All tagged Summer
What do you think about monochromatic flower arrangements? This week, I’m sharing about working with black flowers—specifically in the summertime! Designing an arrangement with dark flowers using a monochromatic color scheme really creates an interesting mood, and it helps you notice the texture of all of the flowers. I’ll share some of my favorite varieties and their little nuances, and I’ll walk you through the dark centerpiece I’m testing.
In this video, I’m introducing you to a handful of summertime roses (though much of the information applies in every season!). Not only am I discussing the varieties, how they last, and what their attributes are, but I’m also covering where to source these blooms from. The more you know about various varieties of flowers, the better informed you’ll be when/if you need to make substitutions. As you make decisions about ordering roses, remember they need time to open and develop (some more than others), so be sure to take that into consideration!
In this video, I’m designing a tall, full peach-toned arrangement in the lovely Rosie Pot from Accent Decor. I’m using chicken wire as my mechanics for this centerpiece. As you watch, you’ll notice how I experiment with the placement pattern of my various ingredients—all while keeping my ultimate goal in mind.
Learn how to make a cascading garden-style summertime centerpiece in one of the trending color palettes of the year. I’m using one of my favorite vessels from Accent Decor (that is perfect for 60” (or larger!) round tables) with a flower frog attached in the center with clay.
If you’re in the floral industry, chances are you’ve asked the question, “Which flowers last out of water?” There are incredible designs that can be created without a water source: corsages, boutonnieres, aisle markers, bouquets, installations, and so many more! The best way to find an answer to this question is to do some tests yourself. I’m here to tell you about what to consider when you’re testing a flower’s durability as well as share the results of my own testing!
One Chocolate Lace plant produces a wide variety of colors. You’ll find everything from light pink (and almost white!) to dark chocolate and everything in between. This is great for designers who are looking to add color gradation to their arrangements. Not only does this plant offer a range of colors, but it also provides various sizes and shapes as well!
In this video, I’m here to share some design tips for scabiosa. Scabiosa is also known as “pincushion flower” and comes in a variety of colors: crimson, raspberry, salmon, lilac, black, white, and yellow. There are so many different varieties to choose from, and they can be found as both annual or perennial flowers.
In this video, Kelly’s here to give you some fun facts about salvia! Salvia is a great flower to take color to the edges of your arrangement. It is a perfect substitution for veronica as it serves a similar purpose in an arrangement. It’s also a rose companion plant, so if you’re growing garden roses, salvia will be your friend! Want to grow some yourself? You can find the seeds at Park Seed.
In this video Kelly will show you all the beautiful blooms that commonly open in the summertime. Learn how to become a florist and take floral design classes online with Team Flower. Here you can even learn tips on flower gardening for beginners. We'll show you how to do flower arrangements in flower arranging videos.
Transcript
Stretching yourself is a good thing. Today, I decided to take some things that I had in the studio and create an arrangement that was a different shape, and definitely a different color palette than what I normally work with. This arrangement I have been waiting-- I've been waiting really all year for these turk cap's lilies to bloom. And this is one of the photos that I have in our living room here at home. And it has one of those beautiful lilies right here, and I always anticipate that coming out in July each year.
Something that's native to the southeast United States, so if you're in one of those states, keep your eyes peeled in woodland areas for these beautiful things to pop up. And if you aren't, still keep your eyes open. Some might have come and blown your way.
So this is a turk cap's lily. And I just wanted to use this opportunity to show you a few of the different ingredients that you might like to use for something that you have coming up in your future. So let's go through all of the different things that we have in here.
So of course, the lilies, which have inspired it all. And then we have some umbrella fern. And this is so great if you're trying to get a lot of volume in an arrangement, but maybe working on a lower budget. This spreads out so beautifully. You can use it as the big umbrella shape, or you could break it off into smaller pieces and use it in boutonnieres or something smaller if you wanted, as well.
We also have some really beautiful velvety geranium leaves here. Love them. They come in all different sizes.
And right below this here, with these sweet little pink berries, after they flower, but this is pokeweed, one of my favorite things to use in the summer time. It grows on a lot of hillsides. And you'll probably find some near you. So that's something that I really love to use in the summer time.
And here we have some basil, some flowering basil. And some lisianthus. And this kind has a pretty purple and white stripe in it. And if you dig closely and look back here in the arrangement, we're using some sweet orange spray roses.
And this beautiful reaching flower right here is called crocosmia. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly. That's how they say it here. Sometimes I've found that, in different regions, they call the flowers different things, like for example I have some clematis is how I grew up calling it, but in the south they call it clematis. So that's one of the flowers we've got down in there.
I have some beautiful sphinx gold spray roses from Peterkort. Here, we have some liatris. And let's see. This dark foliage that you see is called ninebark. And this is a great thing to have in your garden. Grows up nice and bushy, and you can keep cutting on it.
I have some foxglove here. This is the light lavender purple. I have a piece of oak leaf hydrangea foliage. So that's fun to break off of the hydrangea and just use the foliage. I have a piece of hellebore leaf here, as well. A little bit of ivy, and some milk weed. And then right here, this is called gomphrena. It's a fun little textural piece here.
And then lastly, I have some orange ranunculus that I had left from a wedding last weekend that wasn't quite the right shade. So here it is. It works beautifully with this Dutch-inspired arrangement.
So that's your little tour of Boone here in July. I hope that you enjoyed it. And I hope it inspires you to go create some beautiful things with whatever is blooming in your neck of the woods. Keep moving forward, one step at a time.
In this bouquet tutorial video, Kelly will show you the mechanics needed for a garden-style look. Learn how to become a florist and take floral design classes online with Team Flower. Here you can even learn tips on flower gardening for beginners. We'll show you how to do flower arrangements in flower arranging videos.
Transcript
Hi. I wanted to take you on a little flower tour of what's happening here in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina in May. We're working with some hydrangea foliage. And this will be really beautiful later this summer, with lots of blossoms and blooms. And in the fall, it turns the beautiful. It has little speckles of burgundy in it.
We have weigela here. One of my favorite flowers to work with because it can act both as a green and as a little punch of color. We have lupine here.
This is something that is really well known here in the mountains. We have a lot of this. A lot of this in the area is what you'll find growing sometimes at grocery stores. And of course, in backyards and things like that.
I have some lady's mantle here today as well. I have a few ranunculus that I had left from-- that I just decided I didn't like with what I was doing for an event last week. So I have a few of those that I might incorporate. Some ranunculus, I have some beautiful tree peonies from the garden out front.
And then we have some poppies. And we actually still have tulips up in the mountains since our season starts a little bit later than other people's. And then I have some pretty fun little apples from my apple tree out here in the backyard.
So there's the ingredients that we're going to be working with today. And I'm just going to show you a little technique for doing a simple hand-tied bouquet. But I also wanted to talk a little bit about efficiency as we go through it.
So whenever you've got your studio set up, and you're working on an event or a wedding, a lot of times with the bouquets, if you just jump into making it without having a plan in place before you go ahead with it, they can get really cumbersome. Because you're trying to strip a leaf here, and trying to hold your bundle of flowers here.
So something that I really love to do is have someone help me strip all of the leaves down to-- I'll just give them a little tutorial on where I'd like the leaves to be stripped to. And then, I-- especially if I'm doing several bouquets-- rather than having it all laid out on the table like this-- which is just so that you can see what we're working with today-- I just have it in little vases.
The ingredients for each bouquet would be in a vase. And they would just go through, and whatever my instructions were-- three stems of the hydrangea and three stems of the weigela and five stems of lupine. It would just will be all arranged there.
So then that makes actually putting the bouquet together really, really easy. And you can have another bucket on the side of just an extra thing. Sp sometimes, these underrate pieces to all work together. So you can trade out some pieces from maybe an extras bucket or something like that, if you arrange.
Just a little thought to get you set up and going. But I like to hold my bouquets, is just with a really open, loose grip here, like a C. And I'm going to layer these hydrangea pieces in and a little bit of just a triangular, tripod shape.
So you just have two on one side, one on the other side. So this is normally my long piece. And then I have a medium piece and a shorter piece. It's how I start them.
And then, I was a little gun shy to cut my weigela just because I wanted to see how the pieces could form in my hand real quick. So that's one thing that I did not prep in advance. But I think I'm just going to work with this hear. And we might adjust it as we go along. But I'm going to go for that one there.
And then, I'm going to clip this one. This is really one long piece. And I'm going to clip it into two pieces. So there is a little bit of a shorter piece. Just strip a few off of this to do a long piece.
Now I just strip these off of here. This would make a really sweet boutonniere or corsage ingredients. So you could put a little vase there to collect those pieces as you move along throughout your arrangements.
So I've got this one coming out to the side, this one here. And this one I'm going to put in the back and up high so that I keep everything balanced. Because I need to have room in here as well to place some flowers. And next, I'm going to move from this-- the weigela has a really bright, punchy pink that goes and fades to more of a light pink.
And I'm going to eventually get into incorporating a little bit of yellow in here. So I'm going to start with my darkest lupine that just a hint of yellow in it. Just hints of yellow, tiny little bit. I'm going find a spot to layer that in. We'll go just about there.
And next, I'm going to put in a piece of lupine that is even just a shade brighter than the one that I just put in. And it also has a hint of yellow in it, but a little bit more than the one before. So we're just slowly and gently introducing this next colored to the arrangement.
Next, we're going to go for yellow. I'm going to just look and see if any of them have a slight pink hue to them. And that's how I'll be bridging this gap. This one has just a tiny little touch.
So you can see how we've moved from dark to light. And now we're going to really fill out this yellow here on the other side. And then, when I'm trying to decide where I want to put something, I'm examining which way is that naturally pointing and making the line of the arrangement go.
I've got this going here. I think it might be nice to try this to be an upswing since we've been going down on the other side. It might be nice to have this pop up.
And I'm about to add some lady's mantle that will help support this a little bit better than it is right now. So this is a little bit of a heavier ingredient. Probably should have put the lady's mantle in first to support these since they're heavier.
So we'll just carry that color back through with two pieces of loop and ruff. But I'm going to wait, and I might come back to those after I put a few more things into the arrangement.
So next, the purpose of this lady's mantle, you can see how there's different spikes. This one in particular has pretty sturdy stems. So what I like to do with this is to place it pretty low in the arrangement as a little bit of texture. But it's also adding some stability so that as I continue to layer flowers in, they have something to catch on to and to be stabilized with.
So I'm working with five stems of this. If you're working with a lower budget, you could maybe just do three stems. It just depends what the big picture of what you're looking like is.
Have some in the front, and then working it back in this way. Again, going to fade this one little piece that I have just in case if coming back, I decide I want to add some more in. These ranunculus, I think these are going to act as a little bit of an accent flower.
So again, I'm looking through and I'm seeing out of all other ranunculus that I have, which one would be the best fit for the pallet in that particular spot. Because you can see, some of these are real dark, and then some are lighter. So what I would like to do is add a little grouping of three of them here.
Paying attention to the size a little bit as well. Putting the things that are the smallest at the top. This one has a little bit more purple as opposed to pink. And this one has a little bit more pink. So I'm going to swap that out.
And you want to have some void back there behind your flowers so that they can really pop out and shine. So you don't want to put it here, how that's on the same level. Put that up just a step above that.
Next, I'm going to go, and I'm going to pop one back in here. And this is not acting so much as a beautiful element of the bouquet as much of it stability element. I can feel that there's a little bit of movement back in there. So I'm just putting that there to hold some things in place. I'll turn around, and we'll work on the backside of it a little bit.
You can see, this is a great place for this ranunculus that was darker, and just a little bit too much for this area of the arrangement. Back here, that's a great little spot for that. It fits right in there with that weigela. And then this one's slightly darker. Brings your eye up and a little bit of depth.
And this one just a space filler as opposed to a [INAUDIBLE]. You just want to think about what's the purpose of the flower that you're putting in there. And you use the really beautiful flowers, the stars of the shows higher in the arrangement. And then some of these other ones that aren't as beautiful, you use lower in the arrangement.
Now back here, I feel like I'm lacking some ingredients in this area. So it's great to save-- like I said, we saved this one piece of lady's mantle. And that fills that in and takes care of that problem. I also feel like this one piece of hydrangea greenery is in the way of where am I might like to put a focal flower in the future. So I'm just going to tug that out, and add that back in here to bridge the gap between the lady's mantle and the end of this.
So I have these other ranunculus that are a little bit darker. But I think I'm going to pause on putting those in for now. And I want to experiment and see what these focal flowers could look like in here, and how I want those to be presented. Now that's going to happen too, where something's going to slide out of place. You can just gently coax it back in.
Something I'm going to do real quick is just to trim all of these because those lupine stems are thick, and they're a little bit heavy. So whenever they're rolling around down there, that can get them out of place a little bit as well. So if you just keep this trimmed periodically, that will help with that problem. And it'll also keep your hand in good shape so that it doesn't tire out too quick.
I think it's very predictable to sink things right in this area. And you can, and I think that that's pretty. And it's something that I like to do a lot. But have you ever thought about putting some beautiful focal flowers off to the side in framing the silhouette? Just another way to think about it and look at it.
So we've got this movement carrying back here the largest peony, and medium-sized peony and small peony. Oh my goodness. Look at this. [GASPS] [LAUGHS] Oh wow. We'll just let him hang out.
Now on the backside here, we can still catch the color of these two. We have this little stair step with the ranunculus that's really beautiful, and I think will frame this peony really well. Just going to pop that right down in there.
Now, I'm going just adjust this. I had it towards the outside. But I'm going to pop this right through the backside of the arrangement. And to make that just so that the orientation of the face is a little bit different.
To make that a little bit easier, you can trim the ends of your stems to be a little like a nail so you can just pierce through there. So much easier than struggling and forcing it. OK, so that again is carrying that line back that way.
A few ingredients left. Poppies, I call it a little finishing flower. And you can use them in different capacities, of course, but I like to use them as a little finish. Something to float higher in the arrangement, just to finish it off. And then I go back, and we're going to look at this base area of the arrangement as well.
Now again, I'm just noticing the colors. Some have slightly peachier tones to them, some more pink. So I'm just experimenting and seeing where would that one best be showcased.
Think we have the dark pink side over here. That loop and how you're carrying that. So I'd be privy to put over here in this area. You can wrap them in among some other flowers to get it facing how you'd like it to face.
I might come back and pop those in at the very end, but I'm going to move towards thinking about what's going on down here. So we have this exposed branch, so I'm going to adjust the hydrangea foliage a little bit. And then I'm going to add some tulips down in that area so we don't have anything that isn't really beautiful being showcased at some point while it's being carried. Just going to waterfall, I guess you could call it. I don't know, I think I just made that up, maybe.
Put those in there. And then I'm going to pop it off with one up here, higher. Let's look at it from this side. OK. So that carried the tulips further back into the arrangement, rather than having it be flat.
And the last thing I wanted to do was finish it off with some of these cute little apples down here, around the base. Hm, I don't feel like I need that one. I like to give it a little shake. These things can get heavy in your hands.
OK. I have some of these little peony leaves too left over. And these are great-- flat leaves are great for framing areas down here at the base. Just going to pop that in just down in there low.
I think I'm finished with that. What I might do at this point, if this was a bride's bouquet, is just set this aside. And I would go work on something else for a little while. Maybe I'd do like a boutonniere or two.
And then I would come back and look at it again because sometimes if you're working and you're solving all of these problems. When you're putting an arrangement together, you're solving a lot of little problems, like a little puzzle piece. And sometimes stepping away from it just for a few minutes, and coming back, get yourself some water, a little granola bar or something.
And then come back to it. You'll see things that you didn't necessarily see whenever you're doing it first. So that's what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to take a little break. Then I'll pop back in, and see if I want to switch anything up.
So I've stepped away from the arrangement. And I've come back, and I've quickly identified a few things that I wanted to switch up. So this is the backside of the arrangement. And I was noticing that I lack some color here. And I have an opportunity to carry this yellow a little bit further.
And I have these two stems of lupine left that we didn't use yet. And see how that went from being maybe not a whole lot to-- then this just being something that can pop in there and really finish that back section off so it doesn't feel so empty.
So that was one of my quick little adjustment. It carries this line with the lupine the whole way through, as opposed to just abbreviating that. And then, the other thing I noticed is that I really wanted a finishing piece back here as well. So I have this poppy that we didn't use that I'm going to incorporate back here. And I'm going to use that hydrangea leaf frame that little guy.
And then, the last thing that I noticed that I wanted to do is there's a spot right in here that I feel could lend itself to if the bouquet is being photographed from this side here. This little piece-- and I accidentally tugged off one of its petals earlier today. And I thought I probably won't use that-- but since we're tucking this down deep in here pretty low, we can actually disguise that pedal is missing altogether. So a flower that may have gone to waste otherwise can still add some beauty to the arrangement. Even if it's just the yellow center and all the petals come off, it's just a little pop of color happening down in there that I think would be valuable.
Great. So I'm going to call that finished. The only thing we didn't use were some of these were ranunculus, which were these pieces that we pulled off of the weigela would make a really sweet coordinating boutonniere to go with this. So sometimes with boutonnieres, I'll maybe order specifically one thing. But I like to use pieces from everything else that I'm doing. It helps it to all coordinate a little bit better.
I'm just taking the tape around the stems, going that way in one direction. And then I'm going to go backwards with the tape for a second. So that whenever I put my ribbon in here, I've got something to grab onto. And this little poppy just needs to be supported. So I'm going to wrap him behind the apples since he is falling down.
OK. A ribbon. This is just a simple satin ribbon from May Arts. It's great, all-purpose ribbon. And before I get that on there, let's trim this off a little bit lower. Feels like you're really trimming small. But the point of the flowers is flowers, so we don't need a lot of stems going everywhere.
So I've just folded that back, and then wrapping this around, just real gently. I'm going to go ahead and cut this free. Just want to arrange it so that it's smooth. If your stems are in the way or making it impossible for it to be smooth, just situate things a little bit. And get it so you can have a smooth stem wrap.
So right now, I'm on the backside of the bouquet. And I'm going to move over to the front because I'm going to finish this off in the front. So I'm going to put my thumb right here in the middle.
And I have this one little tail that's popping up. This is such an easy, fast way to do a nice, tailored edge quickly. This gets hidden back in here. And then right there, where your thumb is, you're just going to pop a pin in there. And that grabs both the wrapping that you've done, and that also grabs that second piece.
I might tug one more back in there, just to make sure that's really secure. And then that just drapes down like that. And you didn't have to do anything extra. It's just real fast and easy.
And now that I have this in my hand, I see where the ribbon's falling. I'm going to cut these stems even shorter to their finished length. And if I'm holding this in my hand, I just want a little bit popping down, don't need much at all. Don't want to cut it so short that it's not balanced, and that it's going to topple over on you whenever you pop it in the vase and travel with it.
It's OK to keep it pretty short. And you may, if you're traveling-- obviously, not today-- but I'm going to leave it a little bit longer. And then do this final cut once you get to the event venue so that there's a fresh cut on the flowers.
But I wanted you to see the end product as well. I'm just going to gently lay this little guy down. And just give these ribbons a final snip.
These are Joyce Chen clippers, and they're really great multi-purpose. They can go through wire. They can go through ribbon. They can go through the plants, branches. All kinds of stuff. Fabulous, fabulous scissors. If they get gunky, they're not good for ribbon.
All right. So that's it. That's our pink and yellow bouquet or tour of the mountains in May. [LAUGHS] Have a good one.
Watch Kelly put together a unique patriotic-inspired arrangement using stars and stripes. Learn how to become a florist and take floral design classes online with Team Flower. Here you can even learn tips on flower gardening for beginners. We'll show you how to do flower arrangements in flower arranging videos.
Transcript
[SINGING] Three cheers for the red, white and blue! Can you please include that? Today we're going to make a patriotic centerpiece for-- perhaps you'd like to have a party for the Fourth of July, or Memorial Day or any number of American holidays. Perhaps a president's birthday. Perhaps you're taking a trip to Washington, DC.
That's my favorite city, by the way. I just love going there and walking the streets. I feel like it's very inspirational. I think I might go there sometime and just make some flowers. So I'll invite you if I do.
Going to start by using elaeagnus, which is a type of wild olive. This stuff grows-- the place where I've seen it the most was when I was in the Outer Banks earlier this year. It was everywhere. And I am going to use that to get my base set up.
To set up my base, I went a little bit out of order. But let me take this out. So I like to go in a triangle just to get things started, with the long, short and medium.
Then go back there and put one tall-- I'm creating space for the rest of the ingredients to rest. Deciding if this is going to be a long and low or have tall points. Just seeing where the ingredients take me.
Sometimes, I plan where I want to go first, and then pick the ingredients based on that. And then sometimes, I do it the other way. I like to just see where things end up.
So that's the nice thing about today because I can just choose, and take you along with me. A nice refresher after you've been doing things that are more scripted. Like if you have to decide what you're doing for a wedding, or an event or something. Nice to just see what happens.
So that's where I am with my shape. In the back here, I'm going to add this a little bit more in the back so that I can balance this out back here. Just needed a little bit coming this way because it was leaning forward. Pop that in there.
Next thing I'm going to do is go in here and cover this area with some lower foliage. And I like this to be a different shade and also a different shape when possible. So this is a little bit bigger, different texture.
This is celosia, a different kind. We had some peach in another lesson. This is the red kind. And we're going to go right in here, pretty low. And we're going to cover up this area in here where the bowl is and prepare to add some flowers.
So I'm still going around in a little bit of a triangle, just to get started. Then you can jump out and go crazy. Sometimes, if I have like a lot of different greens I'm using, I like to use one kind of green on one side and the one kind of green on the other side. But this whole way of getting your base established I think's really important, regardless of whether you're using the same ingredients again and again or you're using the same one.
I want to take this a little bit high here to reach up and hang out with that for a little bit. But had to go back down low and do the work of the celosia, which is to cover up the base. You can see I'm just trimming from the same piece several different pieces. And I'm talking away that piece that I cut out in there deep inside the arrangement, so that you won't see it. Let's do maybe three more pieces, just to get some good coverage down there.
Like that, like that. Just need to put a little bit more back here. I have a little bit of an opening. Put some more in there. So that celosia, I'm going to save a little bit in case I want to come back and add some more later.
The next thing I'm going to add is a flower that will cover the base of the arrangements. So this is going to go after the celosia. It's going to go in nice and low. This is a variety of hydrangea that blooms earlier in the year up here.
So a lot of times, the temptation is to start going high with your flowers. But you really want to keep these deep. They all have to do their job, right? And you can bring some of them out longer if you wanted to. If you wanted to show it off, you could bring it out more.
But the main reason why I chose these was for that purpose of coming in low. So anyway, I have this one left over. I'm just going to keep it.
I might bring it out. Well, let's just do it, and then take it out later if we need to. So we're just carrying the carpet out here a little bit.
Next, I'm going to add-- see, I'm having this thing where I can't decide between these two. And I think it's cool to go with both of them, so I'm going for it. We'll see where we end up.
This has a lot of different names, it's cute. Gooseneck. Sometimes veronica's what you ask for wholesale. There's just a bunch of different varieties. It's all pretty similar. Similar shape and everything, so gets interchanged a lot.
And I'm going to use this to follow the main shape that I started. Take some color out long. The purpose of this one is to reach. Everything has a purpose. Each person has a purpose.
Each time the season. Foods have different purposes. Fun to think about, how different everybody is. It's a good thing.
So these are my stripes. I'm going to add some stars in a little bit. I just have one more. And I want to put it-- you can see, everything's out far. And I want to add one that's a little bit closer in to the base.
Actually, let's put them back here. Perfect. Didn't like that place.
Then you go for the fox gloves next. These serve a similar purpose. But I think I can mix them all right because they're two different sizes. So similar shapes, and they both have many flowers on a stem. But since the fox glove are really big and those are smaller, I think we can all work together and be in a happy place.
Sometimes, if you're making something and it doesn't look right, check the sizes and the shapes because you might be competing. That can throw you off sometimes. I'm just going to focus this in on the left side of the arrangement. Going to do something different on the other side.
This is nicotiana. I've seen this in a smaller size, which is actually what I prefer. This is big, and honest to goodness, it is so hard to manage. Just it's heavy, and how it sits is a little bit tough to manage. So you just have to be careful with it.
But the other variety that I really like to use is just much smaller and it droops over completely. And it's just really sweet and fun. I love it so much. These are just a little bit heavier and harder to manage.
So just have to maybe edit them a little bit. Actually might just take that off so I can plan where this bloom will go. So these are the stars in the stars and stripes arrangement.
I was at Chick-fil-A a few days ago. My usual granny meals. And anyway, Buster and I, we were eating our sandwich. And there was this really sweet man. He was over there, and I was waiting on something.
And he said come over here and sit down. And so anyway, I went over and sat down. And he told me all about how he served in the military for-- well, between him, his son and his grandson, I think it was 93 years combined. And it was really fun to listen to him and hear his story.
So I have stars in there. I'm going to put one more back here. See how I don't have any there? Going to add that.
Now I have these red lilies. I think I'm going to add that in next so I can get an idea how this wall will finish out. Just have one prize lily, so don't cut too short. That's where that's going to go.
Oo, golly. Think I'm getting some bug bites. Another fun part of this time of year. Those lousy mosquitoes.
All right, this is bee balm. Real fun one. This one grows-- oh, man.
My mom grew this in the yard growing up. And it blooms here in boon right around the 4th of July along the parkway where we live. You just saw it out today.
So I'm going to make a little line down the back of my arrangement with these. And I have one prized zinnia, so that'll be my little focal moment over here. I'd love to have more than one or a bigger one. But sometimes you got to work with what you got, so that's what we're doing. Fun.
This bothers me. It looks like you're just hanging out here because the stem. So I'm going to just tuck it in to go more along that line that I started out originally. That's a little bit better.
OK, my one zinnia. Going to tuck it in back here. I don't know, guys.
I wish I had a few more. I'm not going to go for it. This is just going to be the back.
But see how they all are about a very similar size? Just looks weird. So put that in a bud vase somewhere.
Have some blue to add in. This is delphinium. My friend Lee grows this.
You can get this pretty easily wholesale too. I think it's a really sweet blue. It's hard to find a true blue in the flower world.
A lot of times, you've probably experienced the frustration of the wholesaler sending you something that they said was blue but actually it was very purple. Just hard to find true blues in the flower world very often. But I think delphinium's a good one.
And then I have forget-me-nots today as well. We're going to not forget all of the people who have served. And the families who've supported them and have also served a great deal. So this one's for you guys.
And I was trying to keep the shapes of all the flowers whenever I was setting up for this one to be-- I don't have a big, round peony or anything in this arrangement. Well, it would be nice and it would look pretty. But I wanted to keep everything stars, and fireworks and things like that.
So we have a little blue moment going on over there. And I'm going to finish it off-- well, maybe. I might add some Queen Anne's. Queen Anne's will probably be-- I'm just going to put one of those down in here since I don't have more zinnias.
It'll be all right. Put a little trio of three of them back there. And we'll punctuate the little line of three with one more there to balance things out.
And then the last one, the forget-me-nots. I like to group these together since they are so little, to put a little handful of them together. Put them in as a team, this little group.
And while I'm here, getting bit by a lot of mosquitoes, I'll be happy to tell you about my favorite mosquito repellent. It is by Burt's Bees, and has a little green label on it. It smells good-- I don't mind the smell-- and I get bit a lot. And it really works better than DEET or anything like that on me.
So if you're one of those poor people that just gets eaten alive. Think I'm going to regret this arrangement but not regret it. But I think I'm going to be very itchy the next few days. Love you guys.
That's my patriotic arrangement. I'm going to put one more back here. Then I'm going to call it a day and run for my life. There you have it. Wishing you all the best, and lots of success [LAUGHS].
