Golden Globe

Elton John, a British pop idol, is famed for exorbitant and lavish fashion and style, as well as his music.  In addition to his extravagant taste in clothing, furniture, and cars, John is reported as having spent over £290,000 in one year on floral arrangements around both his home in Windsor and his Holland Park home.   “Yes, I like flowers”, was his response when questioned. 

Elton John is lucky enough (and rich enough) to have his floral creations cater to his specific preferences not simply with respect to flower choice, but colour and presentation as well.  Fresh floral displays are created each week, in nearly every room in his home and throughout his garden.  Seasonal changes are also considered when his arrangements are designed. 

However, regardless of whether a person has $50 or $50,000, a passion for flowers will inevitably find their way into said person’s life.  Both formal and informal flower arrangements can be worked on together with your florist, particularly if you bring along a few basic tips.

Formal or Informal?

Deciding what style best suits your specific room or décor is a good place to start.  A more formal style tends to keep arrangements simpler – little colour variation, fewer fillers, and modest vases.  Informal arrangements are the exact opposite – colourful, a-symmetrical, and unique and eye-catching containers.  Colour will be easier to gauge once you’ve selected what style.

Colour

Colour tends to reflect your style choice.  Formal arrangements are noted for displaying one colour.  This includes creating an arrangement with varying shades of the same colour.  For example, flowers that are dark purple combined with flowers that carry a lighter shade of purple.  Informal creations could display flowers from opposite colour schemes like blue with orange or green with purple.  Related colour schemes are also a pretty combination such as orange with yellow or blue with purple. 

Symmetry and Shape

We tend to immediately categorize balanced and symmetrical floral designs as formal.  For instance, white carnations packed tightly into a vase with a round shape and little else protruding, appears more balanced and formal.  Flowers that are a myriad of colours, shapes and sizes, some tall, some shorter with the addition of different fillers and leaves hanging loosely over the vase, carries an air of casualty.  Depending on what you’re looking for, choosing the flowers can be simple, or an engaging event with your florist.

Vases

A fun or sophisticated container doesn’t necessarily have to be a crystal vase.  Tin watering cans, baskets or a lovely ceramic water pitcher can both ensure charm and elegance.  A more formal arrangement looks for a vase with symmetry and class to balance the overall statement it makes.  Whereas, with an informal arrangement, containers are intended to be fun or uneven, it being more important that the flowers themselves are first spotted. 

Flowers

Working with your florist, and having an idea of what you want your design to look like, will draw your attention to the right flowers.  Focal flowers and intermediate flowers provide the emphasis on both the style and colour scheme.  Focal flowers are taller and more central, whereas the intermediate flowers are shorter and maintain the colour scheme chosen.  Filler flowers and filler plants are added to do just that – fill.  These flowers remove any gaps, and hide unattractive stems.  Filler plants provide green foliage that hangs softly over the edges of the container.

In the end, when all is chosen and brought together in an unusual presentation, the flowers produce a warm, colourful and feel-good atmosphere, sure to brighten up any home or garden.  We may not have the ability to spend as much as Elton John does on flowers, but that doesn’t mean that we still can’t have the most fabulous and pleasantly unusual spectacle of floral artistry.