Creating a Festive Easter Arrangement

Creating a festive Easter arrangement is simple when you gear up for the holiday with spring’s best textures and tones - like Proteas, Australian wildflowers, and lush, greens. Your design should act as inspiration for your table settings and other floral arrangements on display in your home.

Some of my favorite Easter design ideas don't require a fancy vase— utilizing a clear glass container works just fine, especially when you add a whimsical touch by including some fresh produce or sweet treats from your local market or grocery store. These extra touches bring in a fresh element of color, texture and shape, and they’re often the recipe needed to transform designs from beautiful to festive, eye-catching and unique.

No matter how you pay homage to spring, these simple Easter arrangements will give you plenty of inspiration for your own holiday display.

This centerpiece plays up the vivid colors of heirloom carrots. You'll need them with their stems still attached and a clear vase to show off the roots. Pair the carrots with yellow and orange pincushions, leucadendron, and lush green foliage. Wash the carrots thoroughly (but don't peel them) so that the water in the vase stays clear.

Create a fresh spring bouquet by bundling asparagus stalks around a vase full of proteas and ranunculus.

Bring fresh fruit to your table with this dazzling centerpiece of protea, tulips and kumquats. Place a clear drinking glass or thin vase into the center of a large-mouth vase and stack the kumquats around the glass.

Celebrate the sweetness of spring with an Easter centerpiece that features seasonal proteas, boronia and leafy greens. Fill a large glass container with jellybeans, insert a small vase in the center, add water and your flowers.

Mingling Flowers & Fruit

Fruit looks gorgeous in the garden, and even better served on a platter or mixed in your favorite dessert. But did you know, adding seasonal fruit into a flower arrangement, to bring in a fresh element of color, texture and shape, is often the recipe needed to transform a design from beautiful to eye-catching and unique?

What kinds of fruit can be added to a flower arrangement? More than you might think. Vines with berries, grapes and passion fruit, or even lemons, oranges, peaches and persimmons can be used to expand your palette of materials. A cluster of kumquats might give you a pop of smooth orange amongst green foliage, or a pomegranate snuggled amid lush blooms can lend rich color to a design.

Fruits that grow on branches, stems, or vines are easiest to include if you leave them attached. For example, a blackberry vine can be tucked and mingled in around your primary flowers quite easily. For larger fruits, the key to success is a sturdy stem. You can use the existing stem or create a stem by putting them on a skewer, so it can be secured in the arrangement. And… just as you would remove the leaves of your florals below the vase water line, do this with your fruit, as well.

Plus, using galvanized containers, vintage baskets and even other fruit like pumpkins are all fun ways to go from garden to table. Here are several of our seasonal designs:

Banksia Menziesii

Banksia menziesii, also called Menzies' banksia, firewood banksia, port wine banksia or Raspberry Frost. Because every fall arrangement needs a robust yet stunning bloom like this one! The flower spikes are showy and vibrant, dark pink-red or raspberry in color that become intermingled with yellow as they mature. Other colors like bronze and greenish-yellow menziesii exist as well. Each bloom is composed of up to 6,000 individual flowers (inflorescence) and set against a backdrop of chic twisted grey-green leaves.

It has been said that this striking banksia has a special flower essence or healing energy, a distinctive dynamic inner life force that differentiates it from other flowers. Aboriginal People from all over the world have used flowers in their rituals and ceremonies, aware of their subtle healing properties. Menziesii’s special healing power is “Courage” – the courage to release pain and to move ahead triumphantly, and that “Triumph” over disaster leads to renewed energy. This essence certainly seems to parallel with The Language of Flowers and the symbolic meaning of Proteas which represent… diversity, transformation, daring courage and resourcefulness.

Autumn days deserve a little extra vigor, lots of great textures and interesting shapes. Menziesii combined with an array of other proteas and florals radiate a homey spontaneity and seasonal splendor.

Design Goals: From Bouquet to Centerpiece

You may have noticed already but flowers are certainly having a moment during this era of Covid. Nothing says ‘HAPPY’ quite like a beautiful arrangement of fresh flowers. They’re bright, colorful, and downright cheery!

However, ordering weekly arrangements might not be in your budget right now… which is why we decided to share a few tips on how to turn an simple bouquet into a stunning centerpiece.

First, you need to choose your flowers or bouquet. Selecting a mix of fresh seasonal protea coupled with colorful Leucadendron and lush greens is always a great start. Since protea have cup-shaped or bell-shaped blooms, you might want to try adding something that has a spiky look… like Grevillea flowers and it’s always fun to add a few non-protea blooms as well. So, don’t be afraid to venture into your garden or yard and see what’s in bloom or discover some interesting foliage to add more color and texture. Once you have all your ingredients, you’ll want to select your container and consider the shape and height of your arrangement.

Now… it's time to get creative! Start by preparing your flowers and foliage, strip any leaves off the bottom half of each stem so they don’t fall below the water line in the vase. You'll want to cut the flowers to different heights to create a balanced and flow. Place one stem at a time in the container and turn it as you work to ensure your arrangement looks good from all angles.

Finally, have fun with your flowers and let your creativity flow.

Where the Leucospermum Grow

Fields of leucospermum or more commonly called “pincushions” sway in the breeze blowing through the hills, creating a vibrant welcome mat for those who venture up into Rainbow Crest. These vibrant red, orange, peach, yellow and bi-colored flowering heads are formed mainly with long, sprout-like structures that end in a globular knob called a pollen presenter. Together, the mass of styles look a lot like pins bristling from a “pincushion”, a similarity that has given rise to the popular name for this genus.

Leucospermum comprises some forty-eight species, of which all but three are endemic to South Africa’s Cape Province. Flowering time is generally winter through late spring. Unlike flowers of the genus Protea, which rely on their showy bracts for visual appeal, leucospermum put all their art into the colors of the flowers themselves as well as the flowing shape of each curving component. These fanciful blooms atop sturdy stems create colorful focal points not only in the field but when displayed in floral designs.

Winter Gatherings

Have you ever watched a chef peruse his vegetable garden, getting excited while scrutinizing the fresh herbs and veggies that will later be used to create a fabulous meal? That's me with flowers. I'm most in my realm when I'm surrounded by seasonal blooms and foliage, visualizing the array of bouquets and arrangements I could create. Usually, I start by considering things like color, texture, shape and size when I’m picking flowers, and I never know what I’ll end up with until I’m finished!

In the case of this arrangement, I was immediately drawn to the vibrant winter colors of the Leucadendron contrasted with the sweet pink hues of the Protea and Grevillea. Since the Banksia Candles and Grevillea flowers were similar in texture, I added a few stems of Protea nitida to create a unique, exotic feel. Nitida also brings a new shape to the mix without veering to far from my chosen palette. Finally, the Banksia’s piney, green foliage complements both the Protea and Leucadendron’s texture injecting an organic looseness to the design. I'm enchanted with how it turned out, and even more importantly I had a wonderful time gathering the flowers and creating it!

Protea: Everlasting-Flowers

photo by Yunus Karma

Did you know when handled properly, proteas are truly everlasting flowers. We know they last weeks in fresh bouquets and designs, but did you know they don’t die, they dry? Certain proteas even retain their shape and color long after most the other flowers and foliage have been discarded. When you assemble them in dry arrangements, they are as permanent as almost anything the botanical world offers.

If you enjoy craft projects, you can use your dried flowers as natural material for sculptural inventions. Protea by themselves or in a combination with other natural elements, decorative objects, and foraged finds, make creative ornaments, dolls and other decorative objects.

When protea blooms find their ultimate place in a dried arrangement, wreath or ornament, they finish a story that began in Gondwanaland and triumphed over a thousand adversities. They represent a special kind of bond, a link to the past and a reminder of the present and how new life springs eternal.