We might be inviting fewer people to our home this holiday season, but we still can indulge in creating a festive look with plants and floral arrangements. They are surprisingly easier and more affordable than you think. One of Singapore’s freshest, most progressive florists, This Humid House, imparts their evergreen wisdom.
Keep it simple! Stick to two to three colours. Pay attention to the space, lighting, and mood you have in mind. For a festive arrangement, go local and use hardy materials that will last the season,
Fallen branches, giant cinnamon sticks, tropical pine foliage, saga seed pods, and even hulled coconut could serve as great conversation starters and put a bit of your personality on the table.
Floral arrangements aren’t just about flowers. Consider your vessel choices just as much as your floral selection. Vessels can come in the form of ashtrays, bowls and quirky receptacles, it does not always have to be a vase.
Avoid overstuffing your arrangement. Ensuring that there is sufficient negative space, or air in your arrangement to give it room to breathe. Although the process is often anything but, strive for the feeling of effortless elegance on the table. Less is more!
To incorporate plants into a floral arrangement, we often wrap the roots of plants in a small amount of soil, in repurposed plastic bags. It’s what we call “root-balling”, this allows the easy use of plants in an arrangement, and these plants can be repotted after and nursed back to health.
As for fresh produce, we recommend experimenting with unripe fruit as part of your arrangement, they tend to last longer without attracting annoyances like fruit flies – stacking them for drama without skewering them together helps preserve them for longer as well.
Some of our favourite plants to use are local tropical pine and local grasses. We highly recommend incorporating them into a botanical arrangement as they are long-lasting, festive as well as sustainable.
For florals, orchids are our go-to! There’s been such a resurgence of interest in this most interesting plant species that also happens to hold such significance for Singapore.
We’ve just launched our Christmas collection. Highlights include Little Pine, Chimney, and Noelle arrangements.
- Select your vessels. Keep it fun by mixing vessels of different shapes and heights.
- Use kenzan (Japanese pin frog) inside the vessel to create abundance and secure the position of the flowers while keeping the height of the arrangement below your eye level so you can communicate with the person across the table.
- Creating a spine or nest of foliage. Don’t be afraid to create a sense of movement with the spine – it doesn’t have to be straight and boring.
- Satisfied with your foundation of foliage? Add flowers in clusters with an imagined naturalism.
- Finish off your tablescape by adding tall candles and season-appropriate styling materials like pine cones or interesting fruits.
Text: Asih Jenie/ Home & Decor