An organically flowing design for all seasons.

Floral design, photos and text by Maria Yamile Bulos Flores

San José del Cabo (Los Cabos), Baja California Sur, Mexico

For this cascade bouquet, I wanted to use flowers and colors that are available in any season, and even though cascade bouquets are seen as either classic or old-fashioned, I love them. I think they are sophisticated, elegant and fun to make, and they can be either large or small.

Nowadays, you can create cascades that are organic, with a lot of movement and light curves—very different from what they were years ago. To achieve that with this bouquet, I created an armature with curly-willow branches and arranged all of the flower stems through it.

STEP BY STEP

Step 1

To create the armature, form 12 to 15 branches of fresh curly willow, each about 12 inches long, into loops, by curving the branch tips to the branch ends. Bind the branch tips and ends with paper-covered wire about 2 to 3 inches above the tips/ends so that you still have space to hold the armature.

Step 2

Arrange stems of Lepidium into the curly-willow armature, using the spiral hand-tying technique, to create the shape and size (skeleton) of the cascade bouquet. Keep the center of the armature as open as possible so that you have space in which to arrange larger-stemmed flowers.

Step 3

Arrange stems of red and green Amaranthus into the armature, following the established size and shape but also adding dimension and depth to the bouquet.

Step 4

Arrange stems of rice flower throughout the bouquet, to add texture.

Step 5

Arrange the main flowers at varying depths and lengths throughout the bouquet, maintaining the bouquet’s shape. I arranged the flowers in the following order: Lisianthus, spray garden roses, garden roses, and Ranunculus. I arranged the “chocolate” Lisianthus first because I wanted to feature them, so I clustered them throughout the bouquet, and I arranged the Ranunculus last because of their movement and light and airy nature.

Step 6

Bind the stems of the finished bouquet, at the point where they all intersect, with a binding material of your choice—rubber bands, waterproof tape, binding tape, stem wrap, paper-covered wire, chenille stems, raffia, etc. (I used rubber bands). Cover the binding material by wrapping the binding point with ribbon.

Materials

BOTANICALS

• Eustoma grandiflorum/Lisianthus russellianus ‘Rosanne 3 Brown’, double flowered (prairie gentian, bluebell gentian, tulip gentian Texas bluebell)

• Eustoma grandiflorum/Lisianthus russellianus (prairie gentian, bluebell gentian, tulip gentian Texas bluebell)

• Rosa spp. ‘Juliet’ (garden rose [David Austin Wedding Roses])

• Rosa spp. (garden spray rose)

• Ranunculus spp. Rax/Butterfly^™ series ‘Ariadne’ (butterfly buttercup, butterfly crowfoot, butterfly Ranunculus)

• Celosia argentea var. cristata ‘Spring Green’ (coxcomb, crested cockscomb, woolflower, brain Celosia)

• Lepidium campestre (pepperwort, peppergrass, field pepperweed, field cress)

• Ozothamnus diosmifolius/Helichrysum diosmifolium (rice flower, sago flower, pill flower)

• Amaranthus caudatus (love-lies-bleeding, tassel flower, foxtail amaranth)

• Salix matsudana/S. babylonica ‘Tortuosa’ (curly willow, corkscrew willow)

HARD GOODS

• Paper-covered wire

• Rubber bands (or waterproof tape, binding tape, stem wrap, chenille stems, raffia, etc.)

• Silk ribbon