As Coco Chanel famously coined, simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. I believe this sentiment stretches much further than fashion, and certainly into the world of floral design.

Designing with only one variety of flower is not only simpler for you, it creates an effortlessly stylish effect that can elevate a room or patio dining table in seconds. It was a trick I used a lot when I was a wedding florist (provided the client agreed), as it was especially useful for simplifying large, statement floral arrangements.

The key to this is in your flower selection and the vase you choose. In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you how to create a high-impact summer design using alliums in one of my favorite vintage vases.

What You Need For This Allium Floral Design

• For this design I used 17 allium stems
• Floristry snips, such as these ones from Amazon are vital. Spending a bit more on a really good pair of sharp snips or shears pays off as they will last and make light work when cutting through any stem
• A tall, vintage vase. You can scroll down to see my vase edit for inspiration. I also love this blue and white vintage-style vase from Amazon, which would look beautiful on an outdoor table.

How To Create This Design Yourself

As I mentioned, this design relies on the right choice of vase, and a statement variety of flower.

Let's talk about the flowers first. I chose seasonal alliums because they are naturally a sculptural flower, with long, straight stems and also minute layers of interest within their flower heads.

Other flowers you could consider for this kind of design (depending on the season) are hydrangeas, Icelandic poppies, peonies, snapdragons and orchids.

Large alliums come in shades of purple and white, and I chose to keep mine to purple only, selecting three different varieties in the design: gladiator, pinball wizard and schubertii. The latter being the most distinctive and adding a different dimension to the textures and forms in the vase.

If your flowers are more or less the same in shape, you could vary the color options and keep them to a tonal palette or three simple, complementary shades.

Your vase selection will be a personal choice, and possibly governed by what you own already. I wanted something that reflected the curves in the alliums, and a vessel that offered a different color into the floral arrangement.

Choose something that is fairly tall and has a narrow neck, to make it easier to hold your stems in place.

If you can, look at the colors on your vase and see if you can pick any out or complement them with the flowers you choose.

To create a design like this, start by adding three to five of your tallest stems into the vase, which will give you a structure to build from.

Next, introduce another color or variety of flower and bring these lower down into the design, starting to fill out the space.

I added the largest alliums in last as they had shorter stems, and I slotted these into the grid I'd created with the taller ones, to place them higher up in the design.

Then it's simply a case of adding flowers to make the design bigger and create interest from all sides. (I told you it was easy, didn't I?) Make sure you have some shorter flowers lower down, vary the sizes, and if you have a particularly curvy stem, keep it long and let it dance above the rest of the design.

Top Tip: To reduce the onion smell that naturally comes from alliums, change the water in the vase regularly. This will also help to keep your flowers as fresh as possible.

Shop My Vase Edit

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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When it comes to creating dinner party flowers for your home, there are three things I always have front of mind. What can I make that will be quick and simple? Which flowers are in season right now? And how can I get this to look super professional? This design is the answer to all those questions.

It celebrates spring, is overflowing with frothy texture and scent, and is simple to create because I only use two varieties of flowers in it: lilac and viburnum opulus, better known as guelder rose.

I trained as a floral designer 10 years ago, working in the floristry industry creating designs like this for events and weddings. In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you how to design an arrangement like this, share my advice on the best ways to condition your flowers, and take you through the making process step by step.

What You Need For This Spring Floral Design

• Floristry scissors, such as these ones from Amazon. Spending a bit more on a really good pair of sharp scissors pays off as they will last and make light work when cutting through woody stems
• Chicken wire, just like this from Ace Hardware
• A long and low, ceramic boat vase of your choice with a narrow depth (see below for some shopping inspo)
• Clear pot tape, available from Amazon
• Nine stems of lilac and 10 stems of viburnum opulus 'roseum', or guelder rose

How To Create This Design Yourself

There are two key elements to this design: your flowers and the vessel you decide to use.

I wanted abundance, scent, and lots of lovely spring froth, so I opted for light purple lilac and paired this with zesty lime green of the viburnum, or guelder rose.

Both these blooms are made up of hundreds of tiny, individual flowers, which give them this frothy appearance, and are fascinating to look at up close. It also makes them hugely fun to design with, as they have large flower heads with lots of natural movement, and I encourage you to lean into that if you decide to choose them.

The second important element is your vessel. By using a 'long and low' vase, you can fill it quite easily without needing a large number of stems. And, you can create something stunning for your dinner party that isn't going to block anyone's sight line across the table.

To start, place a pillow of folded chicken wire into your vase and secure over the top with two pieces of floral pot tape. This will give you a strong structure within which to design, and you can use this time and again as a sustainable floral foam alternative; simply rinse, dry and re-use.

Now, take your lilac stems and place one either end of your vessel, and another in the centre, all at slightly different angles.

When you cut your stems to size, as well as making a diagonal cut, made an additional vertical cut up the woody stem. This will increase the cut surface area and help the stem take up water better, and stay looking fresh for longer.

Lilac heads are so big, that it's easy to fill space and let flowers tumble over the edge of the vase, giving the whole thing a very natural, abundant look. Continue until you have used most or all of your lilac, keeping some stems higher in the middle and making sure they spill over both sides of the vessel.

The next step is to add even more froth and fun to this arrangement with the guelder rose.

Similar to lilac, this plant also has a woody stem, but it is thinner than a lilac's, so you may not need to make an additional vertical cut.

Begin to arrange into the gaps you have, until you can't see any of the chicken wire and your flowers are spilling beautifully over the edge of the vessel. You can set the guelder rose stems higher than the lilac, to give the design more depth.

Continue until you are happy that every space is filled, and then simply keep the water topped up and enjoy the exquisite fragrance and froth from this beautiful table arrangement.

What to Shop

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for the Homes & Gardens newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

Outdoor hosting season is upon us, and if there is one thing I know how to do it's design a beautiful, seasonal floral arrangement that will impress your guests. It is actually so simple to create, and will instantly bring your table to life.

I've spent a decade creating floral designs for events and weddings, and there is one type of design I always come back to, and which my clients love. It's simple, elegant and structural in style, but still has movement and romance, and always creates a professional feel.

The key to this design is the mechanics of it; the behind the scenes engineering that holds it all together. In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I use pin frogs, or kenzans as they are also known, to create a repeated design in ceramic bowls. And here, I go into more depth about how to get the look.

What You Need For This Floral Design Idea

• Floristry scissors, such as these ones from Amazon. Spending a bit more on a really good pair of sharp scissors pays off as they will last and make light work of all your snipping.
• Kenzans, also known as flower frogs or pin frogs, available from Walmart.
• A selection of ceramic bowls of your choice.
• Florist tack or putty, such as this from Amazon.
• Two or three varieties of seasonal flowers.

How To Create Your Own Dinner Party Table Flowers

To start with gather your vessels and pin frogs. To really get the look right, you need to opt for three or more (depending on the size of your table) ceramic bowls that are the same or similar. A neutral or pale tone would work best; this way you can take your pick with the colors and varieties of seasonal flowers you choose.

Pin frogs are a fantastic way to ensure your floral design is sustainable, and is a really good floral foam alternative.

To secure the pin frogs into the base of your bowls, take a piece of floristry tack (or putty as it is also known) and press firmly onto the back.

When you place this into your bowl, press and twist it to stick it down securely.

This is quite a contemporary design, and as such only requires two types of flowers. I used butterfly ranunculus in shades of peach and ivory, and uva vulpis fritillaries. Both are beautifully in season for this time of year, and carry a lot of natural movement in their stems, which is what we want for this idea.

To begin arranging, remove any dominant foliage from your stems, as we really want the blooms to take center stage in this design, and little else.

Place a stem in each of the bowls to get you started. Keep the first few central stems fairly tall, but do remember to stagger them, as I think it looks more natural if each of these bowls is a little distinct from one another.

I always work across all three vessels simultaneously, rather than individually, to ensure the design looks cohesive and each one is similar in size and stem count.

Bring in your second flower variety, varying the heights and the direction of each bloom. Remember that this design will be seen from all angles, so we don't want there to be a front and back.

Try to break up any long bare stems by adding a smaller flower next to it. This will interrupt any dense, green areas, and add interest from all angles.

Other types of flowers that would work beautifully in a design like this are Icelandic poppies, spiraea, aquilegia, lily of the valley, and sweet peas. Anything with curves and movement in the stems, and a really interesting and defined flower shape.

What to Shop

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for the Homes & Gardens newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

As soon as the garden starts to gently nod back into life, the first thing I want to do is bring some of it inside to celebrate the start of the spring season. And where better to create a focal arrangement than a mantelpiece?

This kind of design idea is less about one big bouquet or bowl arrangement, and more about creating a gentle, natural curation of the season using small vintage vessels, and soft pastel shades.

In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you how to build and design a beautiful, seasonal design that looks professional but in fact is incredibly easy to achieve.

What You Need For This Floral Design Idea

• A selection of mis-matched ceramic vintage vessels, old tins, bud vases and glass bottles. Although it is new, this green bud vase from Target has amazing vintage appeal, and would look great paired with a selection of floral blue Chinoiserie bud vases, such as these ones from Amazon
• Floristry scissors, such as these ones from Amazon
• A small watering can with a narrow spout
• A selection of your favorite spring flowers

How To Create A Spring Mantelpiece Design

The first step in building this design idea is placing your vessels on your mantelpiece.

Rather than spacing them all out evenly, cluster a few together at one end and dot them at different depths. This will make the design look much more natural and organic.

I paired an eclectic mix of vintage ceramic ink wells that I've been collecting for years, in a range of earthy tones and sizes, with an old Fortnum & Mason tea caddy and some decorative glass bud vases with interesting shapes.

These have all been in my collection of vases for a long time; I think one of them might have started life as a reed diffuser.

The next step is to lay out your flowers and look at the shapes they make and the movement in the stems.

For this design, I used catkins, pussywillow, tulips, miniature narcissi and hyacinths in complementing pastel shades.

You might want to add blossom branches for structure, or add some snakeshead fritillaries, muscari and bluebells if you want a bolder color scheme.

When you are ready to arrange, start with the garden branches or foliage to create height and structure along the mantelpiece.

This will create a loose framework and shape within which the softer flowers can sit.

Then, place the flowers in smaller groupings rather than as single stems or one large arrangement.

You can place them in by variety, to make the process really simple. And as if it were a canvas, build up your living floral painting with each new type of flower you add in.

Vary the heights and really looking to celebrate the natural movement in these flowers. If a tulip is bending dramatically to one side, let it do so and allow it flow naturally alongside the other blooms.

I love to embrace negative space in a design like this. Rather than needing to fill everything with a mass of flowers, allow stems to move and enjoy the space created between them as part of this design. It will make the design feel calmer and more intentional.

After all, the spring garden is only just waking up, and there will be so much more to come in the months ahead.

What to Shop

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for the Homes & Gardens newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

Bringing tulips into my home is a non-negotiable in spring. Mine have just started coming up in the cutting beds, delighting with their delicate satin, goblet-shaped blooms in bold shades of salmon, burgundy and velvet cream.

But when it comes to bringing them inside and displaying in a vase, I accept that tulips can be a little demanding. They can bend and droop and appear to lose their lustre soon after being cut. But once you understand why, and what they really need, you will be able to transform their behavior and create dramatic, elegant floral displays that last.

In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I reveal the four steps I always take to care for cut tulips, to ensure I have long-lasting and beautiful spring flowers for weeks in my home.

What You Need To Care For Cut Tulips

• A good pair of florist scissors or snips. I highly recommend investing in a Japanese pair of scissors, such as these from Amazon, which will last a long time and make light work of your snipping.
• It's useful to have several glass vases for this flower conditioning job. You could bulk buy a few of these beautiful vases from Target and they would always come in handy
• If you feel you'd like to go down the traditional Dutch route of displaying your tulips in a specific tulip vase, I found this one on Amazon which is a little more modern and stylish, but still has multiple individual openings for single stems.

How To Prep and Style Cut Tulips

The first thing to do as soon as you get your tulips home from the store, or cut them from the garden, is to fairly swiftly remove all the lower leaves from around the stem.

You can carefully snip or pull these off, just be mindful that you don't damage the main stem in the process.

Then, give the stems a very simple straight cut, removing half an inch from the ends, and plunge the entire bunch into a deep vase or sink of water and allow them to rest and drink for three to four hours.

Tulips are very thirsty flowers, and the reason they are prone to drooping when placed in a vase is because when they come home from the store they don't have enough water in their stems. Leaving them to rehydrate is going to set you up for long-lasting success with these beautiful flowers.

Once they are fully hydrated, you need to prep your vase. Make sure it is completely clean and free of any lingering bacteria, which will cause your tulips to wilt and die more quickly.

Fill this right to the top with fresh water; you'll be amazed at how much tulips can drink as soon as they are in a warm home environment.

Take each stem and make a diagonal cut along the base, before placing it in your vase of clean water.

If you change this water every two days you'll prevent any bacteria from building up, and your flowers will be a lot happier.

The thing I love most about tulips is that they're phototrophic, which means their stems will continue to grow after they have been cut.

You can use this to your advantage to really create some interesting and eye-catching shapes with your flowers, as they will move and grow towards the light.

All you have to do is remember to keep turning your vase, so that each stem has the chance to grow and stretch out as it matures and the flowers open.

Shop The Vase Edit

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for the Homes & Gardens newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

If you love sweet peas as much as I do, you will probably be sowing your seeds right about now. You may also share in my knowledge that sweet pea seeds can sometimes be difficult to germinate. But my little trick will see each and every one of your seeds sprouting shoots – and fast. All you need is a pair of nail clippers.

Using nail clippers (or sometimes a nail file) to make a nick in each sweet pea seed coat is the key to fast, guaranteed germination. It is quite a mediative exercise once you get the hang of it.

In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you exactly why and how to nick sweet pea seeds and sow them for a 100% germination success rate.

What You Need for This Sweet Pea Sowing Trick

• To sow sweet peas I like to use either cardboard tubes, or these biodegradable pots from Amazon, which you can plant directly into the soil, so no transplanting even needed
• A trusty pair of nail clippers, such as these ones from Walmart
• If you don't already have your sweet pea seeds, this mix from True Leaf Market is gorgeous
• Seed potting compost
• Plant labels, such as these wooden ones from Amazon, are always essential, to ensure you don't forget what you have planted (and can note the sweet pea variety, too)
• I often empty my seeds into a shallow ceramic dish before nicking them, which you can see in some of the photos below. If I was looking for a new one, I would not hesitate to snap this scalloped ceramic dish up, from Amazon. I also love the rustic rope handles on it.
• A small watering can

Why Nick Sweet Pea Seeds?

Sweet pea seeds are surrounded by a tough seed coat or casing, and this is what can sometimes make germination difficult because it can prevent water getting to the seed inside.

You may have heard that soaking sweet pea seeds is the answer, and this is often helpful in softening the seed coat. But it takes a little while and involves planning ahead, and I prefer a quick and fuss-free solution when it comes to prepping seeds.

By nicking a very tiny section of the seed coat away, this allows water to get directly inside the seed, and immediately sets germination in progress.

It also means that your seeds should all germinate at the same time, so you will get uniform growth as opposed to some seedlings becoming leggy and others very short.

How to Nick Sweet Pea Seeds

There are several ways you can nick sweet pea seeds.

You could use a small knife or an emery board to file away a section of the seed coat. However, when I have tried this I found it very fiddly and time consuming.

The easiest and quickest way I've found to do this successfully is by using a regular pair of nail clippers. Make sure they are clean before you start, and get your seed tray, compost and seeds all ready, so you have an easy, organised production line ready to go.

Place a seed in between your thumb and forefinger, and very carefully press the clippers against the seed coat to take a tiny section away, revealing the yellow seed inside. You will hear it softly crunching as you remove it.

Take your time with this, as you don't want to end up clipping your skin by mistake. You also don't want to press too hard and damage the seed inside.

Once you get the hang of it, however, you can do each one in seconds.

Then you can plant as you go, placing one or two seeds into each plug, pot or root trainer, wherever you are sowing your seeds. Push them down into the seed compost, and lightly cover over.

Keep them in a warm, light place, preferably inside or in a greenhouse until they germinate. If I were to sow only one flower seed in March, it would be sweet peas. And with this technique, I know I'll have uniform germination only a couple of weeks later.

Your Sweet Pea Sowing Kit

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

We are all ready for some fresh spring color in our lives. One of the simplest and most effective ways of bringing this into our homes is with some beautifully styled, quintessentially spring plants. And nothing beats primulas, in my opinion.

I was inspired to create this design by my love of playing around with vintage vessels, mixing and matching textures and styles to make something truly original and elegant, with a traditional feel.

Primroses or primulas always make me feel nostalgic. Their delicately detailed petals can really lift a space, and with the right containers, can feel really considered. In the most recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you how you can create a display just like this, by bringing together a collection of containers you'll probably already have at home.

What I Used to Create This Primula Display

• I put together old terracotta plant pots, two types of vintage ceramic vessels (one even had a characterful chip in it), and recycled food tins.
• Potting compost, such as this all purpose Miracle-Gro compost from Amazon.
• A selection of primroses or primulas, such as these from Walmart, and hyacinths

How to Create Your Own Spring Primula Centerpiece

The whole idea with this design is to try to use containers you already have. Look for contrasting textures with complementing colors. Everything I picked out had tones of brown, pink and red in it, which I love against the creamy yellow and pink flowers I picked out.

The first step is to give your plants a water whilst they are still in their plastic pots. You might need to knock some of the compost off, or add a little into your containers, to make sure they fit properly. Then firm them in by pressing down gently.

With the hyacinths, gently tease the roots of the bulbs apart to separate, and then you can re-pot them into your choice of vessel.

To lock in moisture and also as a lovely, decorative finish, I added some moss from the garden on top of the compost in this vessel, which gives it a gorgeous, natural finish.

If your tins or recycled vessels are a bit deeper than some of your other pots, add a layer of compost into the bottom, mixed with some grit or stones if you have any.

I always leave the excess foliage spilling out over the edges to give this design a naturalistic feel.

Once they are all potted up and you have brushed any excess soil away, you can cluster them together and arrange on a dining table or kitchen island for a fresh and vibrant seasonal display.

I've had a lot of comments on this design about drainage holes. You an always drill some drainage holes into your containers, especially the tins or terracotta pots, and sit them on a saucer or tray to aid drainage.

However, you might not want to do this if you have a beautiful vintage ceramic vessel, and I'm here to tell you that you don't have to. You can still take these seasonal plants and put them into the yard once they have flowered and faded indoors, as long as you don't over-water them, which can lead to root rot.

Keep the watering to a minimum, and you could also add a layer of charcoal or river rocks to the bottom of your containers, to create a reservoir for excess water to collect in, thus taking it away from the roots and creating better drainage.

This way, you can absolutely keep these plants indoors in your choice of vessel, and plant them out after they have flowered to keep them going for years to come.

Your Primrose Styling Kit

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.

Love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news? Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox.

One of my pet peeves about Valentine's Day (and there are a few) is the ubiquity of red roses that flood store fronts and grocery stores. Roses are not naturally in season at this time of year, but there are many beautiful flowers that are, and I want to show you how to put them together to create a more seasonal hand-tied bouquet.

Roses are the traditional romantic gesture on Valentine's Day, and they will always carry elegance and charm. What's even more romantic, in my opinion, is thinking about what's growing in our backyards right now, such as daffodils and snowdrops, and gather a lovely posy of these to show our love for someone.

Whoever you want to send flowers to this Valentine’s – a best friend, partner, or even yourself – I want to show you a hand-tied bouquet that captures feelings of love and friendship using blooms that are in season now. In the latest episode of Petals & Roots, I give you a recipe for a more seasonal, but equally beautiful hand-tied bouquet, and I show you how to create it like a professional.

What I Used to Create My Valentine's Bouquet

• A good-quality pair of scissors, such as these florist's scissors from Amazon
• Natural jute twine; this is what I use, available from Target
• A selection of seasonal flowers
• Velvet ribbon; this one from Amazon is a gorgeous shade of dusty pink

How to Create Your Own Valentine's Hand-tied Bouquet

The flowers I have chosen for this Valentine's bouquet are ranunculus, anemones, narcissi, astilbe, genista, eucalyptus, and acacia foliage.

My color palette is soft and warm. I wanted to avoid an overtly red bouquet, but I have leaned into shades of blush and fuchsia here, with calming whites and accents of mauve and mint.

I'm going to take you through my method for creating a traditional hand-tied bouquet with a spiral stem, which will give you a beautiful, relaxed floral arrangement with a professional finish.

Start with a focal stem and place it between your thumb and forefinger. This represents your binding point. Anything above your hand will be the bouquet, and below are your stems.

Take your next stem (I used a frothy astilbe) and cross it in front of the first one at a right angle, then bring it down. Repeat a couple more times. Once you have three to four stems in your hand, make a quarter turn.

Continue in this way, alternating the stems you add so that the bouquet has a lovely balance of focal flowers, frothy fillers and foliage.

Remember to keep turning the bouquet after every three to four stems, to maintain the spiral stem effect.

When you are happy with the shape of your bouquet, a great trick I use is to finish it by placing several curvy foliage stems around the edge to create a natural collar for your flowers.

This will make the bouquet look bigger, and also adds to its pro finish.

Take a length of natural jute twine, and tie this around your bouquet at the top of your hand. Tie it fairly tightly, but not too much that you inhibit any movement between the flowers; allow them to breathe a little bit.

Lastly, place your velvet ribbon around the stems and secure in a very simple, rustic knot. Your hand-crafted bouquet is ready to gift.

Your Essential Floristry Kit

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.

In these bare winter months, I am often found scrolling through my phone reminiscing about all the stunning fresh flowers I grew last year. At a time when these treasures are sparse, dried flowers can be a more-than-adequate substitute.

Dried blooms make a thoughtful homemade gift, and unlike their fresh counterparts, are everlasting. Five years ago, when I was a full-time floral designer, I ran an online dried flower boutique, so I know exactly how to care for and design with these delicate stems.

In the latest episode of Petals & Roots, I explain the best way to dry cut flowers naturally at home, and give a simple, stunning design idea that will instantly elevate your tablescape.

The Beauty of Dried Flowers

What I love most about dried flowers is how forgiving they are. There’s no race against the clock, no concern about water levels or wilting stems.

Instead, decorating with dried flowers invites you to work more instinctively, focusing on shape, balance and negative space.

Stems that might feel too stiff or sculptural in fresh arrangements often come into their own once dried, offering a softer, more considered kind of beauty.

How to Dry Flowers

I love ranunculus, and I unexpectedly discovered a few years ago that this is one of the best flowers to grow for drying.

My fail-safe method is to put no more than five stems together in a bunch, tie the stems together with natural twine, just like this from Amazon, and hang them upside down in a warm, dry and dark place.

An airing cupboard is ideal, or a very dry garden shed. (I have been known to tie them to the banister at the top of my staircase before, and it worked just fine).

The key is airflow; if you don’t let air circulate around them, that’s when they can go moldy and brown. Try not to pack them together too tightly, or have too many stems in one bunch.

You’ll need to leave them for around four to six weeks to make sure they have dried out completely, and will then retain their shape and color.

How to Create a Dried Flower Design

I chose to create this table design with mis-matched, vintage style bud vases, just like this stunning selection of bud vases from Amazon.

Once you have three or more of these vase arrangements, you have an instant display. It's so simple to create it will feel effortless.

You might want to opt for something a little more modern, such as these ceramic white bud vases from Amazon, which I also love for their simplicity and elegance.

For the flowers we want a lovely mix of larger, more focal dried blooms and those beautiful detailed accents.

I’ll start by adding some focal strawflowers into my vase. Dried flowers are naturally going to be more brittle than their fresh counterparts, so taking your time to place them gently will prevent any stems from snapping.

For this kind of design, I add each flower variety in one go, rather than going back and forth between stem types. I find it easier to arrange in this way, but there are no rules!

Next I’m adding a few stems of coral pink globe amaranth, which I love for its shape and color. The larger dried flowers look good towards the base or center of an arrangement, while the more delicate stems can float above them.

I’m adding light and airy dried limonium next, and I'm placing in taller stems so they can dance above the more focal flowers.

For a change in texture, it's time to add seedpods. I start with poppy pods, and I also add in several scabious seed pods (one of the best plants for seedheads), which I adore for their delicate yet intricate form.

The great thing about dried designs is you can think outside the box in terms of your materials. I found some dried pink peppercorns leftover from my holiday wreaths, so I added some into these vases as they tone so well with the pink of the globe amaranth.

As a final touch, let’s add some bunny tail grasses for that playful element. You can leave these long to create some height if you want to.

From choosing the right stems to creating a relaxed, lasting arrangement, I hope this guide inspires you and shows you how drying flowers for your home can become a natural extension of the garden.

Your Dried Flower Design Kit

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.

Admittedly, few jobs seem appealing in the garden in January, but it's a time when I love to escape to the shed, even for just a few minutes, quieten my thoughts and sow some flower seeds. I find it a very hopeful thing to do when we are waiting for the sunlight to return to our yards.

Sowing Icelandic poppy seeds in January is a wonderful way to get ahead of the season and enjoy these florist-favorite flowers earlier in the year. I personally have loved these ethereal flowers for many years, using them in a lot of my floral design work for their unapologetic curves and large, paper-like pastel blooms that look unbelievably delicate but are in fact are surprisingly strong.

By sowing flower seeds in January, plants are ready to go out as soon as conditions allow in early spring, which often results in longer stems and a more generous flowering period. In this recent episode of Petals & Roots, I show you exactly how to do it, and the small amount of kit you need for the job.

What You Need to Sow Iceland Poppy Seeds

• Icelandic poppy seeds; I love this 'champagne bubbles' seed mix from True Leaf market, as it contains all my favorite shades
• A cardboard seed tray– these are the ones I use, bought from Amazon
• Seed compost, available from Amazon, or an organic seed starting mix
• Plant labels and a pencil
• A small watering can; this one from Amazon is ideal

How to Sow Icelandic Poppy Seeds

While they’re hardy enough to be direct sown later on, starting Icelandic poppy seeds now under cover allows seedlings to establish slowly and steadily while the garden is still dormant.

Once you have everything prepared for seed sowing you can find a quiet moment and get started.

Start by placing a few handfuls of seed compost into your seed tray, and tap it on your bench or table a few times to level it out.

All poppy seeds are absolutely tiny, so you may need a magnifying glass to be able to see them all individually. Tip some into the palm of your hand, or into a small bowl if you find that easier, and then place one seed into each plug within your seed tray.

You don't need to cover them with any compost, as they need the light in order to germinate.

I always label my seedlings to not forget what they are. I've made this seed sowing mistake too many times, and now understand the importance of not relying on memory alone when you are sowing lots of different varieties of flower.

Once you have given them a light watering, you can place them in a bright, frost-free greenhouse, cold frame or even a light windowsill in your potting shed is ideal. You do not, however, need to bring them inside.

Icelandic poppies dislike root disturbance, so sowing these into individual pots or cardboard root trainers in January gives each plant space to develop and means you can plant them directly into the soil in the cardboard.

The cooler conditions at this time of year suit them perfectly, helping to produce compact, sturdy plants rather than soft, leggy growth that can occur with later sowings.

This early start also spreads the workload of the growing season and ensures these delicate, tissue-paper blooms are among the first to bring colour back into the garden after winter.

For more flower seed inspiration, find out what your birth month flower seed is, and see if you can plant a few of those in the winter months, to look forward to come the summer.

Icelandic Poppy Seed Sowing Kit

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.

From resolutions to rituals, there are many ways to welcome in and mark the start of a new year. One thing I like to do is to create a floral arrangement that carries meaning and is symbolic of the thoughts and hopes I have for the 12 months ahead.

Now, you don't have to spend a long time looking up flower meanings online to find several different ones for the same type of flower. This might be what a bloom represents in the Victorian language of flowers, its cultural significance in a different country, or its more modern-day meaning. Perhaps confusingly, there are often several different types of symbolism to discover. So, which to follow?

In my humble opinion, the most important thing to think about when you're creating a symbolic New Year design is that the flowers you arrange bring you complete joy and happiness. But of course, the official symbolism is important and often fascinating to explore. Here, as well as talking you through how to create this simple vase design, I go into greater depth about the meaning of each of the flowers I chose, and clarify a few descriptions that we didn't have time for in this recent Petals & Roots episode.

What You Need to Create a Symbolic Floral Arrangement

• A selection of fresh flowers of your choice
• Floristry scissors, such as these from Amazon, in a handy shade of red so they are difficult to lose
• A simple glass vase, just like this one from Amazon

Crafting a Symbolic Arrangement and the Meaning Behind Our Flower Choices

In the design I demo for Petals & Roots, the flowers and foliage I chose were anemones, star of Bethlehem, ranunculus, narcissi, privet berries, eucalyptus 'baby blue', and acacia.

My aim was to create a design which reflected feelings of hope, rejuvenation and joy, as these are sentiments I want to harness in 2026.

When arranging into a vase, I always start with the foliage to give me some structure. In this case, I chose to add eucalyptus for its fresh, uplifting scent. Eucalyptus oil is used in many natural medicines and I'm drawn to it at the moment for its association with healing, as this is very important to me as we enter into the new year.

I added star of Bethlehem, also known as Ornithogalum, for its association with hope. In the Victorian language of flowers, it symbolizes innocence and purity, which is often why it was historically included in hand-tied bouquets for weddings and christenings.

The tall, conical stems open slowly over several weeks to reveal individual, white star-shaped flowers, which is where the flower's common name comes from. It is in this biblical sense that the notion of guidance, or a guiding star, comes.

For an unapologetically stylish bloom, I next included anemones, which I adore for their jet black centers and paper-like frills.

The white anemone in particular is associated with sincerity, however in the Victorian language of flowers the overarching meaning of the anemone flower is love and forsaken love.

Because anemones close when night falls and reopen again in the daylight, they are also closely associated with feelings of anticipation, which is a rather lovely way to think about the excitement of the year ahead and what it might bring.

One of my favorite flowers in the world is ranunculus, with its seemingly endless ruffles, so I simply had to include it in my New Year arrangement.

Traditionally, they represent charm and radiance; an alluring attractiveness. They are also a hugely joyful flower. It is impossible to deny the cheer they bring to an arrangement and I love them for that.

Narcissus, which I added next, have an ancient and fascinating history to them; a blend of mythological tales, Victorian symbolism, and cultural folklore. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection and eventually wasted away as he gazed at it in a pool of water. It is said that narcissus flowers grew in his place to remind us not to be self-obsessed.

We often think of narcissi, or daffodils, as the first signs of spring, which is also why people associate them with renewal and new beginnings. In Chinese tradition, narcissus are seen more as a symbol of good fortune and prosperity.

You can discover so much more about the fascinating stories and history behind this symbolism in Shane Connolly's book Discovering the Meaning of Flowers, available from Amazon.

As a final touch in my design, I added black privet berries, which I like as much for their meaning as for how well they tone with the anemones. I understand them to be associated with protection, though this interpretation does vary.

You can find out even more about the Victorian language of flowers in Jessica Roux's book, Floriography, available from Amazon.

Shop My Essential Floristry Kit

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.

Corsage, buttonhole, boutonniere? Call them what you wish, these diminutive floral accents are one of my favorite things to make, and whether for a winter wedding, a party or just for the fun of it, they work really well with dried flowers.

There is something very special about creating an everlasting floral keepsake. But one problem I've come across as a floral designer is the damage the pins can do when attaching corsages to your clothes. Well, I have a handy (and super easy) trick to avoiding this – by using a tiny yet mightily strong magnet.

In the latest Petals & Roots episode, I show you my tried-and-tested technique for creating a dried flower corsage and fixing it with a magnet fastening. Hopefully this will inspire you to try one with your own favorite home-grown or foraged stems for some dried flower decorating. Here, I go into more depth about how to make it and choose the ideal ingredients for yours.

What you need to create a dried flower corsage

• A selection of dried flower stems
• Floristry scissors
• Corsage magnets, such as these from Amazon
• Paper-based floral tape; this type from Amazon is the one I use
• A thin floral wire (30 gauge)
• Natural jute twine, just like this, available from Amazon
• Silk or velvet ribbon

How to make your own dried flower corsage

Start by selecting your stems and laying them all out in front of you, so you have easy access to everything.

I opted for a small sprigs of white limonium; a billy button or craspedia; natural phalaris (canary grass) and bunny tail grasses; a poppy seed pod; lavender statice; and pink globe amaranth.

There are so many wonderful flowers you can grow that are great for drying, or alternatively it's easy to get hold of beautiful dried selections, such as this dried grass, boho-style bundle from Walmart.

Cut each stem to approximately 6 inches in length to make them easier to work with.

To arrange these in your hand, start with the larger stems to get a basic shape. Pinch the stem ends in your fingers to hold them in place.

You'll make the corsage by layering each stem on top and to the side of each other, so that it ends up having a nice flat back, with lots of lovely detail and texture at the front.

Once you have moved things about a bit, as I do in the video, secure the stems by taking a small silver rose wire, which you can find at Amazon, and wrap this around your stems. Cut them to tidy them up and make them all the same length.

Now to add your magnet. Take the thin part and attach this to your stems by wrapping floral tape around it. You can then add a small piece of ribbon to cover the tape, and when you put the other side of the magnet under your shirt, jacket or hat, the corsage will attach securely.

How you can modify this design

Dried flowers are naturally (usually) a lot smaller than fresh flowers, meaning they lend themselves perfectly to these kinds of delicate designs. You could opt for all kinds of other lovely ingredients, such as lavender, scabious pods, straw flowers, spray roses, globe thistles, or small larkspur.

There are other types of magnet corsage fastenings you can use. This magnet fastening in particular, available from Amazon, looks super secure, but you would need to attach the entire corsage to the plastic back.

If you'd rather not use plastic in your design, a single magnet how I attached it should always be strong enough. But you could always add a second under the first one if you wanted to be completely sure!

Dried flower corsage making essentials

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.

You know what it's like when you're setting the perfect holiday table, ready for dinner. What with all the beautiful glassware, cutlery, delicate crockery, napkins, and candles, it's already pretty full – and that's before any of the delicious food is placed in the center. As such, it's difficult to find space for a floral arrangement, too.

I always find it a shame not to have fresh flowers on a dining table, which is why I came up with this napkin micro posy idea. A really small and simple floral accent for your dining table décor ideas, which gives a gentle nod to the season.

In the latest Petals & Roots episode, I show you my tried-and-tested technique for creating a napkin micro posy. I designed this one for a Thanksgiving table, but you can make them for all kinds of seasonal themes. Here I go into more depth about how to make it and choose the ideal ingredients for yours.

What you need to create a napkin micro posy

• A selection of foliage, herbs, berries and at least one focal flower; the more seasonal you can make them the better
• Floristry scissors
• Natural jute twine, just like this, available from Amazon
• Silk or velvet ribbon; I love this autumnal ribbon shade with a rustic frayed edge from Walmart.

How to make your own napkin micro posy

The first thing you need to do is select three stems of foliage. I love using fresh herbs in my napkin micro posies, as they carry scent and link beautifully to the dining table setting.

I opted for a small sprig of eucalyptus, one of rosemary, and one of lemon thyme. Each one is approximately 6 inches in length. Arrange these in your hand, pinching the ends of the stems together to create a flat back.

You'll build the rest of your posy onto this foliage base.

For the rest of my napkin micro posy, I included hypericum berries, orange ilex berries, and chocolate cosmos.

On top of the foliage, I layered the ilex berries, and a small stem of cream hypericum berries. To elevate it with a floral pop, I added a single, delicious-smelling chocolate cosmos flower.

To secure the stems, take a small length of natural twine and tie together fairly tightly. Then cut your stems to tidy them up and make them all the same length.

Lastly, to elevate your micro posy, cover the twine with a small piece of silk or velvet ribbon, before placing on your napkins.

How you can modify this design

You can modify this design in so many different ways and make it with anything that's in season.

Always start with a foliage base. I tend to choose evergreen foliage as it looks fresher for longer. I also love to choose anything scented, so you could think about bay, sage, lemon cypress, lavender and boxwood, for instance.

You can add more flowers instead of the berries, just think about choosing small ones. If you're creating something for an Easter tablescape, for example, you could add narcissi 'tete-a-tete', grape hyacinth, snakeshead fritillaries, or aquilegia.

For the focal flower, a love a contrasting shade that will stand out on the table, and has a flat back. Good options are dahlias, cosmos, and mini sunflowers.

Napkin posy essentials

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.

Bringing a seasonal snapshot of your garden into your home at any given time of year is, for me, the most quintessential, not to mention easiest, way of updating your interior décor.

Structural branches, warm foliage and berries in abundance is the recipe for this fall vase arrangement. It really is so quick and easy to create, and will give any part of your home some instant drama and a seasonal focal point.

In this Petals & Roots episode, I demonstrate exactly what I used for this fall vase arrangement with berries, and show you how to recreate this flower arrangement with branches and berries from your own garden.

What you need to recreate a fall vase arrangement with berries

• A tall vase with a rustic or fall feel to it. Scroll down to find my shopping edit of ideal vases for this design.
• Pruning shears or floristry scissors; I use the Niwaki floral scissors, available from Anthropologie as they are so sharp and reliable.
• A selection of garden branches with berries, fall foliage and structural interest.

How to make your own fall vase arrangement with berries

I only used seven stems in this particular design; though some of them were admittedly pretty large.

The idea is all about bringing some of those natural, seasonal accents in the yard into your home. Look for any branches with berries, foliage and plants with fall color or branches that have started to lose their leaves, and any little accents from seed heads or grasses.

I used a large cotoneaster branch; two hawthorn branches; two cuttings from a snowball viburnum, and several stems of meadowsweet that had gone to seed and turned a lovely, rich shade of brown.

Start by adding your first branch. I opted for the largest cotoneaster branch, and built my design around that.

I added the hawthorn next, being careful as those branches have spikes on them. They were very tall, so I trimmed them down quite a bit to keep the design balanced.

Measure the branches against the side of your vase each time before you cut them, to make sure you are trimming at the correct height. If in doubt, cut a bit less and keep trimming until you reach the desired length.

After the berries I added the extra fall foliage from the viburnum branches. The last thing to go in were the smaller stems of meadowsweet to add a subtle touch of dark brown, and to really reflect what's going in my garden at this time of year.

How you can modify this design

You don't need a lot for this design; it's all about choosing a few statement branches and stems.

I wanted these to soften the design a little by adding the viburnum foliage, but you could use bare branches and berries alone for a more modern, architectural look.

You can build on it depending on what you notice in your own garden at this time of year. Look for the stems that stand out for you and think about how they would work with your chosen vessel.

And if you need any more help and inspiration choosing the right one, I've curated a selection for you below.

Shop our garden editor's vase edit

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.

If you're hosting Thanksgiving or any dinner over the holiday season this year, I have got the key to a flawless, modern floral design that won't take up much table space and requires only minutes to do.

It's based around using a single flower variety to create a structural, contemporary look in a bud vase, and repeating the same design along a table.

In a recent Petals & Roots episode, I demonstrate exactly how I came up with this modern bud vase styling idea, and show you how to recreate this flower arrangement using stunning ball dahlias. Here I cover the process in detail, and share more of my tips and tricks for simple, modern floral styling.

What you need to recreate this modern bud vase styling idea

• A selection of 6-8 identical bud vases.
• Floristry scissors; I use the Niwaki floral scissors, available from Anthropologie.
• Seven flower stems per bud vase. You're going to be using one single flower variety for this design, so you could benefit from buying in bulk at a local flower market or from a flower grower in your area.

How to make your own contemporary bud vases

It is so simple to get this design right. You need to make sure you have at least seven stems of the same flower for each bud vase.

The idea is to add them to the vase at a range of different heights, to create a series of mini living sculptures.

We want this design to look very clean and sleek, so remove all foliage and any buds from your stems before you begin.

Start by adding your first stem. I opted for a fairly tall one.

Follow this up with your lowest stem, so it's overlapping the lip of the vase, and then fill in the gaps by staggering the stems at different heights. Once you have three or four stems in a bud vase, they will start to hold each other in position.

Measure the stem against the side of the vase each time before you cut it, to make sure you are trimming at the correct height. If in doubt, cut a bit less and keep trimming until you reach the desired length.

Once you have 6-7 stems in a vase, look at it from all angles to decide whether there are any gaps you want to fill, or maybe you want to keep some negative space as part of the design.

You can move the stems around a little to get them to hold nicely in their desired shape.

Why this design works and how you can modify it

It's not often I come up with a floral design idea by accident, but it does happen from time to time. On this occasion, I was collecting from flowers from a wedding, and wanted to quickly save all the dahlias from each arrangement.

All I had to put them in were a few bud vases, so I simply popped them in without much thought. They had already been cut at different heights, and the result was this incredible mini floral sculpture.

The crucial element when recreating this is choosing the right flower type and color.

I opted for a ball dahlia type in burnt orange, not only because they represent the season, but also for their perfectly structured form. Looking at that flower is all the confirmation you need that nature is the most sublime mathematician.

This design is pared back, modern and unfussy, so think about that when you come to select your chosen bloom. Designing with dahlias is ideal for this kind of arrangement, but other flowers I would consider are chrysanthemums, zinnias, lisianthus (with all the buds removed), clematis, and iris.

Your essential floristry kit

There are so many different styles of flowers you can use with bud vases to create beautiful displays for your dining tables.

A design that was particularly loved over the summer on the Homes & Gardens TikTok was when I demonstrated how to create a bud vase display using wild flowers from your own garden.

It's a whole different vibe to the modern look I've created here, but would perfectly complement an afternoon tea or a summer party.

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.

The time for pumpkin carving may be over for another year, but that doesn't mean you can't create a beautifully seasonal Thanksgiving display with this most iconic of fall fruits.

By using a hollowed out pumpkin as a vessel and carefully selecting the right flower, berry and foliage stems, you can craft an autumnal floral design for a porch or dining table that stylishly sums up the season and appears completely effortless.

In the Petals & Roots episode below, I demonstrate exactly how to create a stylish flower arrangement in a pumpkin – which lots of you loved. Here, I take you through my step-by-step in even more detail, and show you how to perfectly capture the season with this fun and sophisticated no-carve pumpkin design idea.

What you need to create a floral pumpkin

• A pumpkin
• A knife, such as this one from Amazon and tool to scrape out the center
• A small ceramic bowl or ramekin, just like these from Amazon, depending on the size of your pumpkin
• Floristry scissors; I use the Niwaki floral scissors, available from Anthropologie
• Chicken wire
• Floristry pot tape – my go-to is the clear pot tape, from Amazon
• A selection of fall flowers, foliage and berries. In my design I use:
  • Bay
  • Autumnal eucalyptus
  • Orange ilex berries
  • Cream hypericum berries
  • Orange dahlias
  • Pale peach stocks
  • Burgundy amaranth
  • Chocolate cosmos

Step 1: Add the mechanics to the inside of your pumpkin

Once you have sliced the top off and hollowed out your chosen pumpkin, you can get the behind-the-scenes of your design ready.

This is such an important step, as without the right mechanics your design won't have any structure, and importantly, it won't last as long.

The first thing to do is carefully cut a small square of chicken wire and fold it into a pillow. I always use gardening gloves to do this to protect my hands.

Push the chicken wire into a ceramic or plastic bowl (so long as it's waterproof it'll be fine) and secure this with pot tape over the top. Then place this inside and fill with fresh water.

By containing the water in a vessel like this, it will stop the pumpkin from rotting more quickly, so your floral pumpkin will last longer.

Eco tip: Try not to be tempted to use floral foam for this design. It might be quicker, but using a bowl and chicken wire is a much more eco friendly floral foam alternative, and will mean you can simply remove and reuse when your display is finished, and place the pumpkin on the compost heap.

Step 2: Create a base with foliage and berries

To create your shape and foundation, add your foliage stems first. I went in with a few bushy stems of bay, and followed this with some longer, curvaceous autumnal eucalyptus.

Both types of greenery are also strongly scented, making them ideal for an indoor arrangement.

Cut every stem at a 45 degree angle before adding into the water, to ensure everything is super hydrated and will stay fresh.

Once you have a fairly full coverage of foliage, start adding in your berries. I used pale orange ilex (deciduous holly), which are perfect for fall, followed by larger creamy hypericum berries. Both add a delicious texture, and can be shorter in length than the longer foliage stems to give the design more depth and help to fill large gaps.

Step 3: Add your fall flowers

Now it's time to add color! When you're ready to add your flowers, I start with the spire shapes and the focal blooms, followed by the more delicate details.

In this design, I added burgundy amaranth evenly throughout, varying the heights, followed by some delicious rusty orange dahlias – irresistible at this time of year.

Make sure you are placing each stem into the water. It's easy to miss the bowl once you have a lot of stems in your pumpkin.

Next I added pale peach stocks for a color contrast, and I finished with chocolate cosmos (my absolute favourite for their velvet petals and cocoa scent). Keep the stems of these flowers long so they can dance daintily over the larger blooms.

Once you're happy with the arrangement from every angle, check it for any gaps and make sure you can't see any of the chicken wire.

You can expect this design to last a week inside, and up to three weeks or more if you place it outside.

Your essential fall floristry kit

There are so many creative ways you can decorate with pumpkins this fall. You could even create floral crowns on smaller gourds and pumpkins by making small holes around the top of the fruits, and poking flowers and foliage into the holes. Try this with chrysanthemums and strawflowers as they will stay looking fresh for weeks, especially if kept outside.

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.

Petals & Roots is a bi-weekly video series hosted by our Head of Gardens Rachel Bull.

Each Sunday, Rachel shares her expertise in gardening and floral design – you can see all Rachel's Petals & Roots videos here on YouTube, and her most recent, below, along with more of her inspiring gardening features under 'latest'.

Rachel also pens a weekly newsletter that offers deeper insights and inspiration for garden lovers everywhere. You can sign up for all our newsletters, including Rachel's here.

Rachel's Latest Petals & Roots Episode

You will often hear me say when I'm working in my home studio, 'you're only as good as your flowers'. And it's true. Selecting the best quality, combinations and colors of flowers and foliage is what is going to set your floral designs apart, whether you're a pro or an amateur arranger.

One trick I love to teach people is the art of color washing with flowers. This is when you pink one shade and build a tonal mix around it from all the colors within that spectrum.

In the demonstration for Petals & Roots below, I show you how to achieve a stylish, effortlessly cohesive design for your flower arrangements. And here I'm going to give you more detail about why it works and how to do it.

Why color washing works in floral design

By using flowers in varying tones of the same hue, from the palest tints to the deepest shades, you can build depth and sophistication, while keeping the look cohesive.

Color washing works because it creates harmony and flow, and from this the eye can move effortlessly across an arrangement without it feeling at all jarring or contrasting.

It’s an especially effective technique for evoking mood. For instance, soft tonal washes feel serene and romantic, while stronger, saturated colors can bring drama and intensity to a room or a table setting.

Another thing I love about this approach is that it also highlights texture and form, as you can pick out subtle contrasts in petal shape or foliage color and work with them to pick out different shades, as well as show off their minute details.

How to color wash with flowers

The key concept of color washing with flowers is to pick a shade you love, and simply choose other colors from within the same spectrum.

I demo using pink for Petals & Roots, and have flowers in shades of blush, baby pink, magenta, coral, peach-pink, and burgundy. In my design I use astilbe, dahlias, wax flower, chocolate cosmos, stocks and butterscotch phlox, and apricot cosmos.

The trick is to pick a range of flowers in varying degrees of pale and warmth. For instance, within the pink spectrum you could also have powder pink and shell pink as pale tones; rose and watermelon pink for your mid tones; raspberry and fuchsia make great saturated pink shades; and antique rose, salmon or nude are your muted and dusty variants.

Another spectrum example is purple. For the cool shades pick lilac and periwinkle; mid tones could be violet and amethyst; deeper, richer shades could be mulberry or aubergine; and muted tones would come from dusty mauve and lavender.

Key color theory tips to remember

The essence of colour washing with flowers lies in subtle variation, and being able to pick up on the tiny details in a petal or a leaf and bring those out in your design.

A few more of my key tips are:

Remember to add neutrals as breathers
Adding soft neutrals, such as cream, pale green, or even muted mauve foliage, gives the eye a place to rest and stops your arrangement from feeling too flat or heavy.

You can still play with texture to add dimension
Texture becomes your drama in monochromatic schemes. Mix smooth petals, such as roses and tulips, with frothy ones (astilbe) or feathery fillers such as grasses or Queen Anne’s lace to keep a tonal design lively.

Experiment balancing emotion with your palette
Soft pinks and lilacs evoke romance and calm, while richer purples and magentas feel luxurious and dramatic. Think about the mood you want to set, and choose your tonal range accordingly when planning your design.

Understanding color rules and theory is, of course, not limited to floral design. It can be such a useful thing to know how colors work and how to use a color wheel when it comes to your own interior design and fashion ideas, by simplifying and dtreamlinging your decision making.

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.

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

I will not abide people trying to give me recipes for green tomato chutney. Do not say it. I cannot tolerate it. Alas, if your tomato plants look anything like mine at this time of year, you can perhaps forgive those who want to assist in the only way they know how.

Well, gardeners, you must not give up hope. Your healthy crops of fruit may still be green, and the diminishing warmth may not be giving us copious amounts of hope that they’ll turn red anytime soon. However, if you are growing tomatoes for the first time this year, there are three easy steps you can take now to give your fruits the best chance of ripening on the vine, before the risk of frosts starts to rear its head.

In the latest episode of Petals & Roots, my weekly gardening series for Homes & Gardens, I take you through what to do to get tomatoes to ripen on the vine more quickly. Here, I expand my advice further, so you’ll get the absolute most out of your delicious crops.

Step one: Remove leafy foliage to let light in

You don’t need to keep all that lovely tomato foliage on your plants once the fruits have formed. Even if it looks lush and healthy, it could be blocking light and warmth from reaching your tomatoes, and slowing down the ripening process as a result.

Remove foliage from the main stem using clean and sharp pruning shears, such as these Fiskars ones from Amazon. I actually prefer using snips like these ones from Walmart, as the foliage is so easy to cut through and they are gentle on the wrists.

Start at the base of the plant and work your way upwards. Doing this will allow the light to get to your fruits. It will also improve airflow, preventing your tomatoes from rotting under the excess leaves.

By this point in the year you can remove pretty much all the foliage to deposit on the compost heap, and simply leave the main stem and the fruits.

Step two: Snip off any flowers from your plants

Your plants will continue to produce new flowers, even this late into the season. However, these flowers won't have time to turn into ripe tomatoes before the frosts hit, so the best thing to do is to snip them off.

Wherever you see a vine with flowers on it, simply remove and compost.

What this does is focus all the plant's energy into the existing fruits, giving them a better chance of ripening and growing bigger.

Step three: Prune your tomato plants from the top

Healthy tomato plants love to keep putting on new growth, even when it's time to harvest tomatoes. But once you have four or five trusses of tumbling fruit, you don't need your plant to keep growing upwards.

Don't be afraid to prune tomato plants by locating the central stem and lopping off the top part, keeping all your healthy fruit below.

We want all that energy to be diverted into the existing vines and ripening fruits, to get the very best from your crops.

For the same reason, don't forget to pick any fruit that has ripened on the vine already.

These tips are the same whether you're growing tomatoes outside or in a greenhouse. The advantage of the latter is plants will be warmer and more sheltered from any inclement fall weather, giving fruits a better chance of ripening.

Finally, if the mercury has dropped dramatically and hope is dwindling for your tomatoes, there is one more thing you can do.

Pick them when they are green and put your tomatoes with a banana. This could be in a bowl, a drawer or a paper bag.

Bananas release ethylene gas, which encourages fruit to ripen, so hopefully there will be no green tomato chutney on the menu for you this fall.

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

There are more than 40 different species of dahlia grown across the world, and within that a colossal 57,000 cultivated varieties. That is an enormous range of shapes, colors and sizes. And all of them are utterly beautiful.

They range from huge dinner plate dahlia blooms, to miniature pompom flowers, with a staggering symmetry and perfection not even the world’s best mathematicians could emulate. They are, in my opinion, proof that Mother Nature is the greatest artist.

Naturally, these epic and diverse flowers deserve to be enjoyed in our homes in the most elegant of ways, which is why I wanted to create this demonstration for Petals & Roots, to show you how to achieve a show-stopping look for your flower arrangements.

What you need

• A footed bowl or pedestal vessel, such as this one from McGee & Co
• A floral frog (also known as a pin frog or kenzan), available from Amazon
• Floral tack or clay, just like this from Amazon
• Floristry scissors; these ones from Amazon are very similar to the ones I use
• A stunning selection of dahlias in a variety of colors and shapes

Step one: Prepare your vessel

The first step to creating this design is to fix your sustainable mechanics in place; in this case – a flower frog.

In every design I create, I always try to select eco-friendly, reusable or compostable materials, and a kenzan or flower frog is a perfect example of this.

It is a non-toxic floral foam alternative, made up of vertical pins that naturally hold your flower stems in place, and can be washed and re-used time and again.

The one I used was weighted, but to make it extra secure, apply sticky floral tack (also known as floral clay) to the base of the flower frog, then press down firmly and twist at the same time to fix it in place.

Once secured, you can add fresh water and begin arranging.

Step two: Add your dahlias

Despite being hollow, dahlia stems are pretty robust and will hold up very well in an arrangement like this.

With this kind of design, we want each and every dahlia bloom to have space to shine, so the way I usually start is by taking a medium-sized bloom (the one I start with in this video is known as a ball dahlia) and place this fairly centrally.

Next, take a much larger dahlia, such as a waterlily or even a dinner plate variety, and position this towards the front on a diagonal, so that the stem is coming forwards. This will balance the design and make sure there is a clear focal point to it.

Then build around this, placing the smaller pompom dahlias to the front, or very high up, and the larger dahlias to the sides and the back. The cactus and frilly collarette dahlias look fantastic when placed centrally and coming forwards on the diagonal (rather than straight upwards).

Keep checking the design to make sure it looks balanced and be sure to add stems to the back, so that it doesn't appear flat from the front. Keep on adding until you are happy, or you may have to stop when your pin frog is completely full of stems.

If you want to move some of the flowers around, simply hold the stem firmly towards the base and pull. Give the end a fresh cut before replacing back onto the flower frog in its new position.

Top tip: My most favored piece of kit when creating this kind of arrangement is my wooden lazy Susan, which I painted pink. You can see it in the video. It makes moving the design around and looking at it from all angles effortless. You can find a very similar bamboo lazy Susan from Amazon.

Once completed, all you need to do is keep the water topped up, as these stems will drink a lot. Then simply enjoy their impossible beauty and forms.

You can use a pin frog to recreate this style of design so easily with lots of other seasonal flowers and foliage, and in any kind of vessel or vase you choose.

They are so versatile and easy to work with, and despite looking small, they can hold a large number of stems.

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

When it comes to my favorite kinds of floral arrangements, they are always ones with a wow factor, but are amazingly simple to create.

Often, with larger floral designs, it’s easier to achieve this simply because you’re working with longer stems, bigger flower heads, and larger vases. Essentially, choose your materials wisely and I promise they will do all the work for you when it comes to arranging flowers like a professional.

In this recent episode of Petals & Roots, the gardening and floristry series I present for Homes & Gardens, I show you exactly how to get this look, and what you need to create a statement hydrangea centerpiece design that would work in any room of your home.

What you need

• Five to seven branches of Eucalyptus cinerea
• Five branches of beech
• Five to seven stems of large mophead hydrangea
• A large glass vase, such as this one from Anthropologie
• Scissors or pruning snips – I love these Micman professional grade snips from Amazon

Here's how to make this hydrangea centerpiece in three simple stages:

Choose your vessel with care

A vase, container or vessel can really make or break a floral design. The wrong color and your flowers could look washed out; a tricky size or shape and you’ll find it so much harder to arrange your flowers and create the design you want.

I see this kind of arrangement either in the center of a large table, on a kitchen island or as a statement entryway design on a console table. Therefore we need a chic, stylish vase that isn’t going to compete with the flowers themselves.

The glass vase I chose has a subtle blush hue, which I adore, and a very helpful narrow neck. This means it is much easier to design into, as your stems will be held in place better while still having lots of room to spread out in the larger area of the vase.

Place your foliage in first

When you have taken off all the lower leaves from your foliage, so that nothing will be below the water level, start to place these into your vase. Begin with the eucalyptus, making sure to give each stem a fresh cut on the diagonal before placing them into the water.

At this point your stems will move about, so simply enjoy draping the foliage over the sides and once you begin adding the beech this will anchor them in place a bit more.

Take your beech, or any fresh leafy foliage of your choice (silver birch, hornbeam or bay would work equally as well) and cut several stems to the size you want. I wanted the beech branches to be taller than the eucalyptus stems, to create more height and also allow for the movement of the rich green leaves.

My top tip here is to measure your stem against the side of the vase before you cut it, to make sure you don’t remove too much of the length.

By adding all your foliage first, you’ve created a wonderful structure within which you can place the hydrangeas.

Add the stars of the show: your hydrangeas

Now you can have fun really bringing this design to life. Again, for any hydrangea table arrangement, I always measure my stems against the vase, so see where they will fit in the arrangement and what the ideal height should be.

It’s easy to move them around if you’re not happy with any placements. My top tip for doing this is to twist the stem in your fingers as you are removing it, rather than pull it straight out – it will come out easily without disturbing any neighboring foliage or flowers.

I added five hydrangeas at a variety of heights into my design, but you might want to add more for a maximalist look.

You could recreate this style of design so easily with lots of other seasonal ingredients. For example, this design was inspired by an arrangement I once made for a hotel lobby during Halloween, which featured tall branches of copper beech, long, twisting rosehips stems, and huge autumnal hydrangeas – ones that had begun darkening and crisping up in early fall.

Working with seasonal stems will not only make your creations feel more natural, it’s also a much more sustainable way to design as you can cut from your own garden or source locally-grown stems more easily.

If you know how to grow hydrangeas, you'll be familiar with how incredible these blousy blooms, which come in a range of beautiful shades, sizes, and styles, can look in the garden.

But as we approach the end of summer you might be wondering what to do with hydrangeas in the fall.

This idea for displaying them on your table from Head of Gardens, Rachel Bull is so simple yet stunningly effective and your guests will think you've enlisted the help of a professional florist.

Watch Rachel's video on creating a hydrangea table arrangement

'It's hydrangea season and this is one way to style them really simply in your home,' says Rachel. Here she talks us through how to create an elegant and sophisticated summer table centerpiece, using hydrangea heads grown in your garden or bought from a local florist, in three easy steps.

1. Start with a low vase

'You're going to need a low and quite wide vessel,' says Rachel. She picks a large round clear glass vase with a rim, but you can also opt for more colorful versions or simple ceramic ones.

'If you can find one with a slightly narrower neck that's also going to do you some favors because it will give your stems a bit more support,' Rachel adds.

2. Measure the stems

'So we'll take our beautiful hydrangeas,' Rachel uses mophead hydrangeas here, 'and we want to take off these leaves first as they're a bit dominant,' she explains.

'Then I'm going to cut the stem. A good trick is to actually measure it against the vase you've got to see how long your stem is, and you don't cut too much off.' Rachel places her stem upright on the table alongside the vase to measure how much she wants to trim from the bottom.

She cuts it on the diagonal and checks, before trimming a little more and places the stem into the vase.

3. Repeat and display with pride

'For this design we'll use three heads' Rachel says, before trimming and measuring the next two against the height of the vase as before. 'Once you've got them all in they will support each other,' she explains.

Rachel suggests recreating this display a few more times. 'Make three or five of them and place them along the centre of a long dining table.' This makes a perfect long table setting idea for late summer. 'It will just look so effective and is really simple to do,' adds Rachel.

If you have these beautiful seasonal blooms in your garden you'll be interested to read about the hydrangea myths which have been debunked our gardens team. They also have loads of advice on growing and maintaining hydrangeas, from dealing with common problems to dead-heading and keeping them hydrated.

If you want to know how to arrange flowers like a professional, look no further than the wonderful advice from our Head of Gardens and professional florist, Rachel Bull. She shares her seasonal tips and tricks for making the most of your garden and how to display your homegrown blooms in her Petals & Roots series for Homes & Gardens.

In one of her latest videos, Rachel talks us through how to design a bud vase arrangement that's perfect for your summer table decor ideas.

Plus, she suggests ways to incorporate flowers that you might be growing in your own garden right now, whether you have a dedicated cutting patch or a more wild display.

Watch Rachel's video on designing a bud vase arrangement

'This is a really quick and easy way to bring a dining table to life if you haven't got a huge budget,' says Rachel. Here she shows us how to create a bud vase arrangement using wild flowers that you can cut from your garden in five steps.

1. Start with bolder blooms

Rachel starts her arrangement by choosing some bright and cheerful flowers, including some dramatic pink dahlias from her own cutting patch. 'Place the larger flowers slightly lower down in the vase, so that they've got enough room to show off,' she says.'

Rachel then repeats the process, with soft purple scabious, and delicate white dog roses, placing each dominant bloom in it's own bud vase, and trimming the stems so that the flower heads sit just proud of the rim.

2. Add height

Next, Rachel starts to build height with vibrant green alchemilla mollis. 'It self-seeds so this grows all over my garden,' Rachel says. She trims the stems a little longer than the others, so that they higher than other flowers in the vases.

She also adds some stems of blossomy white meadowsweet. 'This also grows everywhere, really wild, in my garden,' says Rachel, 'but when it flowers it looks super pretty.' She places the stems slightly higher up in the arrangement to add texture and draw the eye upwards.

3. Consider scent

'The thing about garden flowers is that you always get scent,' says Rachel. 'So as soon as you've arranged these and brought them inside, they're going to make your table smell beautiful.'

Opt for flowers like lavender, wild dog roses and sweet peas to add an extra dimension to your display through fragrance.

4. Give each flower space

'Then we've got some lovely nigella, which is just starting to come up in my cutting patch,' continues Rachel. She removes the lower leaves to keep them out of the water, which will cause them to rot and reduce the lifespan of your flowers.

'By giving them a bit of extra space, you are just giving every single flower the chance to show off a little bit,' She adds.

5. Add the finishing touches

Next Rachel adds some purple toadflax and takes a wild vibrant pink dog rose, which she cuts really low so that it fills out almost the entire opening of the vase. Finally, she delicately places some stems of lavender amongst the other flowers.

'You can put more than one stem in a vase, and if I do that, I tend to make one slightly taller than the other,' she adds. 'It's a really elegant and beautiful way to bring a little bit of your garden inside.'

If you're looking for wildflower garden ideas or best cutting garden flowers to grow, you'll find plenty of brilliant advice and inspiration in our Gardens section.

Shop the prettiest bud vases for your arrangements

I tend to think window boxes are somewhat underrated when it comes to planting options around your home – and especially as a solution to a shaded area. They are too often ignored, left to dry out and wilt, or simply contain the wrong combinations of plants, meaning they end up looking lacklustre, dated or neglected.

But this doesn't have to be the case. With the right container plants for shade in a stylish container, you can brighten up even the darkest of ledges or patio corners in your yard with a window box design – and (dare I say it) there needn't be a petunia in sight.

In the latest episode of Homes & Gardens’ social series Petals & Roots, I demonstrate exactly how to create a window box for a shade, and give you a beautiful plant recipe to get you started. It’s such a versatile design, you could make a whole bunch to line the border of your decking or frame an outdoor seating area. Here is my step-by-step guide.

To create a window box for shade you will need:

• A container with drainage holes - this galvanized zinc planter from Walmart is similar to the one I use in my video.
• Peat free compost, such as this organic compost from Amazon.
• Stones, such as these from Walmart.
• A selection of small shade plants.
• Bark mulch, available from Amazon.

Planting a window box for shade: step-by-step

• If your chosen container doesn’t have drainage holes, the first thing to do is drill some into the base, so that your planter has adequate drainage.
• Next, place a layer of stones into the base. This will stop any compost getting clogged into the holes, but will allow water to pass through. They also help to weigh your planter down a little more, and will prevent it from tipping over in strong winds.
• Fill your container half full with compost. A peat free, multi-purpose compost is ideal for this project. And mix in some perlite, which you can find at Walmart, to add even more drainage to your soil and keep your plants happy.
• Start by adding your largest plants at the back of your container. I chose two lime marmalade heuchera plants, which I've found available online from Amazon (also known as coral bells - for extra tips we have a great guide to growing coral bells in pots).
• Next add in some trailing plants to add interest and break the line of the top of your container to create a more natural, sorter planting look. I choose three English ivy plants (Hedera helix), also on Amazon, to trail over the edges. Fill in with a bit more compost.
• To contrast with the bright green foliage, for the final planting ingredient I picked a set of bronze leaf begonias with bright white flowers. I love the shiny bronze against the lime green; it is such an elegant combination. Add three of four plants, as many as will fill your space.
• Fill any remaining gaps with compost, then place a thing layer of bark mulch on the top of the soil to lock in moisture, and stop it from drying out.
• Water in situ, otherwise it will be pretty heavy to carry to its final location, and remember to keep watering regularly, as containers will dry out even in the shade.

FAQs

Will evergreens work in a windowbox for shade?

Yes, you can add dwarf conifers, euonymus, and herbs such as sage and rosemary. And don’t worry about them getting too large, as a plant will only grow to the size of its pot, so it shouldn’t overtake your design. You can also keep pruning it back a little to make sure it holds its shape well.

When you look at all the planting options, there are lots of stylish ways to create a window box for shade. Search out shade plants you love, then look for them in interesting and tonal shades, such as terracotta, bronze, cream and forest green for fresh fall planter ideas.

In every yard, large or minute, there are always spaces we want to cover, disguise or green up fast. We don’t always have the time to wait for climbers to grow, nor have the budget to invest in established trees.

This was an issue I faced in my garden, after I cleared a large bed that was previously choked with brambles, ivy and rambling, unattractive vines. I decided to dig it all out and start again from scratch, but before I can begin planting again in the fall I wanted to find a way to cover these large fence panels I had revealed by stripping away so many old plants.

I demonstrate exactly how I resolved this issue in a recent video for Homes & Gardens' social series, Petals & Roots. In the video, which you can watch below, I take you through each step and show you just how easy it is to replicate this garden fence idea.

How to green up a bare fence fast

I decided to use a number of small, hooked planters and fill them with a variety of fresh, potted herbs to create a vertical kitchen garden.

All you need for this are hanging planters, such as these white ones from Amazon, which come in a set of 10. (Check they have drainage holes before you buy them.)

I chose to fill them with herbs, because this fence is close to my kitchen and patio, so I wanted to be able to go out there and snip from this display each day.

I chose several mint varieties including apple, Indian, and chocolate peppermint; common thyme; lemon thyme; lemon verbena; sage; rosemary, and curry plant.

You can find a wide variety of live herb plants at Walmart, and lots of herb plant and seed choices at Burpee.

After hooking them over the fence panels, simply place your small herb pots inside, and arrange in a way that looks balanced and beautiful. For instance, if I have a trailing herb in the top left corner, I'd also place one in the bottom middle to balance the design.

Top tip: To maintain this display and keep it looking fresh and healthy there are two key things you need to do.

The first is to water the herb pots daily. On very hot days I would water first thing in the morning and in the evening, too.

Secondly, keep cutting from them as much as you can. This will encourage the plants to continue putting on fresh growth, and keep them looking lush and vibrant. Plus you get a constant supply of herbal tea in the process.

How to use this idea in small gardens

These kinds of planters are really versatile, and there are lots of ways you can recreate this idea, even without a large fence panel.

You can place hanging planters over the inside of your balcony or terrace. You could even get hold of a wooden pallet, stand this up on its end and use it to hook planters into.

I would opt to mount a pallet onto a wall if possible, to create interest higher up and give myself more space to grow, but you could sit it on the ground and ensure it doesn't fall by placing some heavy pots in front of it (or securing it at the back).

There are other options, too, such as stackable vertical planters like these, from Amazon, which you can attach to a fence or a wall. These are usually self watering modular systems, but you have a bit less freedom to move them if you want to change up your display.

Remember, your vertical garden can be a seasonal display that you can switch up in spring for miniature bulbs or primulas – to create your own version of an auricula theater.

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.

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