Spring is in the air, and while I mostly keep my arrangements sourced from my garden, sometimes when that is not an option, I indulge in florist and/or grocery store flowers. In the photographed image, I used a mixture of grocery store (thank you Fortinos) and a lovely array of stems from Julie’s Florals and Gifts, located in North York, ON.

I designed this arrangement for my manager, whose favourite colours are purple and pink. I wanted this to be rather simple but full. The formula consisted of ranunculus, double tulips, soft pink snapdragons, stock, statice, spray roses, and lisianthus. Yes, I am aware that lisianthus is not technically a spring flower here in zone 5b, but the stems were too lush to resist.

Arranging is an art, and within the realm of art, there is no one size fits all…. Different strokes work for different folks. With my approach, I began with a ball of chicken wire to support the stems. I love chicken wire as a substitute to floral foam, and the value that you can get out of a roll of wire. Typically, I don’t use chicken wire with this type of arrangement as the vase is rather tall. However, I typically use a lot of greenery in my arrangements, but did not with this particular arrangement, hence the use of chicken wire. I will note, I often use frogs as well, but this was not fit for this arrangement.

The first ingredient that I used in this arrangement is spray roses. For myself, spray roses are not a focal but a supporting flower. Also, they are very structured, so I imagined that they would assist me in manipulating other stems to doing what I wanted them to. Next, I added statice. Statice also is an excellent flower that has multiple branching stems that will help other stems rest on, and stay in place.

The next step that I took was adding height. I added stock, snapdragons and lisianthus to do this. I love it when flowers feel like they are dancing, which I do feel like the lisianthus reaching does create this whimsical effect. I tend to keep stems tall initially, then shorten them depending on how other ingredients mesh together. I then added tulips to the arrangement to add fullness. These double tulips are gorgeous, and really elevated this arrangement - much more than single tulips would have achieved.

Finally, I inserted two stems of ranunculus. I accidentally did a theme in this arrangement in which I was working with even numbers. Typically, I work in odd numbers because I feel that it translates much more appealing to the human eye. However, with the white spray roses, it works. Additionally, I broke the side-shoots with buds off of the main stem and inserted them at the sides to continue the dancing flower effect… And here we have it, a completed arrangement!