Create an quick & easy floral bouquet from your garden & shrubs!

I love flowers & would love to have bouquets of flowers throughout the house all the time.  I love the look, the scent & just how it cheers up the surroundings in general.  That's all well & good, but who can afford to buy bouquets of flowers from the store regularly?

Right now I'm just starting to build up a garden of perennials that will be great for cutting & arranging into a bouquet, but it takes time.  My garden is full of a number of beautiful flowering shrubs that the previous owner planted & that are thriving still.  So I thought, until I have a bunch of flowering perennials, why not make bouquets from the shrubs?

So here's what I did in 3 easy steps that shouldn't take you longer than 10 minutes to a beautiful, professional looking bouquet!

1. Survey your yard for any flowers or flowering shrubs that are freshly flowering & that you'd like to include in your bouquet.  Pick the freshest looking stems with some unopened flowers & cut each flower in varying lengths for visual interest in the bouquet.

2. Give the flowers a good shake! Why?  Shaking the flowers gets rid of any rain, dead blooms or any bugs that you don't want to bring in the house! Take a quick look at the flowers to make sure they look ok to bring in the house.  Successful shake, ok, next step!

3. Arrange the flowers in a vase that is tall enough & large enough depending on the type, length & number of flowers you picked.  Put in the tallest flowers first, then interesting ones that may hang over, etc.  Next fill in the bouquet with the rest.  At this point, take a look at it from afar & make any changes you think are required. Vary the colours of flowers beside each other & snip off any excess leaves to make the flowers centre stage!

Now set the vase in a place you pass in your house many times a day & see how much the flowers improve your mood!  You'll be picking flowers & making bouquets regularly I'm sure!