Cover

Monday, May 30, 2011

365 Days of Flowers...Day 3, Clematis and Calla Lily





About 5 years ago I planted a clematis vine under my lilac bush as a companion plant.  When the lilac bush is finished flowering, these beautiful large clematis flowers appear like magic on the north side of the lilac bush.  They seem to make very happy partners in my garden.

Clematis can be used in your floral arrangements as a single flower or you can use a portion of the vine with several flowers for an English Garden look.

Today's Memorial Day inspiration comes from the vase pictured.  It was given to me by my mother-in-law years ago, and I thought it was the ugliest vase ever, so I hid it in my basement. I am guessing the vase is from the 1970's and is at least 40 years old.  Now that her health is failing, I suddenly was made aware of how beautiful the vase really was.  Today's challenge, was to take a retro vase and make something equally beautiful, but new with it.

Here are the materials I used for today's project.  The vase, clematis, day lily leaves and calla lily.  The calla are from Dill's Greenhouse, and didn't quite make it into my flower bed yet.


I placed day lily leaves in the vase and fanned them out.



The clematis is a little floppy headed, so I reinforced it with a loop of 26 ga. wire.  The loop goes over the top of the center of the clematis, down between the side petals, then wrapped around the stem on the back side of the flower.



Next I used some floral tape to conceal the wire.


I placed the clematis next.  Biggest flower on the bottom, then the medium sized one, then the smallest, in a zig-zag pattern.  The size of the clematis flowers and their bold color lend alot of visual weight to the arrangement, which makes them act as the focal area.


The clematis and lily leaves were a pretty arrangement by themselves, but I felt it could be a bit more, so I placed calla lily in a radial pattern in the vase, then folded the right side of the lily leaves into loops, (tucked them in).  On the left side I let the lily leaves stick out and trimmed them with scissors to their current length.

If you look closely, this is a study of the repetition of three's...three clematis, three calla lily, and three lily leaves on each side.  A perfect number, representing the holy trinity, and a perfect tribute to loved ones.

No comments:

Post a Comment