Dahlia Care

I have a wedding to do next August with dahlias.  I knew to put the fresh cut flower stems in water that I boiled for a few minutes.  But I have just learned that if you harvest them the night before, boil and pour into a heavy vase and then put your dahlia stems (cutting off lower foliage) in the hot water, making sure they face outward so as leaves won't be damaged by steam, and then leave overnight to cool to room temperature, your flowers may last up to 5 days afterwards. Normally, you get about two days after you cut them. You can cut your stem off to any length afterwards cutting the brown area off left by the boiling water.

Remember that dahlias are heavy drinkers and if you are making your own bouquets, they need water, don't let them sit out when not in use.

Thanks to Leanne @ Floral Design Institute for her extra tidbit of info!

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Autumn Textures

Autumn with it's orange, red, and yellow colors are lovely, but they really come alive when you bring in texture.  You can do the most marvelous designs using linear grouped with texture.  Take the sunflowers tied in with curly willow and put a small jack o'lantern at its base and you evoke a feeling of a haunted landscape with all the twists and turns.  Then if you make a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, and flowers and add in curly willow evoking twisting and turning around the fruits & vegies you evoke a feeling of warmth.

I am still getting dahlias from my garden.  The textures on each color are different.  You can take a variety of different grasses clustering them together, bending them and tying or leaving them to sprawl long or short, they give dynamic accent to your arrangement.  Hydrangeas can be gotten year round.  If you take a pale green hydrangea and match it with some jade roses playing off the textures and throw in some kermit lime green mums and some bear grass you're on your way to a pleasing, calm arrangement.

So my advice is to get some large and small textural flowers, some linear foliage and flowers such as curly willow, bells of ireland,  or safari leucadendron which is a varigated stiff foliage that is just gorgeous and full of upward texture.  With all the points of design, I would have to say texture is my favorite.  I want to look at a painting and believe that I can reach out and feel the touch of texture.  It's the same with flowers.  I have always learned best by doing it myself and feeling the different layers of whatever I'm doing whether it be art, flowers, or cooking.  Texture brings things alive!

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