Your Home & Garden Style Director Catherine Wilkinson went along to The Botanist try her hand at their floristry workshop. She runs us through the inspiring experience
How to create the perfect bouquet at The Botanist’s floristry workshop
Working with Eden Kersten from The Botanist on many shoots, I’ve already picked up loads of information about flowers and plants, but I’m always eager to learn more so I signed up for one of her floral workshops.
The class started at 6.30pm and included a nice glass of bubbles (followed by another) which I happily sipped while admiring the array of flowers in her central Auckland shop. There was a long table and benches set up with floristry scissors, twine and a selection of stems and foliage. We all took our seats and listened to Eden explain the different types of foliage and flowers in front of us and how to create the gorgeous bouquet on display behind her.
At first I doubted I’d be able to make anything slightly resembling her creation, but as she explained the different stages of making the bouquet and the ‘spiralling’ technique, I felt a little better. First we separated out our stems and then started building our bouquets. We started with the foliage (some wild-looking wattle) then added woody tulip magnolia on top, stem by stem in an overlapping formation to hold the bouquet together. Next we added some rust-coloured cymbidium orchids, then creamy white roses. We finished the bouquet with handfuls of cryptandra and eriostemon.
Looking around, I saw everyone had slightly different variations of Eden’s original arrangement but they all had Eden’s signature wild and beautiful look. Once our bouquets were complete we wound twine around the stems to secure them and gave the ends a quick trim to even them up (tip: always cut on an angle), then all we had to do was place the bouquets on pre-cut paper and get wrapping.
Afterwards, we all stepped back and admired our collective handiwork and marvelled at how unique they all were, even though we’d all used the same flowers and technique. Eden explained that this is the special thing about arranging flowers – each person puts their own spin on it. I really enjoyed myself and have even talked a few girlfriends into joining me for the next one!
The Botanist offers floristry workshops at both its city works depot and Orakei Bay Village locations, visit botanist.co.nz for contact details.
Words by: Catherine Wilkinson. Photography by: Angie Humphreys.
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