Flower Elegance Made Simple

Tips and tricks for buying and arranging grocery store flowers, and when to call in a professional.

Nov 13, 2023

To say I am excited to write this would be an understatement, as I love talking about flowers. This post is designed for the person who has stood in Trader Joe’s (or any grocery store,) deliberating between 2-3 types of flowers, unsure if they “go” together. We’re going to demystify that situation and arm you with the skills to confidently select your flowers and create something beautiful. We’ll also talk about other places to buy flowers, and when you should call in a professional. At the bottom of this post are links to everything I mention, as well as a few photos of what I’ve talked about.

Purchasing Flowers

For the purposes of this post, we’re going to talk about Trader Joe’s or grocery stores in general, but I encourage you to look and see if you have a flower farm, farmers market, or floral market near you. Farms and farmers markets are a great way to be sustainable and shop small, and flower markets are good for variety. Personally, I love the make your own bouquets at the farmers market during Dahlia season!

When you buy flowers, there are three things I want you to remember:

The best time to buy flowers is early in the morning.
If you’re buying roses, try to make sure they are hard and not opened (this will mean longer vase life).
If you think something is beautiful, it’s beautiful. Flowers, like art, are subjective. So if you like something - just go for it. Sometimes that means making an arrangement, and sometimes that’s just roses in a vase!

As you shop for flowers to make an arrangement, I want you to think about it like a concert, which always has three elements:

Star of the Show: This is your focal flower, your pop star on the stage, your “look at me!” flower. Think hydrangea, roses, lillies, or dahlias. Something big and bold. You want to buy one bunch of these, but if you’re making a bigger arrangement buy more.
Backup Singers: These are your accent flowers that compliment the focal flower, but don’t overshadow. The color can be the same as the focal, or a complimentary color, or completely different color! Select 1-2 of these, and buy 1-2 bunches of each. My go-to’s are ranunculus, spray roses, and alstroemeria, but there are endless possibilities here.
Support Crew: These are your greens usually, but can also include some extra fillers or fun accents! I usually like to pick 1-2 types of greens and maybe one accent piece for this element. For example, you could do two types of eucalyptus, or Israeli Ruscus as your greens. For filler, I love to use Aster. When you’re somewhere like Trader Joe’s, they actually have a buckets labeled “filler”, “greens”, and “premium greens.” Just remember, these are your support crew!

If you follow the above guidelines, you’ll end up with something beautiful!

Arranging Flowers

Prep

When you get home from the store, the first thing you want to do is get your workstation ready with:

Vessel: a vase, cereal bowl, etc.
Structure: Tape, chicken wire, or something to help give structure in the bowl (not floral foam*)
Clean Snips: Please, I beg of you, don’t use scissors; just buy flower snips.

*Floral foam is messy, horrible for the environment, and I simply don’t like it. But hey, if you have some laying around, live your life.

If you prefer to quickly cut your flowers and call it a day, that's great. However, I prefer a fresh snip and a long drink (1-2 hours) in water before arranging. This helps rehydrate them after their long journey, especially if they appear a bit drab!

Arranging

There’s lots of schools of thought here, but I am going to share my two favorite methods.

Method 1: Make a bouquet by simply gathering a flower or two in an X fashion, then turning, adding more, turning, adding more. There’s YouTube tutorials on this! Give it all a snip, and put it in the vase!

Method 2: Use a structural support such as chicken wire, tape in a checkerboard pattern, or an actual floral arranging device to guide your arrangement. I like chicken wire but I don’t like when it pokes my hands, it’s also a pain to cut without wire cutters. I much prefer using thin floral tape or a plastic support. If you use a support, tape it down using a cross pattern.

From here, you are going to need to experiment a bit, but I like to start with everything tall, because you can always take height away versus adding it. If I am using a circular vessel, I usually start with greens at 1:00, 5:00, 8:00, and 10:00 position. Then, I do a big focal flower in the middle, and slowly start adding and layering in other flowers. If you have a lazy Susan or something that spins, this is helpful here. Otherwise, just turn your vessel as you go.

I mentioned above that art is subjective, and I truly mean that. If you think the arrangement looks good and it makes you happy - then it is good. I’ve certainly made arrangements others would think are a bit full or wild, but they bring me joy and that is good enough for me!

When to Call a Professional

I am a huge fan of DIY for arrangements, but I also firmly believe that there are situations when you need to call a professional and let them do their thing. Those situations are:

Sending flowers out of town: If someone is local, sure, you can make an arrangement and drop it off. But for gifts, funerals, birthdays, etc. you’re going to want to call a local florist, or utilize an online service. My favorites are Farm Girl Flowers or Grace Rose Farm. Note: I always prefer to try and use a local floral designer first to shop small.

Sidebar: When my mother passed away, I went to our tiny hometown florist in Connecticut to explain that I needed flowers for a funeral and there would be a large influx of orders coming their way. I did not say who they were for, but as I began explaining that the flowers must be white and cannot include daisies or carnations or baby’s breath, the florist got a small smirk on her face. She held up her hand to stop me from talking and said “I know who these are for, your mother, I am so sorry for your loss. She was one of the biggest pains because of her floral preferences, but man was she classy! I’ll make sure these are perfect and nobody sends what she wouldn’t want.” It warmed my heart and gave me a good chuckle. The point of this is, when you call a local florist, they may know the person you’re talking about and be able to pick something special for them.
Weddings: This may be controversial, but hear me out. Could you *technically* do your own flowers for a wedding? Sure. However, wedding flowers are a lot; we’re talking refrigeration, special orders, specific vessels, etc. Just to put it into perspective, if a wedding is on a Saturday and you’re working with a professional floral designer, they are getting those flowers in on maybe Tuesday, processing them, arranging them, and keeping them cool until Saturday. This requires space, a special floral cooler (a regular fridge will not work because of temperature requirements and humidity), and relationships with flower markets to place specific orders. Here is an example to illustrate the importance of this:
1. You are planning a February wedding in Virginia and longing for Peonies, but they are out of season. By working with a floral designer—they can secure peonies, guarantee their freshness, and offer alternatives if needed, ensuring a stunning arrangement on the big day!
Sidebar: “But Alex, flowers are SO expensive for weddings!” I know, and the price has only gone up due to rising supply chain and labor costs. But I promise you, most floral designers are not being greedy or trying to screw you here, they are just charging what they need to to make a profit and pay their people. For context: beautiful garden roses are minimum $5-6 a stem and that is with industry pricing! But guess what? If you buy them, they’re going to smell beautiful, look beautiful, and last! If you want to know more about the wild world of flowers, read the book Flower Confidential or listen to this NPR podcast. These are both over 5 years old but drive home the point.
Other Events/Holidays: Your holiday party, baby shower, birthday dinner, etc. Again, you could probably DIY these, but hosting a party or holiday can be stressful! If you have it in your budget, I would highly consider reaching out to a local floral designer to see if they can do something for you. One I love in the D.C. area is Simply Sweet Root by Sweet Root Village.

Final Thoughts

This was long winded, but I hope you learned something! If you can, please try to support your local floral industry (farms and designers) through purchases at farmers markets, subscriptions, attending a class, referring business, and leaving positive reviews!

Links to favorite flower products:

Floral Snips
Rose Stripper (for removing thorns)
Chicken Wire (use wire cutters)
Pre-Cut Arranger
Clear Floral Tape
Gloves (good for thorns and avoiding pesticides! Always wash your hands after arranging flowers!)
Floral Wire (perfect for those temperamental ranunculus!)