ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) — Fresh flowers make everything better look better, smell better, and even feel better! Lucky for us Lydia Matyas from Mountain Petals Flower Company is giving us All the Dirt on how to make the perfect flower bouquet.
“There is actually a lot more math than you would imagine when it comes to flower arranging, and it’s because it has to do with symmetry,” said Matyas. There are generally 5 elements in a market bouquet. “You have your focal flowers, your spike, your filler flowers, your discs, and your greenery.”
Examples of focal flowers include Zinnias, Sunflowers, and Dahlias. “Just a big flower that draws a lot of attention,” she said.
A spike brings height to the bouquet. Matyas says she primarily uses amaranth but other examples include tansy and celosia. An example of a filler flower would be Baby’s Breath, which is commonly used. Yarrow is another example.
“It’s something that brings texture and fills space in the bouquet,” said Matyas.
Discs add an accent to your bouquet, and can often serve as the accent color. “A good example of a disc would be cosmos,” added Matyas. “Also small zinnias and strawflower. “
And finally, a good greenery would be Basil. “I have used this almost exclusively this year. This variety is nice because if you let it go longer, it has purple seed pods that add nice texture and an accent color,” explained Matyas.
She also suggests using mint. Matyas says greenery provides bulk and background for your bouquet. Stem counts in a bouquet are also important. She says this is because it affects the symmetry of the bouquet.
“Stem counts in arrangements tend to work in odd numbers; primarily threes and fives,” said Matyas. “If there were four spikes here instead of three, it would make the bouquet seem very unbalanced and look as if something was missing.”
Matyas says stem counts are also important because it prevents you from getting carried away and adding too many flowers to a bouquet.
“My general formula for a standard bouquet would be three focal flowers, three spikes, three filler flowers, five discs, and five greenery,” she explains, “If you want to make a larger bouquet like this, you could use five or seven focal flowers, depending on the size, three spikes, three or five filler flowers, seven discs, and seven greenery.”
Matyas’ flowers are all organically grown on her family’s farm in Sinking Creek Valley. “We offer weekly subscriptions,” said Matyas. “At this point, there are only five weeks left in the season, depending on frost, but you can jump in and sign up for the weeks that are left.”
Here’s how it works. You pay for a subscription and then meet her weekly or every other week, (per your subscription) at a set drop location to pick up your bouquet.
You can contact Lydia via Mountain Petals Flowers Company’s Facebook page or e-mail her at Mountainpetalsflowersco@gmail.com.
