see them arranging well together. That was the case for the flowers I wanted to put together for my Mom’s birthday.
I have a sweet pea I grow called Charlie’s Angel and it’s a beautiful light blue-violet color….kind of like that jelly moon blue from the 90’s? Do you know what I’m talking about? Well, that color has always reminded me of my Mom. But it’s August and my sweet peas had already been through the wringer with being planted out early, 90 degree weather in May, and a little disease to make them start going to seed extra early. So I didn’t have the one flower that reminded me the most of my mom to put in her birthday flowers.
I went out to the fields and loved all of the lisianthus and honeywort that was ready to go, but I also had a lot of black eyed Susans ready for harvest too. They’re very warm and bold in color, which was different that all of the softness I was seeing everywhere else in the field. When I got them inside I felt like I had a bunch of flowers that clashed. When I put together the centerpiece with all of the beautiful, glowing and light colors….man, something was just missing. It was beautiful and light and blushy and would have made the perfect table centerpiece for a wedding, but that wasn’t what I was looking for when I thought of my Mom.
My Mom is grounded and connected with nature. She’s beautiful but she isn’t delicate – not even a little bit. She’s stubborn and strong and stands firmly in her values. Summer always reminds me of her and I can’t hear a single song from the buzz ballads without thinking back to all of the CDs I stole from her and kept in my car. And so I played around with the flowers a little bit more and used the cinnamon basil, chocolate lace flower and starflower seed pods to give it some edgy texture and then finally started adding those yellow black eyed Susans.
Then it started coming together and feeling warm and natural. It’s funny because normally I wouldn’t think to combine soft whites and pinks with deep, golden flowers but the contrast turned out stunning.
FLOWER LIST
Focal Flowers
- Lisianthus – Voyage 2 First Love
- Lisianthus – Voyage 2 Champagne
Supporting Flowers
- Zinnias – Dawn Creek Farm Breeding Seeds
- Black Eyed Susans – Sahara Mix
- Stock – Katz Cherry Blossom
- Stock – Iron Yellow
- Stock – Iron White
- Celosia – Texas Plume Summer Sherbet Mix
Foliage/Greenery
- Basil – Cinnamon
- Apple of Peru
- Honeywort – Pride of Gibraltar
Texture & Airy Accents
- Chocolate Lace Flower – Dara
- Xeranthemum
- Jewels of Opar
- Statice – Johnny’s Pastel Mix
- Scabiosa Seed Pods – Starflower
SEED SOURCES
Johnny’s – Lisianthus, Black Eyed Susans, Stock, Basil, Chocolate Lace Flower, Statice, Scabies
Floret – Celosia, Honeywort, Xeranthemum, Jewels of Opar
Dawn Creek Farm – Breeding Zinnia Seed
