Attending the M&S Flower Workshop taught me loads about arranging flowers.
My mum is actually a florist who loves what she does as she’s been doing it for over a decade now and she’s also the amazing person who did my very own wedding flowers; which you can see here.
Firstly, it was held at the very beautiful Greenhouse in London. It was a pleasure to walk into such a bright place full of a botanical garden and a super quirky hanging basket that I simply HAD to climb into… 😉
Once we got settled down we were introduced to Simon Richards. He’s actually working for M&S; him and his team were the ones who created the beautiful Chelsea Flower show arrangement.
Simon gave us lots of tips about flowers and roses in particular. He also showed us, step by step, how to create a fun, summer table arrangement using brilliantly bright flowers from M&S – it was so much fun. Anyway, here are all the things I’ve learnt from the workshop below.
Florist Flower Tips & How to Make Flowers Live Longer
- Roses are thirsty flowers
- Thirsty flowers need to be standing with most of the stem in the water to last longer
- Thirsty flowers especially need to be cut diagonally at the very bottom to encourage the stem to drink
- Use the flower feed to encourage the flowers to continue to bloom
- Peonies do not last a long time and prefer to stand without other type of flowers
- Keep all flowers out of direct sunlight if possible
How to Create a Flower Table Arrangement for Summer
- Use a colourful plastic picnic set to contrast your flowers against.
- Cut your flowers to size, so I’ve cut roses to fit in a large plastic glass.
- Use larger flowers to decorate shallow bowls or cups. I partnered a beautiful blue hyacinth and a lovely large sunflower within a shallow pot.
- Be creative and go ombre! Using a pink plate and a yellow plastic cup I’ve created a collage by adding petals around the cup in a circular design starting with yellow then adding orange then red until the circle was finished. Be patient with this as it took me a while 🙂
- Test and learn. Try adding flowers together and if you don’t like it, change it and try something different until you do
Once we had loads of fun arranging these boldly coloured flowers (or in my case taking them apart…) we tried out making our very own bouquets.
How to Arrange a Pink Flower Bouquet using the Spiral Technique:
- Collect 15 roses in the colours of your choice
- Hold one rose firmly more than half way from the bottom
- Add one rose at a time to the bouquet, alternating the flowers and in a diagonal way
- Ensure that your first rose sits a little higher than the other roses so it’s your centre point
- Continue to hold the bouquet high up and move it around as you add more to it
- Once you’re happy with how it looks tie it using a plastic band or ribbon
- Then, cut your bouquet to the size of your vase!
Do, after this awesome workshop I felt I learned a lot. I’ve even put my new skills to the test and bought more M&S roses after my other ones had to be thrown away (this made me sad as they were so beautiful!) and I created a VIDEO tutorial to help you arrange your own spiral bouquet like above.
Have fun arranging and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel for more tutorials and how to’s.
***In Collaboration with M&S
Cathy Glynn
Those roses look beautiful. Some great tips which will come in useful in the future. x
Talya
I could do with going to one of these I love flowers but rather clueless as to how to arrange them!
Dean of Little Steps
Lovely bouquet. I did enjoy your video. Would love to learn how to arrange flowers too. And you are so right, you did choose such lovely summer coloured roses 🙂 x
Anna-Maria
My mum is a florist too, I grew into flowers, they are truly beautiful. Love your photos, my mom will love this post, need to show it to her. x
Charlotte
What a beautiful place to visit, I love the idea of the workshop and I may have to use some of the tips for keeping flowers alive, unfortunately I don’t get bought flowers anymore as i’m known as the flower killer in this house :p
Ana De- Jesus
Wow what a beautiful flower arrangement. I would love to learn how to be a florist but I don’t have the skills.
Mellissa Williams
I must admit I’m awful at arranging flowers. This workshop sounded very useful, M and S flowers are beautiful too
Fashion and Style Police
Wow great tips. I will be implementing them when next I get flowers ordered.
Kara Guppy
I would a flower arranging lesson, I sort of shove them in a vase and hope they look ok
Rachel
Now this sounds like a lot of fun, I am hopeless when it comes to flowers x
Kerry Norris
This was a fascinating read. I’ve picked up some great tips. Sounds like a fantastic workshop to have attended. You’re very lucky x
jenni
Ooh what a fab workshop, I’m useless at arranging flowers. Will take o these tips x
claire
Beautiful roses, the colours are stunning 🙂 Looks like a great event !
MELANIE EDJOURIAN
The event sounds great I love flowers. Very useful tips.
Charlotte
This looks like so much fun but I am afraid I am not so good when it comes to practical things. My cousin is a florist though, maybe it’s about time I shocked her with a thing or two!
The Blonde B