The extraordinary sky blue spires of Delphinium demand to be included amongst my absolute favourite blooms - I find few things to be more glorious than an armful of these spectacular stems. Like all flowers they thrive best when arranged directly into water, as opposed to floral foam of any kind, however the very heft of these blooms, combined with their hollow stems, can make them a challenge for even the most ambitious of flower lovers. In today’s How I Made It, I wanted to share one of my favourite sustainable floral design techniques for arranging these lance like blooms into almost any vase of your choosing - the Bamboo Hives - a technique included within my new Sustainable Floral Design Techniques e-books.

In this excerpt from my new release, we’ll explore afresh this handy little technique which uses a small amount of affordable materials - and it’s exactly this kind of work that we’ll be diving into within my new floral membership - Flower Class. Launching February 1st 2021, Flower Class is our new educational membership for flower lovers who seek a creative, positive floral community whom wish to build out a robust toolkit of sustainable floral design techniques, develop their understanding of floral theory (the why, behind the how) and how to find new ways to add value to our craft, and to our businesses. We’ve been developing Flower Class for quite some time now, and trust me, it’s going to be an awful lot of fun. If I’ve piqued your interest, you can sample just a little of what we have in store by joining us for our free Flower Class Sessions series, launching January 14th. The Flower Class sessions featuring three free classes, plus an exclusive webinar, it’s my hope that they’ll be of real value to you.

A side note before we dive into this article - please know that this How I Made It article features gifted product - the wonderful stems of Delphinium, grown by the wonderful Marginpar. If you haven’t worked with their Delphinium before, you are in for a real treat! For further information, be sure to check out the Marginpar range of blooms right here.

Let’s dive in!

Flowers : 

25 x DELPHINIUM ‘GUARDIAN LAVENDER’ - by marginpar

25 x DELPHINIUM ‘VOLKERFRIEDEN’ - by marginpar

Sundries: 

1 X CLEAR GLASS VASE

Paper covered wire

Bamboo slices

1 - To begin, take a handful of bamboo slices and some paper covered wire. Cut several lengths of paper covered wire from the roll, each approximately 15cm long. Select two bamboo slices to start - it’s time to create our structure!

2 - Fold a single piece of paper covered wire in half, and then thread each ends of the wire through a separate bamboo ring, and pull tightly to fix both slices next to each other snugly.

3 - Twist both ends of the wire together tightly, to create a neat, tight binding. Trim the excess wire off, just below the twists, and fold the resulting paper covered wire flat. Repeat the process again, with a third bamboo slice.

4 - Repeat the process several more times, building your structure slice by slice. If possible, always try to ensure that each bamboo slice is secured onto two other bamboo slices - doing so will result in a structure that is both strong and sturdy.

5 - As you continue to build the structure, bear in mind the size of the neck of the vase that you have in mind for this project. Ideally your bamboo collar should exceed the size of the neck of the vase by an inch or two, with the vase neck providing a lip for the structure to sit atop.

6 - Place the structure atop your selected vase, and fill said vase with fresh water.

7 - Take a handful of Delphinium stems and remove all foliage from their stems. Trim each stem on a 45 degree angle to aid water uptake, and begin to thread the stems through the holes in the bamboo, inserting the stems until they hit the water. You’ll find that every Delphinium stem will neatly fit through the bamboo structure, finding stability and security when placed within bamboo hive.

8 - If at first your stems feel a little wobbly within the structure, do persevere and add in several more stems - you’ll find that as you add more stems through the bamboo structure it will feel more and more stable - trust in the process!

9 - Continue to add further stems into your vase(s), aiming for an even distribution of blue tones throughout the vases. Add in more Delphinium until you are happy with both the fullness, and size of your vases. Top up the water as needed, and enjoy.

If you’ve enjoyed this How I Made It, be sure to check out my brand new e-book collection - Sustainable Floral Design Techniques Parts 1 & 2, featuring over 250 pages of foam free techniques in high resolution photography. Within the e-books we cover bouquets, arrangements, sympathy, centrepieces, arches, urns, installations and more.

Have a wonderful week,

- Joseph

Ps - if you enjoy our new feature, why not sign up to our future Resources below - you’ll be the first to hear all about our future Resources, and as a thank you, we’ve created an exclusive Resource - The Flower Care Guide - packed with my top care and conditioning information, waiting for you too!