A beautiful bouquet can light up any room, celebrate any occasion and bring a smile to anyone’s face.
Flowers are the perfect gift idea for almost any occasion – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, anniversaries, birthdays, or just because.
Building a bouquet yourself will give you a new outlet of creative expression, and a bouquet is an even more personal gift when you make it yourself!
CAE’s floristry expert Jane is sharing her expertise on how to build the perfect bouquet for any season. She has broken the art into three key phases: choosing your colours, understanding flower types and building your bouquet.
Choosing your colours
Your colour choice is the most important part of building your bouquet.
While learning colour theory can teach you a lot about creating a bouquet, it’s best to keep things less scientific and trust your own eye.
Choose a focal flower you love
It may sound simple, but the first step to creating the perfect bouquet is choosing a flower that you (or your recipient) love, preferably a flower with multiple shades of colour – think tulips, orchids and lilies.
Analyse your flower’s colour composition
The colour of the focal flower you choose will act as your compass as you explore other flowers to add.
The colour palette of your focal flower will guide you on your choice of secondary flowers.
Understand complementary colours
Did you know that pastels and bright colours complement each other? Choosing flowers that complement one another will help balance your bouquet.
If you’re building a bright bouquet, add some subtle pastel tones to soften it.
If you’re building a bouquet that’s focused on pastel tones, some bright flowers will make it more vibrant.
Understanding flower types
With so many sizes, shapes, and textures, there’s a lot of different components of a flower to consider when building your bouquet.
Understanding a range of flower types is key to creating a bouquet that is both visually appealing and meaningful, as each flower offers a unique look, set of colours, and symbolism.
Knowing the three main categories of flowers used in floral arrangements will make your decision much easier.
Flower categories
Mass flowers: Also known as focal flowers, these are large, prominent blooms, often round or uniquely shaped. They add weight and visual emphasis to your bouquet. Examples: oriental lily, gerbera, disbud mum, protea, banksia, calla lily.
Secondary flowers: Smaller and more ordinary looking blooms which form the largest part of a bouquet. They create a backdrop that highlights the focal flowers. Examples: rose, carnation, Lisianthus, chrysanthemum, Leucadendron.
Filler flowers: Made from clusters of tiny flowers, these stems are used to fill-in gaps and give your bouquet a soft, but full appearance. Examples: baby’s breath, statice, misty, wax flower, rice flower.
Winning combinations
A well-balanced bouquet incorporates all three flower categories for a rich look. A helpful formula to start with is: 1 type of mass flower + 3-4 types of secondary flowers + 1-2 types of filler flowers.
Variety
Include flowers with different shapes and textures, especially when working with a simple colour palette.
Don’t forget foliage
Foliage plays an important role in bouquets. It helps spread out flowers, make larger and fuller bouquets and protects the bouquet when placed around the perimeter.
Building your bouquet
Once you’ve chosen your flowers, it’s time to assemble them. Here’s how to create a classic round bouquet.
Three layers of composition
Design your bouquet in three layers to achieve a vibrant, eye-catching effect.
Centre layer: Use a dense cluster of mass flowers paired with some secondary flowers for emphasis.
Peripheral layer: Arrange filler flowers and foliage more loosely around the edges to give the bouquet a fuller appearance.
Middle layer: Incorporate predominantly secondary flowers with a few filler flowers, spaced more sparsely than in the center, to create a smooth transition between the core and the edges.
Focal point
The focal point of the bouquet is in the centre layer. It is the centrepiece that your eyes are immediately drawn to.
You can create a focal point by using one standout mass flower, or by grouping a few (usually three) secondary flowers to form a focal area:
Triangular placement
Arrange each type of flower, or flowers of the same colour in a triangular pattern to distribute them evenly throughout the bouquet, ensuring a balanced bouquet.
Understanding the art of flower arrangement is a skill you can practise again and again, for many different occasions. Not only is it a perfect gift idea, it’s fun and relaxing for you to create! The more bouquets you build, the better you will get, and you’ll find yourself experimenting more each time as your knowledge grows.
Now it’s time to pick your flowers, grab your scissors and get started on your bouquet! If you’ve enjoyed learning about the foundations of flower arranging, you’ll love practising your skills and mastering more techniques in our floristry short courses, held in our purpose-built floristry classrooms in Box Hill.