What To Do With The Plants You Harvested From The Garden
Let’s Build 8 Easy Arrangements Together From Outdoor Harvest Clippings 🌿✂️ 💐
Where I’m located in the Midwest, we experience all four seasons… sometimes brutally. ❄️ Over the last couple of weeks, the seasons are starting to change, it’s getting colder, and that means our outdoor plants are going to go dormant or die off here soon. Instead of enjoying them outdoors for a limited amount of time, why not harvest the plants, build beautiful arrangements, and extend their life indoors?
For this topic, you’ll probably want to tune in on YouTube so you can get a better visual. Click the link down below to watch. This is going to be a two-part series on how to choose which outdoor plants to harvest and why — and once you’ve harvested your plants, I’m going to show you what to do with them AKA how to build beautiful arrangements that look luxurious and how to extend their life indoors. This is part two which means we’re diving into the nitty gritty of building beautiful & simple arrangements. If you’re wondering what to harvest & why, you can read more about that here.
I believe plants make people happy. But, it’s not just me who thinks so — Studies show that just looking at plants can reset our mental focus. 🧠
I grew up in the greenhouse industry and now I’m a certified master gardener and horticulturist. Sooo, plants are kind of in my blood. 😉 HOWEVER, it doesn’t take a master gardener to put together these arrangements. The best part of this is, it can be fun, easy, and you can express your creativity however you’d like. I create some funky arrangements today, but it’s ok because these are just for me to enjoy!
Like I mentioned, this is a two-part series and in the first YouTube video, I take you around the farm where there are flower beds for miles. I was able to harvest some annuals, perennials, tall grass, and much more. If you didn’t catch that video, you can watch it here!
Now that you have a better idea of what can be harvested and why you should harvest plants to give them one last hoorah indoors before they die off, it’s time to put together some arrangements. Fun fact: If I could have a job that I wouldn’t get paid for, I would pick flower arranging. 😆 I love it so much and it allows for so much creativity. Let’s get into it. 👇
Starting off so simple. What if creating these arrangements could be as easy as snipping 3 pieces of greenery and throwing them into a vase?! When you’re working with big plants like these you can create a big impact with little to no effort. 🌿
Even when you aren’t working with big plants, you can still create something so simple that will bring you happiness. For me, when it starts to get dreary and gray outside I just need to see some green inside. Snipping these palms, putting them into a small vase, and enjoying it in your office or in the kitchen will definitely raise your mood when the SAD kicks in. ☀️
If you need a little spice… or actually a lot of spice because these Chilly Chilis pack a REAL punch. 👊 For reference they are about 10,000 to 50,000 units on the Scoville scale. 😳 However, if you’re careful when harvesting these, they add some bright and fun color to any arrangement. When the Chilly Chilis are paired with the Marigolds and deep green Philodendron, there are depths of color and texture.
Bring some peace in your home with these beautiful Peace Lilies. I was able to harvest some tall variegated ginger leaves that served as a thick backdrop for my Lilies and I filled in the sparse areas with some softer pieces of Parlor Palms.
Now this one is really funky. 🤪 I started this arrangement off with some Corn Plant and Cordyline leaves as my backdrop. Those two together created a really nice contrast for me to build off of. I then added some draping Begonia’s for a pop of color and some dimension in the front. This is where it started to get funky. To fill in the mid point I added three of my Sedums. This was able to bring in more color to tie in the Cordyline and Begonia’s, but it was looking really rough. In order to soften it up and tone down the funk 😝 I added in some Boston Ferns. I feel like this really tied it all together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still funky, but this flowy piece is going to be a conversation starter once I put this on my mantle!
In Part One, I threw together a really quick bunch with the Marigolds and Geraniums. It was so easy to put together, but I wanted to jazz it up with some more greenery and color. The orange and white reminded me of spooky season 👻 so to play off that, I added more depth with dark purple Cordyline leaves. Once I added those leaves I needed to fill in the gaps and my ferns were the perfect plant to do so!
I really wanted to create a floofy & feminine bunch to mix up the deep green arrangements. I was craving some texture and softer colors so I took a small bunch of Sedums and added in some Geraniums. Those two on their own were beautiful and fulfilled the softer look I was going for — BUT I harvested this tall grass with hues of pink that I knew would look perfect in this vase. The grass adds texture and height that draws the eye higher. 🌾
Purple means royalty but it can also be a sign of passion and romance and I knew I needed to build off the deep purple tones in the Salvia plant. Now, Salvia does have an intense peppery smell so if you’re sensitive, this arrangement may not be the best to take indoors, however the colors are stunning. I decided to take a large Cordyline leaf to ground this arrangement and serve as a solid background. In order to fill in the front and add some draping dimension, I used three pieces of Boston Fern. I really like how this arrangement turned out. 🪻
Whew! That was a lot, but I hope this sparked some creativity inside you. Something I like to keep in mind when building arrangements is that the eye really likes odd numbers. If you have three or five harvest clippings that is perfect to build an arrangement from. I would consider aiming your focal point slightly off center to create movement in your design, too. Anything can be turned into a beautiful arrangement so if you don’t have a flourishing garden, drive around your neighborhood and see if you can harvest any plants to enjoy inside your home. 🏠 You can watch my design process of these 8 arrangements in the video below. Happy arranging! 💐
