[An Inch Deep] Floristry

When I was in high school, I took a half-day floristry workshop. Much of it was common sense, but truth be told, I'm often lacking that. :) There isn't a whole lot that I remember from it, but there were a few bits I was reminded of when I brought some extra angiosperms home from lab this week. They are so pretty! And also, free!

• Always pull all the leaves off that will be below the water line.
• When you get your flowers home, submerge the stems in water and cut the ends off at an oblique angle. This pulls more water up into the stem (too long without and you have less cohesion pulling the water up the plant). The angle preserves the structural integrity of the vessels.
  
• If the water gets cloudy, dump it all out and put in fresh.
• Decide if your arrangement should have a front and back, or should be designed to be viewed from all around.
  
• Start with your tallest flowers and arrange the shorter ones around them.
• Clip off any dead flowers or dead ends (where a flower probably dropped off) so that resources aren't wasted on that part of the plant.
• Any gaps in the arrangement are best filled by pulling the leaves from nearby stems to cover.

We also went over some bundling, tying, etc, but that is probably less useful.