English Country Garden Basket

With the onset of Spring, I really wanted to show you how to do my favorite floral arrangement.  For those of you who want to take on a more challenging floral project, this a fun, and beautiful arrangement.  It gives the illusion that you've brought flowers in from the garden. The water source is hidden under the flowers, but I promise, there is a water source :)

The flowers used for this arrangement

1 Dozen Roses 

1 Bunch Lavender Stock (fragrant) 

1 Bunch Stargazer Lilies (very fragrant) 

1/3 Bunch lavender Misty filler

1/3 Bunch dyed blue Misty filler 

3 Curly Willow Branches

Needed for this arrangement

One Med-large low basket (or trug) with handle

Scissors or shears

1 brick of floral oasis (for fresh flowers)

Fine gauge floral wire

Ribbon for bow

 8-10 inch Plastic tray (the kind that are used under planters )

We're going to start with a low basket (think of a basket you would use to gather flowers with). There is a plastic tray under the wet floral brick. These are the plastic trays you buy to put under flower pots. Soak your floral oasis brick until it is completely wet.

Here is a close up of the basket, tray, and wet floral oasis

Cut the  roses at an angle (just before placing it into the oasis, do not do this ahead of time), you are going to be cutting these in graduated lengths up the stem, so the roses will graduate up the basket.

Place the heads of the roses in the one end of the oasis brick graduating the placement. Place the stems of the roses in the other end, this will give your flowers a water source but when we're done no one will see the water source and it will give the illusion that the flowers are just laying in the basket

Place the blue misty filler in between the roses, the blue color will frame the roses and make the color pop.

Next we're going to place the stargazer lilies over the center of the oasis brick. These flowers are so stunning and to make them even better, they're very fragrant.  I've cut the stems of the Stargazers so that the stems are about 4-6 inches long.  At least one inch will go into the oasis, so these will be sitting rather close to the oasis.

Next we will be putting the lavender stock ( stock has a fragrance like sweet clover) and lavender misty filler into the stem end of the oasis.  This should completely disguise the oasis brick and still show the rose stems sticking out. You will need to use some of the filler between the lilies if any of the oasis is showing.

The last thing we need to do is take three branches of curly willow and place one end of the branches into the oasis just inside one side the handle.  Drape the curly willow over the handle and use thin floral wire to attach it to the other side of the handle.  Then make a bow and cover the wire with the ribbon.

Here is your final arrangement.  I  just love doing this arrangement, and I never tire of looking at the many variations of it :) For Halloween, I used orange roses, and black polka dot ribbon.  So I hope you enjoy making this, fragrant basket. It will make even the rainiest Spring Day, seem like a walk in the garden. Happy Spring :))