Hand-tied Bouquets
You’ve admired them and you’ve given them, but have you ever made them? Hand-tied bouquets are best created with a general plan. Beyond size and color considerations, the anatomy of a breathtaking June Street bouquet involves the following:
Base foliage or texture: A lot of folks have been burned by cheap greens. Fear not, a kiss of green leaves or texture (how about both? think: seeded eucalyptus) helps create a “finished” look. Bare naked flowers are beautiful, but the general population likes to see a mix of foliage for both bulk and to counter negative space.
Focal flower: The star of the show, the leading lady. What are the most beautiful seasonal elements you can find that have a visual weight to them? Sometimes this is quite literally the largest flower, sometimes it is a smaller flower with a striking shape or color. It doesn’t matter too much, but know that you’re creating based on its qualities.You want to keep these elements highlighted by placing them at or near the center and floating on a different plane than the rest of your ingredients.
Secondary flowers: These are best supporting actresses. They accentuate the focal flower by playing off color and size. Again, so often people talk smack on the robust carnation and her sturdy cousin lisianthus, two common secondary flowers that truly are the backbone of the flower world, but that hate is misdirected. Their longlasting nature and spectrum of color varieties make for a lovely mirror for focal flowers to reflect off of. These flowers are usually placed nearby the focal and tucked for coverage.
Sprinkles: The fnishing touch. Like sprinkles on an ice cream sundae, these elements are ones that get added last because they are delicate, smaller, or need to “float” atop the bundle. Something like a flowering branch can serve as a sprinkle or as a base.
Wrapping: Honestly, this is the trick of all tricks! Any flowers look 100x better when they’re wrapped in tissue and paper!
Using these guidelines allows for easeful mixing and matching. I needed whatever hacks I could use given this milestone month— we celebrated our first independent Valentine’s Day, yay!
287 bouquets were made throughout the month of February on June Street. The thought of these hand-tied bouquets making their way into folks’ homes across Los Angeles warms my heart and makes my eyes water. Everyone lives in their own reality yet flowers are a throughline; a common language that transcends differences and recalibrates us to the same reality. A superpower employed by flowers for as long as we could appreciate them.
