Flower Arranging Instructions - Helpful Tips, Tricks and More!

One of the most important things that will guide your flower arrangements is your understanding of these 3 main types of flowers and how they fit into your arrangement.

1. Focal Flowers

2. Mass Flowers

3. Filler Flowers

Focal Flowers, also known as Line Flowers, are tall and add height and width to your arrangement. Most focal flowers will have buds and/or flowers growing up a center stalk. Some examples of flowers that work well as line flowers include Delphiniums, Snapdragons, Bells of Ireland, Gladiolus, and Liatris. You can also use branches like willows as focal flowers.

Mass Flowers, or Intermediate Flowers, are what give your flower arrangement it's mass (makes sense!). You'll begin your arrangement with these flowers and fit the other 2 types in around them. Mass flowers are usually the focal point of the bouquet and will always incorporate the main colors of your arrangement. Some flowers commonly used as mass flowers in flower arrangements include Gerber Daisies, Roses, Carnations, Tulips, Iris, Lilies, and Daffodils.

Filler Flowers are just this, flowers and/or greenery that fill in the spaces left by the Line and Mass flowers. Filler flowers also help to round out your arrangement and give it fullness. These flowers are often stems with a lot of little flowers, like Baby's Breath, Queen Ann's Lace, or Heather, as well as greenery and foliage.

Note: While this arrangement in the photo here is very elaborate, it very clearly incorporates each of these 3 types of flowers.

Choosing between all of the many beautiful flowers can be hard sometimes; they're all just so lovely! This is why you'll need to allow your intended color scheme, your design ideas for your arrangement ( do you want it to be small or large, formal or informal), as well as the 3 main types of flowers to guide you.

Thinking about these other factors will help you make your decision as well.

~ What flowers can you find in your garden (or are made available to you from someone else's garden!).

~ The size and style of the container you've selected.

~ Your favorite flowers - or those of the individual you're creating the arrangement or bouquet for.

~ The flower's meaning/symbolism.

~ And, unfortunately, your budget.

Here's a special tip: You'll likely find you can afford more flowers when you order online from a shop like ProFlowers.com or FTD. Most people think these stores only send pre-arranged flowers but, you'll find there is also the option of purchasing single kinds of flowers here too and, you don't have to buy them with a vase or container either.
The real bonus though, is that sites like these often have pretty affordable flowers, it's easy to find the flowers you want, and, you can make use of money saving proflowers coupons.

Arranging flowers is a really creative process. It's fun, and allows you to play with the color, size and the overall look of your arrangement. As you work, one of your main goals is to maintain the balance within your flower arrangement.

What does this mean? Essentially, the balance of your flower arrangement will be maintained when you try your best to make sure that no one flower, color, shape, etc takes over the bouquet.

Be careful though, This doesn't refer to balance in number, it's more about balance in appearance. For example, dark colors appear "heavier" to the eye and demand more focus than lighter colors, and the same is true for large vs small flowers.

As a result, you'll want to plan for using more lighter and more smaller flowers (depending on your flower selection) to achieve a balanced looking arrangement and fewer darker and larger/taller flowers.

Take a look at the flower arrangement in the photo, you can see how the colors are balanced between the larger (although lighter) pink flowers and the smaller darker flowers.