How can we arrange flowers to bring beauty into our homes?
This Lesson Plan is part the Gardening, Home, and Miscellaneous modules of SustainEd Farms' virtual programming.
Background: Arranging a Bouquet
Growing flowers in the garden is not only a useful strategy for attracting pollinators, but it also provides a gardener (and those close with them!) with a continuous supply of aesthetic ornaments for the home. It turns out that the beautiful colors produced by flowers for the purposes of reproduction are one of the reasons why humans, in turn, keep planting them. A bouquet may consist of flowers from plants like marigolds, zinnias, roses, hydrangeas, cosmos, daisies and sunflowers, asters, lavender, and even grasses for a rustic look. However, a stellar bouquet does not need to be limited to these traditional beauties, and you should consider adding flowers from other places in your garden, such as using flowers from herbs and greens that have gone to seed too soon. Finally, a great bouquet is one that smells nice, so consider adding some fragrant items -- like mint flowers -- to compliment the scents from your other flowers.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to...
Arrange a bouquet of flowers
Academic Vocabulary
aesthetic /esˈTHedik/ adjective. - having to do with the beauty of something
Directions
1. Gather your materials. You will need the following supplies:
pruners or scissors · flowers · rubber band · water · vase or cup
2. Watch the following Youtube video to see a demonstration of how to make a bouquet of flowers. Then, follow along with the remainder of the lesson by reading the steps below.
3. Identify flowers that are healthy, and that will look nice when arranged with other flowers. This creative portion is really up to you -- as the gardener, and as an artist -- to discover what pairings of colors look well together. Perhaps you can choose a single color as a theme from which to work from, or maybe you’re trying to put as much variety as possible into your bouquet. Regardless, the gardener should identify fully intact flowers that do not appear to be water stressed or damaged by insects. Flowers that have not yet bloomed (i.e. still in bud form) can still be selected, and may even be preferred since they can last longer.
4. Cut the selected flowers for a desired stem length. The cuts made to the stems should be at a 45° angle in order to increase the surface area of the cut portion for water absorption.
5. To increase the vitality of your cut flower, remove unwanted leaves from the stem.
6. Gather all of your flowers together, and arrange them how you please: some people may prefer a “front view” where the tallest flowers are in the back, while others may prefer a more “panoramic view” with different sizes on all sides of the bouquet. Either way, it is important to keep the bottom of the stems at a consistent level in order to ensure that every flower continues to receive water when placed into a vase.
7. Bundle your flowers with a rubber band or other fastening material (string).
8. Submerge the stems of the flowers into a cup or vase with water, and replace the water when it gets low or murky -- every few days.
Additional Resources:
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