Dress your Easter table to impress and create this striking garland with tips from Notting Hill-based florist and author Rowan Blossom
ALL IMAGES: JAMES STOPFORTH
This is a brilliant way to dress your table when you wish to keep flowers to a minimum, but still want to impress.
My favourite sort of garland is light and uses fine foliage such as passion flower vine, sweet-pea tendrils, trailing jasmine and asparagus fern. The delicacy of these garlands lends itself to a special intimate supper and looks extremely pretty when they are laid on printed linen tablecloths and twisted around candles. For this kind of garland, use longer lengths of foliage and connect the stems with tiny twists of wire, rather like a long, loopy daisy chain.
For something bigger – whether for a table, banister, door frame or mantelpiece – this recipe is ideal, and will make a lusciously bushy garland. Decide where you are going to install your garland and measure the space. If it is to decorate a table, simply measure the length of the table. For any other installations, use string to measure out the ideal length. For example, use it to plan how many times you would like to wind it around a banister, and when you have planned it, measure the string and make a garland to this length.
Garlands are particularly popular during the Christmas season, when I would recommend using varieties of fir and eucalyptus (which give off an incredible festive scent). Rather than studding the foliage with fresh flowers, decorate with pinecones, peppercorn berries and dried slices of orange and lime.
Ingredients
- Florist bind wire
- Florist test tubes (if using flowers)
- Foliage – I usually allow three bunches of foliage for every metre (3ft) of garland. I like to use different varieties for a mixture of tones and texture, so I suggest using at least three different types – Asparagus fern, Berried ivy, Leatherleaf fern, Soft Ruscus, Viburnum
Tip – Florist test tubes
If you wish, add flowers to the garland using florist test tubes. Fill with water and pop the stem into the vial, then nestle east directly into the foliage garland. The foliage should be dense enough to keep the test tube in place. Take care to conceal the tube, either by ruffling the foliage around it or by hiding it with small pieces of moss.
This extract is taken from Rowan Blossom’s new book, Living with Flowers: Blooms & Bouquets for the Home, published by Laurence King, RRP £19.99. Available here and at all good bookshops.
Feeling inspired? Discover how to create more of Rowan’s beautiful floral creations here
