Petals & Roots: How to Create a Living Table Centerpiece to Welcome Spring into Your Home

As regular readers will know well, there is no hiding my obsession for cut flowers. However, when it comes to spring floral design, and especially during Eastertime, for me nothing beats a living table arrangement.

Watching a design grow and change and bloom before your eyes brings such a hopeful, uplifting sentiment, and is a perfect representation of springtime.

In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you how you can create a living table centerpiece using two varieties of miniature narcissus. Once you've chosen a beautiful ceramic vessel for them to grow in, creating it is so simple and is beautifully evocative of the season.

What I Used to Create This Living Table Centerpiece

• A ceramic fruit bowl that I've had for many years (I've given you some shopping inspiration towards the end of this article for bowls that would suit this kind of design)
• Horticultural charcoal, such as this from Amazon, or pebbles
• Potting compost, such as this all purpose Miracle-Gro compost from Amazon
• A selection of narcissi bulbs, which are already sprouting. I chose narcissus tete boucle and narcissus minnow, which you can buy from Amazon. Check your local garden centers for sprouting bulbs, too.
• Moss
• A small watering can

How to Create Your Own Living Table Centerpiece

The first thing to do is find a ceramic bowl or large vessel that you love, and temporarily don't mind getting soil inside. For a design like this, I think it's lovely to choose something that has meaning for you; perhaps a bowl that has been passed down to you from a family member, or something you found at an antique store.

Of course, not all the ceramics in my ever-growing collection have sentimental value. Many I simply buy because I love the look of them. Choose something that speaks to you and fits the season.

Then, place a small amount of horticultural charcoal and compost into the bottom of your vessel.

The charcoal will help to keep any excess moisture away from the bulbs and roots. Your bowl is unlikely to have drainage holes, therefore doing this will avoid them rotting and means you can plant them out in the yard when this display if over.

You could also add a layer of small pebbles or gravel, which will work to create a little reservoir at the bottom of your bowl, again locking any excess water away from the bulbs.

Take your bulbs and start to position them into your bowl, keeping all the soil around them.

The idea is to pack as many as you can into your vessel, so you may need to gently break apart some of the bulbs into smaller sections, to fit them around the edges. Slowly tease the roots apart and you won't do the bulbs any damage.

If you are adding more than one variety of narcissus, as I did here, remember to alternate placement, so you end up with a lovely, balanced mix of flowers when they bloom.

Once they are tightly packed, fill any gaps you have with a little bit of compost.

To really elevate this design, the next step is to cover the bare soil with moss, leaving all the shoots on show. There are two very good reasons to do this.

The first is that it will look a lot prettier and softer, almost like a miniature landscape. From a practical perspective, it will stop any soil from spilling onto your kitchen table or island.

The other reason to do this is that the moss will lock in moisture, meaning you will not have to water this creation very much for it to thrive and bloom beautifully.

The trick, in fact, is to water sparingly. As I mentioned earlier, your bowl will not have drainage holes, so stay mindful of this and only water when you can feel all the soil has dried out.

Keep it in a bright and fairly cool place (mine did not respond well to underfloor heating, but enjoyed being in a bright spot on the kitchen island) and you will start to see flowers within a week.

Shop Ceramic Bowls

Petals & Roots is a weekly video series fronted by me, Rachel Bull, Head of Gardens at Homes & Gardens. Every weekend on social, I share my seasonal gardening and flower arranging expertise and advice.

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