Aren’t eternals or evergreen flowers amazing? Imagine being able to save summer flowers and greenery, colors and shapes! To be able to rejoice in this when the wind blows cold around the house corner and the rain just pours down.
Why do I use netting in the vase?
I have always enjoyed making bouquets of all available flowers. But putting together a bouquet of dried flowers or eternels is not as easy. For the simple reason that the stems are hard and break off when taken in too hard. The whole flower needs a milder touch. That’s why you need something to stick the stem in. I use a piece of crumpled chicken net. I put the net frame in the selected vessel, pot or vase. This time the flower arrangement was to be made in a large copper cauldron on three legs.
Collecting materials.
During the summer I have taken care of picking material in my garden. I pick the vast majority at the beginning of their flowering, except for the hydrangea, which is best if you pick it fully developed. As for the poppy capsules, the love-in-a-mist and the dill crowns, I have to wait until they have flowered over and the seed capsules have formed. I then hang them in small bundles upside down in a dry and warm place. If the space is dark, the colors are preserved better. The flowers I chose for my bouquet are:
- Blue globe-thistle (Echinops bannaticus)
- Pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea)
- Smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens)
- Breadseed poppy (Papaver somniferum)
- Dill (Anethum graveolens)
- Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)
How I build my flower arrangement.
Then I start to put down the stems of the ball thistle to create a basic shape in my arrangement. When I have determined the height and width, I then continue with putting in the hydrangea flower clusters and the white pearly everlasting. The game is to fill the arrangement so that the chicken wire frame is not visible. As a last little detail, it’s time to put in the seed pods of the poppy and the nigella. A few dill crowns also spice it up even further.
Finally, a few words…
After an hour or so of work, in this case also relaxation, I was able to place the flower arrangement in the already designated place in front of the hall mirror. This was a perfect place for dried flowers because they don’t need to be in bright light. It is rather an advantage to place them a little dark so they don’t fade so quickly. I’ve already tried a variety of other houseplants here and never got them to thrive. The Eternals, on the other hand, light up the room like a nice pop of color.
