I trained as a florist nearly eight years ago, and have created hundreds of hand-tied bouquets. Among them, many were gift and bridal bouquets, and I've also made a lot of hand-tied gatherings to place within my own home.
A hand-tied bouquet is, very simply, a bouquet of flowers that is arranged in your hand, and where the stems are aligned in a spiral formation. Once you have honed this wonderful skill you'll be able to turn any bunch of cut flowers, whether bought from a store or grown in your own garden, into a professional-grade, elegant flower arrangement.
I recently created the video below for my Homes & Gardens social series, Petals & Roots, which demonstrates in detail how I select and design with flowers to create the perfect hand-tied bouquet. Here, I recap all my advice, and share a few more top tips to help you along the way.
To create a hand-tied bouquet you will need:
- A selection of seasonal cutting garden flowers. Choose some larger focal flowers, a few varieties of smaller, secondary flowers, and some light and airy filler flowers for the perfect recipe. The flowers I use in my demonstration video above are:
- Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle)
- Larkspur
- Orlaya 'white finch'
- Peony 'Duchesse de Nemours'
- Ranunculus
- Scabiosa
- A length of natural jute twine, such as this from Amazon.
- Floristry scissors - this pair from Amazon are perfect for the task.
11 simple steps to creating your own bouquet
- Once you have selected and conditioned your flowers, start by laying them out by variety on the table or workbench in front of you. This will really help when you start to make your bouquet, as each stem will be easily accessible.
- Before you start to arrange, cut a length of twine and put this around your neck so that it is handy once you're ready to tie off your bouquet.
- Relax your shoulders and your hands; it's all too easy to tense up when you are creating a hand-tied bouquet, but this should be a relaxing and joyful experience. (Top tip: I sometimes put on classical music when I am creating a bouquet to help immerse myself in the process.)
- Select a large focal flower and place the stem between your thumb and forefinger. (If you are right handed, you'll hold the flowers in your left hand and feed with your right.) Remember, you'll tie the bouquet just above your fingers, so everything below that forms the stems.
- Next, take a smaller flower and cross this at the front at a 45 degree angle. Repeat the process with a filler stem, crossing at the front.
- Now that you have three stems in your hand, take them in your other hand and give them a quarter turn.
- Continue to feed flowers into your hand, each time crossing at the front to create the spiral, bringing them down on the diagonal, and at every three to four elements making a quarter turn.
- Vary your stems each time you add, so that you create a balanced arrangement.
- Once complete, tie the twine around the stems fairly tightly, just above your hand, still giving the flowers a bit of room to breath.
- Cut the stems so that they are the same length.
- Now you can either place your bouquet into a vase of fresh water, or wrap it in rustic brown parcel paper, add a velvet ribbon, and give as a gift.
A few more of my hand-tied bouquet making tips
Place your larger, focal flowers lower down into the design, and let the lighter, airier stems have room to dance above everything else over the top. This will not only give the illusion of a larger bouquet, it also adds elegant movement, which will make your creation look more professional.
As you are creating, hold your bouquet down in front of you so that you can see clearly the shape and the balance of your design. If you think there is a side that needs a bit more attention, turn the bouquet so that you can add into that area.
It can be useful to make it in front of a mirror, so that you can easily see your shape.
Practice really is the key to honing this skill, and it will make you feel more confident designing with flowers the more that you do it. All that's left is to select from the best vases to display your beautiful blooms to their fullest.
Shop floristry essentials
These floristry scissors will make light work of cutting through even thick flower stems, and look rather lovely too.
This handmade stoneware vase features a subtle green glaze and is the perfect size for displaying a hand-tied bouquet arrangement.
It can be useful to have a good pair of gloves to hand when working with cut flowers, especially if you have thorny roses, or stems that leak sap, as this can irritate the skin.
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