Blooming Beautiful Flowers with M&S

Who can resist an evening of Prosecco, good company and masses of beautiful blooms? Not to mention some sound advice on looking after your cut flowers and a masterclass in how to arrange them? Not me, that’s for sure. Which is why I found myself one sunny, summers evening last month attending the M & S Flower Arranging Workshop with a chatty group of other flower fiends.

Colourful Tablescapes

The workshop was led by M&S Product Manager and flower expert, Simon Richards who shared with us his tips and tricks, before letting us loose on the most colourful selection of summer flowers I’ve ever seen. First we created our own summer dining arrangements, which was our chance to be as creative as we liked with flower heads, leaves, petals, and a selection of vivid tableware.

Hand Tied Roses

Next, and this is where it got more technical, we were invited to try our hand at a hand tied bouquet of gorgeous roses. With varying results I might add. But not too bad in the end.

So what did we learn about looking after our flowers at home?

1.Do use the little sachets of flower food. They really will prolong the life of your flowers.

2.Cut the bottoms of the stems at an angle. This will increase the uptake of water.

3.Remove all leaves and thorns below the water line as this will introduce bacteria into the water and shorten the life of the flowers.

4.Don’t stand the flowers in direct sunlight. This will also shorten the life of the flowers.

5.If your flowers do wilt prematurely, try immersing them in water up to the flower head for several hours. It just might do the trick at reviving them.

With all this new found knowledge we then gathered up armfuls of blooming beautiful flowers and headed off home to put our skills into practice.

Roses in the Hall

And what better way to spend a day than arranging flowers all over the house. Putting into practice everything we’d learnt and creating little pockets of loveliness in every single room. To be enjoyed for days and days to come.

Gerberas in the Living Room

Roses on the Dressing Table

If you would like to see step-by-step instructions on creating the hand-tied bouquet and how to re-create the table display, visit M&S.

You can see more images from all of the participants on the M&S Pinterest board.

This post was written in collaboration with M&S as part of their ‘Flower Design with M&S’ campaign. All photography is my own.

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