Beauty By The Vase
Need a bouquet? No need to run to the florist, let's take a look at your shrubs.
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| Double Take™ Chaenomeles |
You don’t have to go to the local florist shop to get a beautiful vase of flowers. With shrubs in your garden, you can have a summer filled with bouquets of fresh flowers and foliage. All you need to do is look at your shrubs with fresh eyes. Here are some tips:
- Plants with unique foliage provide months of material for arrangements. The vivid, colorful leaves of Coppertina™ Ninebark or Black Lace™ elderberry are pretty enough to be used on their own or can be mixed with any number of flowers for easy, inexpensive impact.
- Reblooming shrubs, like Bloomerang® lilac and Invincibelle ® Spirit hydrangea, flower twice a year so you have flowers over a longer time; light pruning actually encourages more prolific blooming, too.
- Hydrangeas are amust-have for the big, beautiful blooms that last for weeks in the landscape and the vase, and there’s a hydrangea that’s perfect for every climate and taste. Live in a cold climate? Panicle hydrangeas such as ‘Limelight’ and Bobo™ and smooth hydrangeas like Incrediball® will flower every single year and provide you with more flowers than you can use. Gardeners in warm areas can enjoy the pink or blue big-leaf hydrangeas. The Cityline™series is used extensively in cut flower production and it makes a beautiful landscape plant, too.
- Evergreens and fruit-bearing shrubs are especially useful for year-round interest both indoors and out. Gold Splash® euonymus offers glossy, golden foliage and landscape roses like Oso Happy® Smoothie have jewel-like red berries. Some common shrubs offer both of these features, like Castle Spire® holly.
It's All Arranged
You have beautiful shrub flowers, but what's the best way to display them? Follow these tips for arranging your cut flowers:
- Choose the vase you’d like to use first. That way, you can have an idea of the quantity, color, and types of plants you’d like to cut. If you don’t have many vases, don’t worry! Pitchers, drinking glasses, canning jars, and other items can work, too. Be creative as you look through your cupboards.
- Cut your stems as long as you can. It’s much easier to cut them to length once you’re arranging than to try to work with stems that are too short to begin with.
- Before you place them in the vase, cut the stems at an angle so more surface area is exposed to take up water. This prolongs the life of your arrangement.
- Shrubs can be used on their own, making up the entire arrangement. However, if you use them as a filler with other flowers, place your shrub branches first to create a framework that supports the more delicate stems you may be including.
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