Best Way to Create the Garden Roses Arrangement

Classical in their simplicity, and with an exquisite scent, garden roses look best when simply arranged either on their own or with just one other kind of flower.

Scented flowers are a great joy in the house. They fill rooms with their perfume, adding a feeling of calm and tranquillity. Roses are probably the best known, and some of the most highly scented, flowers for this purpose, hut there are plenty of others, too. Armfuls of lilac, simple twigs of witch hazel in the winter, bowls of lilies or hyacinths, all play a similar role.

The secret is to create very simple arrangements in suitably matched containers. Roses look good in jugs, in tankards and in silver punch bowls. Lilac, being larger, can be gathered into a large ceramic wash-jug. A few stems of witch hazel can take on a Japanese look in a simple plain earthenware vase.

If you have a garden, you should be able to grow something scented for every season – daffodils or hyacinths in spring, viburnum or lilac in early summer, roses and lilies in midsummer, Mexican orange (Choisya ternata) foliage in autumn and witch hazel or some types of daphne in winter.

Creating the garden roses arrangement

Easy to put together, this arrangement of sumptuous roses needs only a fairly narrow necked container and some scrunched-up chicken wire to support the stems of the roses.

This simply constructed arrange­ment can be made from any garden roses you have, together with a few sprigs of subtle, soft-textured flowers, such as lady’s mantle, that are available at the same time of year. Failing these, use any good light-coloured garden foliage with small leaves. You will need to form a loose hall of chicken wire to fit the neck of the jug you use – l in (2.5cm) gauge chicken wire is ideal.

The roses will need preparation -crush the stems and strip off lower leaves to make the flowers last.

• Fill the pot with water. Cut chicken wire about an inch larger all round than the neck of the jug, and push it into the jug, forming a dome shape.
• Build a frame of the additional flower or foliage material (in this case lady’s mantle) to create a collar around the jug.
• Cut the stems of the roses at an angle and crush the base of the stems with a hammer. Strip any leaves that will be below the water-line.
• Insert the roses, evenly spaced, in the centre of the arrangement, trimming them if necessary to create an evenly shaped dome.