Yesterday, my 2 year old, Anneliese needed to get out of the house and get some fresh air, so I decided to leave the sleeping baby with my husband and go on a short, quick walk with my daughter. While we were walking, I noticed the abundance of beautiful flowers and foliage growing on a path near my house. I thought that they would make a beautiful bouquet, would work terrifically to add some spring cheer into my house.

I really like flowers, and I especially enjoy flowers and beautiful foliage in my house. I feel a vase filled with flowers enlivens a room, transforms it from dull to enchanting. When my husband comes home with a bouquet of flowers for me, it really makes me smile, and for days, I enjoy its beauty in my home.
That said, my husband doesn’t buy me flowers often. It gets very expensive. Especially since flowers only last for a short while until they wilt and die…

Making my own bouquet allows me to have the benefits of flowers decorating my house, without needing to lay out large amounts of money.

I went back into my house, took out some scissors and a vase, and started taking cuttings and filling it.

I pretty much only took short branches from flowering trees and bushes, plus some flowerless branches for foliage. While the red leaves that I put in my bouquet aren’t exactly flowers, they add a lot of color and nice texture to the mix.

I wanted a big bouquet. I could have stopped with something smaller, but there was something about me that wanted big and bold at the moment.

While bouquets of just one or two types of flowers can be nice, I decided that, since I, for the most part, wasn’t using “stereotypically beautiful” flowers, I wanted to have many, many types of flowers and branches, so that the beauty would be in the diversity of the foliage- in shapes, colors, textures, and sizes.

I can’t tell you the names of all the plants in my case, but I can name some of them- redbud blossoms, cherry plum leaves, pomegranate leaves, and rosemary leaves. If anyone else knows any of the names of the other foliage in the picture, I’m happy to learn more names.

I realize that this type of bouquet isn’t to everyone’s taste- use your own taste to make your own bouquet that you enjoy most, paying attention to how the combinations of colors, shapes, and textures work best.

I love how the bouquet turned out. Quite honestly, I think I like it better than many store bought bouquets I’ve seen. I love how it transforms my plain old wooden table. And the price was certainly right!

Are you a fan of flowers? Do you ever buy flowers for decoration? Grow your own to use to decorate? Or go out into nature and pick your own foliage to make into a bouquet?