5 Components of English Garden Flower Arrangements

English Garden Style Arrangement For Searcy AR Wedding

History: English-garden designs are inspired by early English gardens which people had at their homes to produce vegetables, flowers, herbs and fruit trees. These items were grown for their fragrance, cosmetic and/or medicinal purposes.

English gardens went by many names at the time including “kitchen gardens,” “cottage gardens,” and “cuttings gardens.” Among those credited with developing the modern English garden floral style are Constance Spry, Julia Clements, and Gertrude Jekyll.

Style: Loosely structured oval or round arrangements of a variety of garden flowers (or flowers that can be easily grown in a garden). No particular style (form, filler, line, mass) of bloom is used. No particular amount is selected. This style is based on the availability of flowers grown in a home’s garden and therefore represent a less defined but very “full” look.

Flowers Used: Popular flowers in modern English Garden style designs are spike flowers including larkspur, delphinium, foxglove, hollyhock, and snapdragon. Popular mass flowers used include tulips, snowballs, marigolds, sweet peas, geraniums, stock, aster, daisies, lilies, poppies, cornflowers, all kinds of roses and carnations, lavendar, dahlias, ranunculus, anemones, and agapanthus.

All flowers used must bloom in the same season. Compatibility of the flowers is very important as this style reflects what home gardens would have had at a particular time, far before worldwide delivery was readily available.

The use of fragrant flowers and herbs is appropriate.

Basic Characteristics: Features more foliage than many other styles. The use of evergreens and woody-stemmed, leafy foliage is popular. Examples of these are Euonymus, Pittosporum, Camellia, huckleberry, boxwood and blackberry.) Weeping or trailing ivies or materials are popular with this style. Plumed grasses are appropriate as well.

Full, large arrangements that are usually round or oval. They are characterized mostly by their use of a wide variety of flowers and keen use of foliage.

Usually seen in bright, complementary colors. However, monochromatic or analogous color harmonies have become appropriate choices for modern renditions of this style.

Containers Used: While vases are often used in English Garden styles, most floral arrangements in this style are featured in an urn or similar container with durability, strength and a unique appearance.