Rather than being a cut flower person, I much prefer indoor plants or good quality silk flowers.
Have you seen the fabulous array (and
sometimes also fabulous price tag) of silk flowers these days? There is a florist at a garden centre in a
ritzy area in my city and their silk flower selection is glorious. Until you get right up close (and even then)
you don’t realise they aren’t a display of real florist blooms.
I treated myself to a $20 bouquet there a
few months ago and I still love it. It
reminds me a little of my wedding posy, but most of all it’s the antiquey saturated
colours and naturalness of it that appeals to me. Whilst also being easy-care and long-lasting
of course.
The florist told me the best way to look after silk flowers was to dust them regularly with a cool hairdryer. I like to wash mine too – run warm water
in the kitchen sink, add a tiny dash of dishwashing liquid and swirl around
holding by the stems. Then flick the
water off gently and lay the flowers to dry on a tea-towel.
I have a white bouquet also that I bought
from Crabtree & Evelyn a while back and I like to move them around every so
often, so the eye does not get used to them.
I know lots of people don’t like faux
flowers, but I do and I enjoy them much more than cut flowers that start
deteriorating within a few days. I don’t
find that luxurious at all! But that’s
what makes this a wonderful world, how we all appreciate different things as I
know my mother would rather die than have faux flowers in the house.
What about you, what’s your preference,
faux or real?
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| My bridal bouquet, six years ago |
As much as I love flowers, the real kind give me hay fever and usually end up in the laundry sink so I'm with you on faux.
ReplyDeleteGiven my circumstances (with which I am content), faux is favored in our house also :)
ReplyDeleteI'm a real flowers girl. There is always something in the garden to pop in a vase even if it's foliage or herbs. I like the sort of thing Anna does such as here http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/milk-glass-multiples.html
ReplyDeleteWhat timing on this! I adore cut flowers but I get sad when they start drooping and dying. I was trying to buy a roses bouquet every week when I went to Aldis for groceries (only $3.99) but the last few I have bought never opened. One particular bouquet had a nice shot of hot pink/fuschia in it and I loved the look of it in my living room. So I decided to find a silk arrangement with those colors. I got a beautiful silk peony bouquet and I LOVE it. If you are ever looking for great silk flowers plants, I can highly recommend http://officescapesdirect.com (not sure where they will ship to). I learned of them when I was working for a doctor's office and when we built our new building they bought silk plants and flowers from this company. They looked amazingly real! I have bought them as gifts for family and they are always impressed and appreciative.
ReplyDeleteMy wedding bouquet is preserved in a shadow box with a few wedding mementos and a photo--it was a gift from friends. I love it! 20 years old next month!!
Dear Fiona, I've transitioned to faux plants in the house and I enjoy them just as much as real. I just got so tired of having to replace them whenever they died. I also didn't like spending the money each time, especially with the trees like ficus' we had - they are not cheap! The fact that we no longer have to worry about overwatering them and spillage is nice too, it was a real problem when there is carpeting.
ReplyDeleteFresh cut flowers in our home is okay once in a while, but our daughter is allergic to the pollen of many.
I love the antiqued look of both your vase of flowers and your bridal bouquet, they're beautiful.
I have to agree with your mom, I love the real flowers. Your faux are beautiful, and I understand your reasons, but I just love the real thing. If I can't find/afford fresh at the market, I can usually find something in our yard or small container garden. And you're right, small touches of beauty are so important.
ReplyDeleteFaux is best for me,
ReplyDeleteI've always loved fresh flowers but my budget cannot cope with as many floral displays as I'd like - I can only manage one decent coffee table bunch a week, and maybe borrow a few flowers from it for a smaller vase elsewhere. But then there's all the work of arranging them and changing the water every other day and removing blooms as they die, and in most cases the vase starts looking sad and messy within a week, and it's time to turn around and start all over again.
ReplyDeleteSo I've been looking for an alternative to cut flowers. I recently invested in some pretty cache pots, and I'm currently using them for pots of colour from the nursery; cyclamens, kalanchoes, anthuriums etc. I also recently bought two orchids (already potted up in elegant glass bowls) which cost about as much as I would normally spend on two weeks worth of flowers, and they lasted almost a month - they looked fabulous for fully three weeks and into the fourth and then one lost its flowers all in a rush! I've put them outdoors and am keeping them watered in the hope they'll bloom again.
I don't know that I could make the change to silk flowers, although I certainly would appreciate the ease and practicality of them. But anyway it's fun to experiment and find what works best for you!
i'm a real flower person only b/c i have a pretty large garden and it's so easy to find something blooming for inside. i do have a couple of faux or freeze dried topiaries that i love though.
ReplyDeletecatching up on your posts here and thanks for the mention in your project 333 post. i'm so glad i took that plunge. it really has kept me in check over these past few years and it seems my wardrobe just gets better and better. for me it really helped me define my style. xo
I think I would prefer live flowers. I sometimes pick up an inexpensive bouquet at the grocery store.
ReplyDeleteI adore flowers and would love to have a cutting garden like my grandmother. She only needed to go outside to pick a bouquet. I feel guilty spending money on flowers but do from time to time. Unfortunately, our cat destroys all blooms except for orchids. So every three or four months, I buy a beautiful bright pink orchid for my dining room table. I pop three ice cubes on top of it every Sunday and it feeds my needs for flowers for many months.
ReplyDeleteLove your series Fiona...printing them off and reading at work with my tea. Bliss!
Donna
Love this post Fiona; your bouquet for $20 is just beautiful. I like both real and silks. I sometimes take an inexpensive real grocery store bouquet and put it in several vases around the house to make it go further and enjoy it in every room. That's nothing new, I realize as many people I know do this. On my tiny terrace, all those colorful flowers hanging from my terrace balcony are silk from Michaels Crafts when they have sales because I don't want to deal with the maintenance of real flowers and dirt etc. on my tiny terrace. In the past we have had yards with flowers and a cute cottage with a potted garden of florals but I found it too much maintenance for my taste. The other way I get my flower fix is my hubby and I have always attended annual garden walks wherever we have lived to enjoy someone else's flower efforts. We also attend home and garden shows sometimes too. And we decorate with floral art in our home to because we both like floral art/botanicals.
ReplyDelete