Flowers + Plants 101

Recipe 3: Succulent Bouquet

Thursday, June 15, 2017

If you’ve ever wondered how florists get succulents to stay perfectly placed in bouquets, this post is for you! They say the third time’s a charm, and this bouquet certainly re-ignited my love for learning from The Flower Chef.

Woman in a grey cardigan arranging a bouquet of colorful flowers in a gold vase on a table with a floral arrangement book and scissors beside it.

“The thing you learn…is that ‘simple’ is not exactly the same as ‘easy.’ It had never occurred to me that there was a difference…”

–Julie Powell

After a trying second attempt at floral arranging, this succulent bouquet with its blooms of bold orange and bright yellow came in like a ray of light to save me from my feelings of inadequacy. The arrangement is beautiful, simple (but not easy), and the color scheme is striking. Plus… succulents. Enough said, right?

What you’ll need: * 1-3 small succulents * 2 large succulents * 1 bunch of orange dahlias (we used gerbera daisies!) * 1 bunch of yellow and/or peach stock * 1 bunch of white veronica or heather (not pictured here) * a few stems of dusty miller (not pictured here) * 5-8 pieces of 20-gauge straight stem wire * floral stem tape * thick green floral tape * small cylinder vase

Step 1: Prepare your blooms There are actually 10 steps to this bouquet in The Flower Chef, but for the purposes of this blog, we’ll simplify a bit. To get started, trim the stems of your flowers and prepare the succulents by inserting the floral wire into the base, forming an upside-down U shape. The wire slides through rather easily and the process is fairly straight-forward. Just be careful with the succulent itself so the leaves don’t fall off! For smaller succulents, one u-shaped wire is probably plenty. If your succulents need more support, double them up. When your wires are in place, wrap them with floral stem tape, squeezing as you wrap. Once everything is prepared and separated, get ready to spiral!

Step 2: Spiral Starting with the gerbera daisies and alternating with the other flowers, start spiraling away! The flowers take on a more natural look than the previous bouquets we’ve worked with, which was refreshing and took a lot of the pressure off!

“The thing you learn…is that ‘simple’ is not exactly the same as ‘easy.’ It had never occurred to me that there was a difference…” –Julie Powell