Best Way to Decorate Your Home with Flowers

Flowers bring a house or apartment to life. No matter how well decorated your home may be, it may lack charm without the addition of some form of floral decoration. In days gone by, housewives were trained in the art of flower arranging as an essential household skill, and gardens were organized to produce flowers to cut for the house.

While the lifestyle of most people today makes this impossible, there is an ever greater need to create an attractive and soothing atmosphere at home as the pressures of daily life increase. You can do this successfully, and simply, using a variety of floral material – fresh flowers, pot-grown plants, dried flowers and even artificial flowers – so that there is something to bring vibrancy and interest to your house at all times of the year.

Matching flowers to setting

Decoration style is very individual and often reflects the home owner’s personality and taste. If flower arrangements and decora­tions are to work well, and harmonize with the setting, they, too, must be created and conceived in an individual way, using flower types, colours and textures that blend seamlessly with their surroundings. New ideas in flower arranging allow you to be both creative and original, using strong colour contrasts, bold leaf shapes, and striking containers in displays which are a tar cry from the distorted and frequently lifeless ‘arrangements’ that used to win prizes at village fetes!

In most houses and apartments, there are particular places – small focal points – where a flowering or plant display is most effective. These tend to be on table centres, in fireplaces, on shelves, in the hall or on the landing, or perhaps in a window recess. By far the most successful arrangements are those that are designed with the space they are to fill already in mind. A professional flower arranger will always visit the situation in which the arrangement is to be positioned, and design the arrangement accordingly, and this simple premise works just as well at home, too.

Firstly, flower and foliage colours and textures should be in keeping with the setting, either harmonizing or contrasting.

Delicate glasses filled with, for example, tiny scented narcissus, would complement a range of yellow china; bright orange gerberas set in brilliant blue pots could line up along the window-sill of a minimalist apartment to give an otherwise plain room a splash of vibrant colour. Containers should also be chosen to complement the style of the surroundings, and the scale and form of the space they are to fill. A tall terracotta vase, with a similarly tall and elegant display of twisted willow branches, is ideal for a narrow bleached oak table in a modern-style hall; a wide, shallow silver bowl filled with garden roses makes an ideal table centre in a period setting.

New ideas

Everyone has favourite colours and flowers hut halt the fun of flower arranging lies in being open to new ways of arranging flowers. Try putting together unusual or striking colour combinations; find or make your own interesting con­tainers, and keep an eye open for different forms of flower or foliage. The newly available exquisitely coloured artificial flowers, almost indistinguishable from the real thing, are a far cry from the inelegant and unrealistic faux flowers of yesteryear, and can make a wonderful permanent arrangement in an otherwise inhospitable situation – like a hot sunny window. Containers do not have to be bought expressly for flowers. You can use any number of imaginative containers for flower arrangements, from a cracked mug or teapot to tin cans covered in moss or leaves. The art then lies in marrying the flowers and containers together to maximum advantage – for example, a little posy of wildflowers in a home-made mossy pot or half-a-dozen Victorian clay pots of auricula primroses in a wire milk-bottle container. On a rather grander scale, a hand-painted bucket filled with long-stemmed large-headed flowers will fill a summer fireplace.