Full List of the Best Filler Flowers for Floral Arrangements
Looking for fresh floral design ideas? Discover some of the best filler flowers available for flower arranging. These blooms will lend themselves to creating lively, airy, and full floral arrangements for wedding and event designs, bouquets, or simply a hand-tied arrangement for your own enjoyment at your kitchen table.
This article is meant to be the biggest list of filler flower types that we could compile—just for you! So skip around to find exactly what you require for your floral design needs today.
In addition, some of these flowers can easily serve multiple purposes—whether filler or focal—depending on your design.
Feel free to bookmark or pin this guide for future reference for your floral work! And if you have a suggestion of a filler flower that you’d like to see on this listing, contact us using the chat button on the lower right corner and let us know.
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Spray roses, zinnias, and tulips fill the gaps between large standard and garden roses. (1)
What is a filler flower?
A filler flower is a type or “style” of flower used in floral design with the purpose to act as a bulk fill-in for a floral arrangement or bouquet, cover gaps and blank space in the arrangement, and cover floral mechanics.
Filler flowers are not only used in floral design, but are also used in strategic garden and flower bed design. However, in this article we’ll be talking through flower arrangement fillers specifically with floristry work in mind.
What are filler flowers used for?
As mentioned above, filler flowers are used in floral design work or garden design. Often, when flowers are used as filler, they are not the “star of the show” (or what we call the focal flower) in the floral arrangement. Instead, they act as supporting characters for the overall design.
Nonetheless, traditional filler flowers for bouquets and arrangements can sometimes be the show-stopping star in their own right. It all depends on your particular goals and your client’s preferences.
Sometimes filler flowers can be just as breathtaking, delightful, and mood-setting as the most dramatic, largest peony. Your design style can really set the tone for what is considered a filler flower and what isn’t!
So wait, what flowers do you put in a bouquet?
This small centerpiece consists of filler flowers only! (2)
Floral arrangement fillers serve as the “supporting cast” in the design story of a floral arrangement. (They’re described in depth above.)
Focal flowers are the larger, more “main character” blooms in a floral design, but they don’t always have to be a large flower.
When someone is looking at and admiring an arrangement, focal flowers allow for visual rest in the design of the arrangement,—a moment for the “eye to pause,” so to speak.Line flowers establish the shape of an arrangement, and branches and greenery often fall into this category.
Line flowers do the hard work of stretching a floral design outside of its container or vessel and into the space it occupies. They can add bounce, movement, delicacy, and airy, breezy elements to a design.
And if we’re still using the movie analogy here, they might serve as the “setting”—the place the design story of your arrangement takes place and the boundaries that hold its shape. (Maybe we’re stretching our line-flower analogies a bit here, but you get the gist!)
For more in-depth floral design training (and to learn new techniques that save you time and hassle), check out our comprehensive online floral design classes.
Floral Design Videos: How to Use Filler Flowers
Need floral design tutorials or inspiration? For demonstrations on how to use flower arrangement fillers effectively in your designs (or if you need fresh design ideas), we’ve compiled a couple of our favorite resources to help.
But if you’re here looking for filler flower lists specifically, feel free to skip on ahead to get what you need!
Here are 3 step-by-step videos for filler flowers inspiration:
Make a Giftable Wrapped Flower Bouquet: In this fast flower video with instructor and designer Kelly Perry, you’ll see a very quick tutorial of a vibrant, happily wrapped gift bouquet that uses greenery, filler flowers, and a couple focal flowers—all tied up with a joyful ribbon. It makes a great arrangement for Valentine’s Day, a cheerful host gift, or a fun birthday bouquet!
A Lesson in Reflective Floral Design: Kelly leads us in a step-by-step tutorial video with Certified American Grown flowers—you’ll see beautiful use of focal, filler, and line flowers in a colorful centerpiece arrangement.
Creating a Blush Floral Centerpiece: This flower-heavy centerpiece is loaded with gorgeous blooms, many of which we mention in the filler flower lists below. A blush-colored floral design palette is wonderfully popular for weddings and special occasion events.
And if you’re more of a how-to article kind of learner, we’ve got a couple of those, too!
Create a Happy Basket Flower Arrangement: In this article, you’ll see designer and Team Flower Member Jacelyn create a giant, colorful floral arrangement. She talks through the filler flowers and focal flowers.
Design a Large-Scale Foam-Free Centerpiece: Here, Team Flower Member Maxine Owens gives you a step-by-step guide (with photos!) on creating a gorgeous, large arrangement. She even tells you when it’s time to place your filler flowers!
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Ideas for Filler Flowers for Floral Arrangements, Bouquets, and More
Below you’ll find a huge list of filler flowers for floral arrangements, organized by color palette.
Some blooms may show up in multiple lists—that’s just so you have quick and easy access to multiple filler flower ideas in that particular category.
“Traditional filler flowers for bouquets and arrangements can sometimes be the show-stopping star in their own right. ”
An important note about flower photos: Adding a photo of each filler flower for each list would have made for, well, a very long article that would be difficult for you to sift through (or one that would take too long to load).
So we’ve eliminated individual photos of each and every flower for this purpose.
However, if you need a reminder of what a flower looks like, simply do a quick Google Image search in a new tab, and then jump right back into this guide for more ideas.
This arbor features Babies Breath, Spray Roses, and Astillbe as filler flowers. (3)
Best White Filler Flowers
Below you’ll find a list of some of the most popular white filler flowers for bouquets and arrangements.
Camomile (also known as Matricaria)
Orlaya
Ginestra
Spirea
White Dill
Statice (purple, white)
Dianthus
Queen Anne’s Lace (also known as Ammi)
Eupatorium
Baby’s Breath (also known as gyp)
Bouvardia
White Sweet Pea
Lilly of the Valley
Snapdragons
Hydrangea (while hydrangea can also easily be a focal flower, it’s large head of bountiful smaller blooms makes for excellent filler)
Wax Flowers
Jasmine
White Cloud Spray Garden Rose
White Majolica Spray Rose
White Gomphrena (also known as globe amaranth)
White Mini Carnations
Stock
Viburnum
Wild Aster
White Pompons (a type of mum)
White Astilbe
Diosma
Nicotania
Feverfew
Forget Me Not
Do you spy the blush yarrow in the blooms of this table runner? (4)
Creamy-Colored and Blush-Colored Flower Arrangement Fillers
Angie Romantica Spray Garden Rose
Peach Mini Carnations
Chabaud La France Carnations
Sedum
Solidago
Apricot Statice
Snapdragons
Phlox
Zinnia Zinderella Lilac
Bunny Tail Grass
Daucus Seed
Blush Astilbe
Yarrow
Calcynia
Diosma
Astrantia
Little Quick Fire Panicle Hydrangea (dried or fresh)
Yellow double daffodils and double tulips create a subtle foundation for the red ranunculuses in this arrangement. (5)
Yellow Filler Flowers
Lady's Mantle (also known as Alchemilla)
Yellow Pompons (a type of mum)
Zinnia Golden Hour
Yellow Quatre Coeurs Garden Spray Roses
Goal Mini Button Pom
Golden Yellow Button Pom
Sunday Gold Celosia
Buplerum
Yellow Dill
Craspedia (also known as Billy Balls, can be used dried or fresh)
Statice
Rue
Yarrow
Narcissus
Pomponette Double Tulip
Sometimes an arrangement calls for more green! This centerpiece is overflowing with vine Ivy, clematis, and blackberry foliage. (6)
Most-Loved Filler Greenery and Green Filler Flowers
Eucalyptus
Dusty Miller (also produces yellow flowers in warmer climates)
Myrtle
Viburnum Greenery
Ivy
Lemon Leaf
Bells of Ireland
Sage (Hint: let your herbs flower for additional interest! Same with the other herbs listed below.)
Basil
Mint
Catmint
Chocolate mint
Lavender scabiosa acts as both a filler and a focal in this wildflower bouquet. (7)
Purple Filler Flowers
Blue Glitter Sea Holly (also appears as a lavender color)
Purple Statice
Delphinium
Purple Wax Flower
Wild Purple Aster
Purple Tamborine Garden Spray Rose
Catmint (when flowered)
Verbena
Lilac
Copper Plume Atriplex
Heather
Ageratum
Stock
Lavender
Ageratum
Moody is the vibe in this close-up of a bouquet full of burgundy-toned daucus, deep pink zinnia, and black scabiosa. (8)
Excellent Filler Flowers for a Moody Color Palette
Thistle
Burgundy Purple Micro Pom Cushion Flower
Shock Novelty Pom Purple Flower
Mini Tuxedo Santini
Rusty Red Button Pom
Sedum
Bouvardia
Daucus
Heather
Lilac
Astilbe
Diosma
Astrantia
Little Quick Fire Panicle Hydrangea (dried or fresh)
Need something bright to fill the holes? Try zinnias, phlox, or clematis! (9)
Best Filler Flowers for a Bright Color Palette
Gomphrena (also known as globe amaranth)
Poms
Alstroemeria (also known as Lily of the Incas or Peruvian Lilly)
Snapdragons
Delphinium
Phlox
Zinnias
Statice
Stock
Thistle
Mums
Pompon Mums (smaller, button-like flowers)
Purple Tamborine Garden Spray Rose
Lady Bombastic Garden Spray Rose
Bashful Becky Button Pom
Bouvardia
Diosma
Calcynia
Heather
Yarrow
Craspedia (also known as billy balls, can be used dried or fresh)
Did We Forget Any Favorite Filler Flowers?
Feel like we’re missing a flower on any of these lists? Contact us using the chat button on the lower right corner and let us know! We love hearing from you!
Photography: All floral designs by Kelly Perry
(1 & 4) Almond Leaf Studios
(2) Marcie Meredith Photography
(3) Caroline Logan Photography
(6, 7, 8, 9) Heather Payne Photography
