Bring Some Spring Green Indoors

Bring some spring cheer indoors

Green is my favorite color! Green for the Earth, Green for growth and especially Green for spring! I love to watch the new foliage come out in shades of chartreuse and then harden out to emerald, evergreen and blue green.

I love to bring a little of that spring green indoors too! Today I'm gathering foliage with different shades of  green throughout the yard to make a nice little arrangement. I know most bouquets are full of brightly colored flowers with very little foliage, but it doesn't have to be flowers to be beautiful!  I don't have much in bloom right now, but I do have a lot of green going on in the garden.

To create a spring green bouquet, look for interesting textures, different glosses and shades of green.  Include some branches in bud and others with fully opened leaves and choose leaves of varying sizes and even some twiggy dead wood.

Grab a vase, jar or other interesting vessel and starting with the largest leaved branches begin filling.  These larger leaves will help form a sort of foundation from which to build. Then begin layer in your branches working from the largest leaves to the smallest.

A rule of thumb for floral arrangement is to work in odd numbers to create an appealing arrangement. However, this is a creative endeavor, so do what looks good to your own eye. You may want to clump 1 type of foliage together and use another type to spread throughout the arrangement. Also, think about creating different heights within the arrangement and step back from time to time to view it from a different perspective. 

I used Salaal as my base in this arrangement. The larger thick leaves of this native plant form a network of support to place my other leaves. Next I added the dead wood and then began layering in the other leaves from there to create a full lush arrangement.

The plants I used were Salaal, Oregon Grape, Sea Breeze branches,
Thimble Berry, Huckleberry, Butterfly Bush and Maple.
You can use whatever foliage catches your eye.

I did another arrangement using my houseplant cuttings.  It came out really beautiful and is a nice addition to the living room for color while these cuttings get new roots. 

A spring chore of taking new cuttings from my
houseplants became this pretty arrangement.

When the roots are developed, I will break this down and use these propagated starts to make new houseplants for myself, others for gifts and still others to maybe sell at the local farmers market this summer.

So as you can see, you don't have to have the bright colored flowers of summer to create beautiful bouquets. Use whatever is on hand and in season. The only limit is your own imagination.