Floral Design Log: Blue & White
I was over the moon excited when Genevieve contacted me about doing the flowers for a hospital grand opening with a color scheme of light blue and white. My excitement turned to slight panic as I started thinking in detail about the color scheme. White flowers are so numerous that designing with them has its own challenges (more about that below) but blue as a natural color is tricky. You see, actual blue almost doesn't exist in nature! ( Check out this amazing short documentary by National Geographic about how animals are never actually blue: https://youtu.be/KN7krvnm2uM).)
For the hospital grand opening I suggested achieving white florals with: white roses, hydrangeas, gladiolus, and snap dragons. As I mentioned above, white can be tricky because there are so many options to choose from that your whites can start to clash. For example, the white hydrangeas, roses, gladiolus, and snap dragons I chose all had a distinctively buttery--yellow--undertone. I did this on purpose to bring warmth to the design. As a result, however, I would never add casa blanca lilies to such an arrangement or ice roses as both of those white flowers trend toward a bluer white. Whites can also trend toward brown/cocoa so be sure to check your whites against each other when designing. If you are designing for a wedding you might also want to check against the bride's dress and groom's shirt to be sure the whites you are combining go together in a way that is pleasing to the eye and the camera.
For blue flowers I used pale blue hydrangeas, blue thistle (sea holly), and light blue hybrid delphinium (pro tip: hybrid delphinium is a juicer flower, since I was using the delphinium to represent all the blue "height" within my arrangements, I needed a beefier version that the standard pale blue--also known as Juliette--delphinium.
For greenery I used mint and ivy as I wanted a more vibrant base and to pick up on the bright greens of the snap dragon and gladiolus stems. Another option (pictured here) is to use dusty miller, which offers a silvery component, echoing the blue in the delphinium and hydrangea but definitely cools the design. The arrangement pictured here also uses lysianthus in place of roses to give a slightly more wild, less structured style as opposed to white roses.
In the end I was absolutely enamored with the design as it turned out. My favorite piece was actually the super long "trough" designed for the catering table. The addition of fresh ammi from our cutting garden and a lattice design across the top of ivy brought the arrangement to another level of charm and sophistication.
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