Floral Design 101 for Spring Gatherings

The weather is warming up, the days are longer, and Spring gatherings are upon us! To help you prep, we turned to our resident flower arranging extraordinaire, interior designer Hanna Beverly to show us how to easily create a stunning floral arrangement right at home using flowers from Trader Joe’s.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Choose your flowers

You can find great quality stems at your local grocery store at great prices! Hanna got enough blooms for 4 large bouquets at Trader Joe’s for around $50!

When purchasing flowers for your arrangements, here’s what to get:

• Larger “statement” flowers – we used gerbera daisies, hydrangeas, and large mums
• Medium sized flowers – we used carnations and smaller roses here. Spray roses also work great for this!
• Filler flowers, like babies breath, button flowers, berries, and “premium filler green”
• Greenery, like eucalyptus or any large green leaves

Step 2: Arrange your bouquet

1. Fill your vase with room temperature water, and be sure to add flower food to the vase if it came with your flowers.
2. Start with a few of your large “statement” flowers first.
3. Then add some of the medium sized flowers.
4. Next, fill in some of the gaps using larger filler flowers, like buttons.
5. Afterwards, add your greenery to the back 2/3 of your vase, around the outside of the arrangement.
6. Lastly, use smaller filler flowers like babies breath, filler greens, and berries to fill in sparse areas and break up chunks of color to add depth to the arrangement.

Floral arranging tips

Here are some of Hanna’s pro tips to make your arrangements pop:

Cutting your flowers

First, bring the vase you’re using to the edge of the table to measure how tall you want each stem to be. Then use that as a guideline to easily cut the flowers to the perfect height.

Be sure to cut the stem of the flower on an angle. This helps the flower soak up water more efficiently.

Cleaner, fresher arrangements

Remove leaves from the flower stems before placing them in the water. Leaves can take up space in your arrangement, and when they are soaking in the vase water they can get really mucky. Mucky leaves can cause flower arrangements to wilt and smell. Removing the leaves will help to prolong the life and freshness of your arrangement. It’s okay to keep a few leaves at the top for a pretty layered look! Hanna likes to keep a large leaf or two at the top of the the hydrangeas to add depth to the arrangement.

How to make the most of your floral design

Use the rule of thirds!

Using items in threes is more visually appealing and creates balance in your design, whether that’s interior design, graphic design or flower arranging! With this in mind, Hanna kept the greenery to the back 2/3 of the arrangement. Generally, she also tends to arrange statement flowers almost in a triangle shape within the vase, filling in the smaller flowers in between. You’ll also notice that Hanna uses 3 pieces of the eucalyptus around the back of the vase for this reason.

Play with different heights

Hanna mentions that she likes to keep the flowers in the front of her arrangement shorter, and the flowers in the back a bit taller. She does this in order to create depth and visual interest in the arrangement. Instead, you can cut one of two of your medium sized flowers a bit longer so that they sit above the arrangement. Certain flowers also tend to look a bit more flowy, and you can cut these to make it look like they’re flowing down or peeking out the sides of the vase.

Fluff and rearrange to your heart’s content!

You may have to play with your arrangement a bit to get it to look the way you want. In this video, you see Hanna pulling up some of the medium sized flowers that fell below the others. You can use some of your medium sized and filler flowers to “prop” up some of the larger flowers and hold them in place.

Let us know in the comments if you try this out! We’d love to see pictures of your creations!
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About Hanna Beverly

Impressed with Hanna’s floral design? Wait until you see what she can do with your home!

Hanna Beverly recently graduated from High Point University’s Honors College with a B.S. in Interior Design and a minor in Musical Theatre. A four-year member of IIDA and a recent addition to ASID, she has cultivated a diverse range of passions encompassing creative writing, performing arts, visual arts, and design. Hanna sees spaces as narratives, drawing from her varied interests to infuse meaning and emotion into her designs, fostering a profound enthusiasm for conceptual design. With adept skills in presenting, professional writing, and design software, she eagerly anticipates making a meaningful contribution to the field of interior design.