I’ve recently discovered some online artificial flowers from Alex James that I think are beautiful and look wonderful either on their own or mixed with a fresh supermarket bunch.
I aim to have a few flowers in the hall, living room and kitchen all year around and do that by having just two or three stems in a nice old vase. You can see some of the vases here How to have cut flowers from your small garden
Newly discovered lifelike flowers
Up to now I’ve pooh poohed any kind of artificial flower or greenery. I go around fingering arrangements in public places turning my nose up when I find a plastic leaf or a silk orchid. Too many dirty dusty plastic flowers in the 1970s had made me rather snooty. I doubt I’m the only one.
Lately though the artificial flowers on offer have transformed my opinion of them.
Here is my first attempt at arranging Alex’s flowers
Clematis, anemone, peony, hellebore, roses and eucalyptus in an old vase
You can compare the two below…..
An artificial rose
A real rose from the garden
My current experiments with artificial flowers
Here’s a vase of a mixture of Alex’s flowers
All artificial flowers in a Victorian jug
and here’s a vase with a few alstroemeria in water with added artificial clematis, soft peach rudbeckia, anemone and hellebores.
Victorian cranberry vase and mixed flowers
Here are a few supermarket roses mixed in with artificial nigella, lisianthus, astrantia and cosmos.
I particularly like the Aged Pink Garden Rose
Aged pink garden rose
I I had something that lovely growing in the garden I couldn’t bring myself to cut it, but now I can grow roses and cut the odd one or two
AND have big blowsy ones for bigger vases.
I’m wondering what other people’s thoughts and opinions are about artificial flowers – I’d love to hear.
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Best wishes to all,
Julie
