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The 10 Fundamentals of Flower Arranging

pink peach and purple pastel flowers in silver vase

Floral arrangement consists of selecting flowers and foliage to create beautiful and delightful designs. It’s an artistic activity that offers a way to express oneself creatively. It is also an art form in which there are fundamental design elements that are used to create a pleasing outcome. To help you create gorgeous and gratifying flower arrangements, our experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale have put together a list of ten fundamental design principles that are essential to creating professional-looking floral arrangements. 

10 Essential Floral Design Principles 

1. Lines

Flower Arrangement with Pink Roses and Ferns
Flower Arrangement with Pink Roses and Ferns

Whether you’ve consciously noticed them or not, professional floral arrangements feature linear-based designs, which encompass four different types of lines:

  1. Actual Lines – These lines are actually present in your design. Everything you use has lines. For example, stems, bamboo shoots, or a row of red roses are all actual straight lines. The curve of a leaf or twist of a willow branch represents actual curved lines. 
  2. Implied Lines – Your arrangement will create implied lines, where the mind’s eye connects two similar elements or continues a repeated pattern. 
  3. Static Lines – Static lines give the impression of a lack of movement. Vertical and horizontal lines that do not lean or incline are considered static. Horizontal lines tend to represent rest, peacefulness, and quiet, while vertical lines, like the columns of a great temple, represent power. 
  4. Dynamic Lines – Dynamic lines are neither perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal, but rather slanted, curved, spiraled, or zigzagged. These lines create the impression of movement within your design. 

If a design appears too rigid or cold, add in a dynamic line or two. Conversely, if your design looks too chaotic, give it more structure with static lines. Usually, a combination of different types of lines creates a visually dynamic and well-balanced floral design. 

2. Shape/Form

Pink and Yellow Roses in a Vase
Pink and Yellow Roses in a Vase

Once you’ve considered the types of lines you will use in your design, you’ll need to think about the shape or form your lines will come together to create.

Think of shape in terms of two dimensions and form in terms of three. If you’re creating a design that will only be viewed from one side, then you can focus mostly on shape. If you’re creating a centerpiece or arrangement that will be viewed from all sides, then you’ll need to focus on three-dimensional form. 

Floral arrangements can be created in a variety of shapes and forms, but some are more popular. For example, you can make an endless variety of designs using crescents, circles, triangles, ovals, spheres, rectangles, spirals, and other shapes. Working toward creating an overall shape will create a cohesive look, preventing your design from appearing messy or thrown together. 

3. Balance

Pink roses and lilies bouquet
Pink Roses and Lilies Bouquet

Balance does not mean that your arrangement needs to be completely symmetrical. It’s better to think about balance in terms of visual weight and negative space. If you have a particularly large bloom on one side of your arrangement, it’ll likely look odd, if you don’t balance it with another large bloom or a similarly sized cluster of smaller flowers on the opposite side. View your arrangement from all angles to make sure you don’t have any unsettling empty spaces or overly full spots. 

4. Color

pink peach and purple pastel flowers in silver vase
Beautiful Pastel Flowers

All flowers are beautiful, but when paired within a well-planned color palette, they can truly stun the viewer. When it comes to color combinations in floral design, you can do just about anything you like. Feel free to play with monochromatic designs, contrasting colors, pastels, and saturated hues. When working with multiple colors a good rule of thumb is to choose three basic hues, two complementary colors that will dominate your design, and an accent hue. 

In floral arrangements, color is more than just visually important. Different colors and flowers have symbolic meanings. Before you settle on a color pallet for your design, you might want to look into the symbolism of the colors you plan to incorporate.  

5. Texture

peach violet and pink assorted flowers in vase
Beautiful Arrangement of Flowers in Vase

When you think about texture, you’ll be closely inspecting the surface quality of each element in your design. Due to the way light reflects, rough surfaces will naturally retreat into your design, while smooth, shiny surfaces will pop out with greater intensity. Thinking about texture in your design will help you create more visually interesting creations. Try to incorporate different textures within your arrangement to create a floral design that interests a viewer the first or fiftieth time they see it. 

6. Contrast

Georgeous flower Arrangement in Pink and Purple
Gorgeous Arrangement in Pink and Purple

Contrast adds drama and visual interest to a design. You create contrast when you place opposite elements side by side. For example, light colors and dark colors, soft textures and coarse textures, or big blooms and small flowers. Contrast is an important design element, but it’s tricky to get exactly right. Be careful to avoid incorporating equal amounts of contrasting elements — choose one to be more dominant. With too many contrasting elements, your design can become overly busy and erratic, resulting in the loss of your design’s rhythm and balance. 

7. Space

Wildflower Bouquet in White vase
Wildflower Bouquet

It’s important to think about the spacing of flowers within an arrangement to prevent it from looking crowded or to create an intentionally crowded look that seems to burst from the container. Whether you’re going for a line or mass arrangement make sure your flowers are adequately spaced so that viewers can get a good look at each special flower in your design. 

8. Size/Proportion

red and purple flowers in clear vase in white living room
Gorgeous Floral Arrangement in Living Room

When creating an arrangement, it’s important to think about the location where it will be placed. Create a design that will be the right size for its intended placement, neither overpowering the room nor getting lost within it. For example, you wouldn’t want a tiny arrangement to act as the focal point of a large room or a large arrangement that doesn’t fit into the corner it’s intended to fill. 

9. Rhythm

Exotic Floral Arrangement with red roses and greenery
Exotic Floral Arrangement

Just like repeated beats move us through music, visual rhythm in floral arrangements helps move an observer’s eye through the entire design. You can create rhythm by repeating colors, textures, or even lines throughout the arrangement. For example, long stems that radiate in a fan-like pattern or bright bursts of yellow throughout will give your design plenty of rhythm. 

10. Focal Point

Beautiful Flower Arrangement with Succulent
Beautiful Flower Arrangement with Succulent

While your viewers’ eyes move through the rhythm of your floral design, it’s also important to provide them with a focal point on which they can pleasantly rest their gaze. You can easily create a focal point within an arrangement by using an unusual, large, or unexpected bloom within your arrangement. Consider using a flower cluster like a hydrangea, a peony, or even a large rose. 

Lavender colored flowers on table
Luscious Lavender Standard Mix

Using high-quality materials and applying these basic design principles to your floral arrangements will make all the difference, transforming your designs from home-made efforts to professionally designed works of art. For more floral design inspiration, we welcome you to contact our floral design experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale

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Top 10 Ways to Add Texture to a Floral Arrangement

Cascade Arranging Bouquet

Designing floral arrangements to convey particular sentiments is essential to the process. Floral designs can be happy, somber, festive, or sophisticated, depending on what combinations you choose. But one element that will always bring a unique effect to your floral designs is texture. Adding soft or bold accents, smooth lines or rough edges, or even non-organic textural pieces will change the look of your design drastically. The floral experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale created a list of the 10 best elements to include in your floral arrangement to add texture your unique design. 

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The Hardiest Winter Plants & Flowers by Region

While it may be true that many plants and flowers take their leave of us once the cooler temperatures of autumn arrive, there are still plenty of varieties that will not only survive, but thrive throughout winter and into early spring. The floral experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale have broken down some of these beauties by region of the country. It’s also important to match the zone in which you live to those recommended for each type of flower. 

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Be Prepared with Appropriate Sympathy Flowers

Creating beautiful, lasting sympathy arrangements is a big part of our jobs. When a family is grieving, it’s important they receive beautiful, tasteful flowers that comfort and provide peace. At Cascade Floral Wholesale, we’ve developed some strategic categories to keep in mind when preparing your sympathy designs. You’ll want to be ready at a moment’s notice to design something appropriate and beautiful. Here are a few to consider when preparing sympathy flowers for a funeral or memorial service. 

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Gather Your Fall Centerpiece Materials

As the holidays approach, it will be important to have materials on hand for creating stunning holiday centerpieces. Your customers will be excited to showcase inventive and eclectic looks on their fall table, so be prepared by having a wide range of items at the ready when the orders come in. While it’s important to keep materials like candles and ribbon on hand for classic, traditional centerpieces, consider thinking outside the box to design fresh, modern pieces as well. Your customers will love the new look and you’ll feel invigorated with the creation of something new! At Cascade Floral Wholesale, we have everything you need to make holiday tables merry and bright, and even a little artistic. Take a look at some of the materials available and let your imagination run wild! 

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Harness The Emotional Benefits of Flowers

Sending and receiving flowers can make anyone feel good. It’s a simple gesture that’s been woven into the fabric of society for centuries. Recently, studies have been conducted regarding the psychological effects of sending, receiving or being surrounded by flowers and the results are just what we’ve always known: Flowers make your day! The floral professionals at Cascade Floral Wholesale looked a little more deeply into this to help you know what you’ll be providing for your customers when they choose to send your flowers to a friend or loved one. Here’s what we found:

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Help Your Customers Do It Themselves with Fall Blends

Fall is such a fun time for color, texture, and decorations. For your more crafty floral customers, this is also a great season for creating something new. Homemade decorations that reflect the holiday spirit are more special because they’re imbued with a unique sense of nostalgia. The expert designers at Cascade Floral Wholesale have a few crafty ideas up their sleeves to help DIY-ers create fabulous fall decorations this year, along with all the flowers, berries, foliage, and plants you need to get started.

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Filling In The Spaces

Filler plays an important role in any gorgeous floral bouquet. Much like the backstage crew of a stage performance, if filler is obvious, it’s not doing its job. But without it, the stars of the show simply couldn’t shine. Filler plants and foliage have a big job and it’s important to get it right. These lush, leafy green plants create a backdrop for bright, colorful flowers to pop, enhancing their appearance and bringing their vibrant color into focus. Certain types of filler can make or break your arrangements, though. So Cascade Wholesale Florist is here to walk you through choosing the best filler for different types of arrangements. 

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Enjoy the Splendor of Fall Chrysanthemums

The beauty of chrysanthemums in the fall is amazing to behold. We’re stunned and awed by the multitude of colors and textures we find every year. This season, we’re excited for your to feature chrysanthemums as one of your favorite fall flowers throughout the season. Not only are they easy to grow, even in cooler months, but mums symbolize some beautiful sentiments, making them great gifts or additions to your fall designs. You may even want to keep a few for yourself as you decorate for fall. So, the floral experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale are happy to include a few fun facts and tips about planting, giving, and decorating with fall mums. 

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Fall Blooms Offer Gorgeous Style

Fall is upon us and ready to bloom into full color. Fans of these deep, rich colors and textures will be looking for gorgeous sunflowers, dahlias, and of course, mums. Whether your customers are looking for rustic fall texture or bright fall jewel-tones, be sure to delight their senses with the wide variety of colors and blooms fall has to offer. Cascade Floral Wholesale is proud to offer a wide range of fall varieties, perfect for endless combinations of autumn design. 

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Extend Summer With Summer Flowers

Shop Bulk Summer Flowers

The arrival of August tends to signify the close of summer. Campers return home, vacations are over, and kids begin to prepare for the coming school year. However, even though It may be August, in many areas around the nation there is still plenty of summertime to go around (or at least we’d like to hope there is!). And even for those areas that are beginning to feel a fall nip in the air, we think that’s all the more reason to brighten someone’s day with bright, bold summer colors while they’re still available! That’s why Cascade Floral Wholesale is excited about our summer flowers. 

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Tropical Flowers For A Vacay Vibe

Summertime is the perfect season for stocking extra tropical flowers. From destination beach weddings and family photos to fun vacations, there are plenty of reasons to include tropical blooms in your summer collection. That’s why the floral experts at Cascade Floral Wholesale suggest offering and promoting a Tropical Flowers collection during this season. You’ll find customers in need of these bright blooms and exotic details at every turn. 

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DIY… Or With A Friend!

Now that summer is in full swing, parents everywhere are looking for ways to keep kids of all ages busy throughout the long summer days. For a few fun craft ideas that everyone will love, Cascade Floral Wholesale offers some great tips and tricks. With a little bit of planning and a few supplies, you can fill your summer days and create beautiful floral designs to show for it!

Create A Vase Collection

Gather a few old mason jars, glass milk bottles, and other vintage apothecary jars. Fill with a mix of wildflowers or your favorite blooms (we especially love our Vintage Blush combination for this project) and enough water and flower food to keep blooms fresh. Place bottles with varying heights, shapes and sizes freely across a long table or windowsill. Or, for wider tabletops, gather similar-sized containers together in a square formation and wrap with gardener’s twine to hold in place. 

 

Create Mini Bouquets 

Choose a few sheets of themed paper, like wrapping paper for birthdays and holidays, or scrapbooking paper with cool designs. Trim stems of flowers, then lay diagonally on a square of the paper. Wrap corners together, glue so they’ll stay together, then wrap with gardener’s twine for a fresh, hand-held design that can be kept or given away. (Hint: these make great back-to-school gifts for teachers!)

Create Napkin Rings

Design a gorgeous formal table setting for a summer garden party when you attach flowers and accents to shower curtain rings to create breath-taking napkin rings. Use similar flowers for each ring to create continuity across your table. Then create simple and elegant centerpieces with the remaining accent pieces (baby’s breath in mason jars is always a welcomed sight!). 

Create Pressed Flowers

Pressing flowers is an age-old tradition that mothers and grandmothers have been handing down to their children for centuries. Create a modern update to this look when you design an iPhone case or stained glass window with pressed flowers. First, press flowers in a heavy book, like an encyclopedia or phone book. Then glue carefully to a clear or white iPhone case. Once glue is dried, paint the entire case with resin or another clear varnish. Allow plenty of time to dry, then enjoy your own unique iPhone case!

 

Using fresh flowers for Do-It-Yourself crafts and projects makes for beautiful, unique designs. Work together with someone special as a means of spending quality time together. Plus, you’ll create beautiful gifts for others or add lovely touches to your own home. For more great DIY project ideas, talk to the floral artisans at Cascade Floral Wholesale. We’ll be proud to show you our collection of wholesale combos and help you choose the perfect set for your next project!

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Blue Hues in Weddings

Something Old, 

Something New, 

Something Borrowed, 

Something Blue….  

Maybe it’s their favorite color, or maybe there’s a significant meaning between the couple. Or possibly, this bride isn’t going to skip the traditions that have served women before her for centuries. Regardless of the reason, a touch of blue in a wedding ceremony brings a delightfully classic look that can be achieved in multiple ways. So what is the difference between varieties of blue flowers? The designers at Cascade Floral Wholesale can show you all the possibilities.

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Wedding Plants and Succulents

Wedding foliage is traditionally full of blooming, cut flowers, usually in season at the time of the nuptials. However, a new trend is emerging that will entice many brides to rethink wedding flowers. Including varieties of plants and succulents in the wedding ceremony and reception is becoming a trend that may not end anytime soon. There are plenty of reasons to feature plants in your wedding ceremony, and Cascade Floral Wholesale is ready to help you find the perfect combination. 

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Freshen Your Summer Garden With Blooming Plants

Summertime is a perfect opportunity to begin or grow a garden! Warmer weather and longer days lend themselves to being outdoors. So, planting new varieties in the garden or starting a garden from scratch are great excuses to get outside. Some seasoned gardeners may be looking for new and interesting additions to their gardens. On the other hand, those just starting a garden may need something that’s easy to care for and grows quickly. Cascade Floral Wholesale wants to make you ready for the endless possibilities gardens bring with gorgeous blooming plants. Since they’re easy to grow and quick to show beautiful flowers, these designs are often long lasting, easy to care for, and make lush, beautiful additions to a gardenscape.

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Spotlight on Summertime Brights

Cascade Floral Wholesale is excited to welcome summer, with its rich variety of colorful blooms, fresh greens, and festive displays. We know that summer brings a whole host of occasions that call for a floral bounty, from weddings to patriotic events to family reunions and more. In that spirit, we’re showcasing our best and brightest blooms from our summer combo, which gives you access to a world of warm-weather flowers perfect for any occasion.

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DIY Graduation Centerpieces

Bulk White Flowers

So you’ve got a grad in the family? Congratulations are in order. Show your true colors by designing your very own school-spirit centerpiece, perfect for a graduation party or dinner. Here at Cascade Floral Wholesale, we’ve got plenty of flower combinations to choose from that will provide all you need to create a celebratory centerpiece in no time. We’re showcasing some of the area’s most popular school colors—purple, green, and white—to show off what you can do.

Classic white wholesale, bulk flower collection

Select our Classic White Standard Mix as the perfect base note for celebrations that emphasize the glorious achievements of young academics. White is a foundational palette for so many school colors, and it also works well with existing decor. You can embellish to your heart’s content, using the white and cream colors here to create polished and professional looking pieces, or go a little more free spirited. Every box is different, but you’ll always get line, filler, and focal flowers, as well as some fresh greenery.

Our Luscious Lavender Standard Mix introduces that purple, a key school color for many of us here. You can build a centerpiece of surprising dimension with this box, which offers a rich grouping of hues that range from lavender to dark purple. Make several centerpieces or just one showstopper with this lush combo.

Beautiful in combination with other palettes or on its own, our Go Green Standard Mix offers a robust grouping of greens to complement school colors. Create a beautiful tribute to your grad and their friends with one or more of our gorgeous floral combos. 

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A Guide To Our Best Greens

What makes a bouquet a bouquet? A centerpiece a centerpiece? You’ll be tempted to answer “flowers,” but that’s only half the story. Every floral design, from wreaths to hanging installations, relies on greenery to bring the entire piece to life. Greenery provides a foundation to flowers, as well as contrast, texture, and that enthralling color, of course. Items such as ruscus and eucalyptus are more than just space fillers, they’re key players in the overall effect of a design. In some cases, they are the design, with more and more florists, brides, and event planners forgoing flowers altogether to create magical looks with greenery alone. Think ribbons of greens running down the center of a table or rustic tins holding bunches along an outdoor ceremony aisle. If you ask us at Cascade Floral Wholesale, the only limit to what greenery can do is your imagination! Meet some of our favorites, and then browse our selection.

Italian Ruscus

It seems silly to call it fresh—what greenery isn’t?—but Italian Ruscus in particular lends a vivid, vibrant green to any floral design. Beloved for its versatility, hardy stems, and those slim, elegant leaves, ruscus is especially good in floral arches or trailing beautifully from a cascading bouquet. Use it in the hair to invoke a Greek goddess effect, thread it down the middle of an event table, or use it to top a cake; ruscus’ emerald green leaves are always up to the task. 

Dusty Miller 

Monstera

Pay no attention to its name; this gorgeous tropical leaf is anything but monstrous. In fact, Monstera are becoming increasingly popular, appearing as a major aspect of the design scheme in events that lean toward the modern and tropical. Just one or two of these dinner-plate sized leaves can have a statement-making impact in containers at the ceremony site or strung together as a garland focal point. We’ve even seen them used as place mats and as the “paper” for a wedding program. They make a wonderful motif for a wedding, too, popping up in invitations, dress patterns, and as the foundation for a stunning bridal bouquet. 

Explore the incredible variety of greenery on our site, and don’t hesitate to ask us how we can help you find your perfect selection today. 

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How To Handcraft A Bouquet For Mom

Mixed Bouquet of Blooms

Step aside, brides. There’s a new bouquet in town. 

When’s the last time you handed over a hand-wrapped bouquet of flowers, specifically designed to be gathered up in one’s arms, its beauty breathed in, its fragrance fawned over? Chances are, it’s probably been a minute. And while it’s de rigueur to offer mom a pretty floral arrangement for Mother’s Day, presenting her with a gorgeous handmade bouquet is a more meaningful gesture. Especially when she finds out it was made by none other than you. Cascade Floral Wholesale has the skinny on how to make a Mother’s Day bouquet that she will never forget. 

Step One: Gather Ye Rosebuds

Seek seasonal flowers. Let this be your mantra. And when it comes to building a beautiful Mother’s Day bouquet, you really couldn’t have picked a better season. If you stick with florals that are abundantly available, you’ll be keeping your costs down, ensuring that your flowers are in the prime of their life, and discovering far more selection. We love our Spring Bulb Flower Mix for a seasonal bouquet. It comes with an assortment of tulips, hyacinth, ranunculus, and daffodils, making the design possibilities quite literally endless. Choose our 50-bulb option to ensure you have plenty to work with, and don’t forget to pick up other supplies you’ll need: garden pruners or shears, vase for storage, floral tape, corsage pins, and wax paper and ribbon for presentation. 

Step Two: Prep Your Petals

Arriving home with a bounty of fresh, high-quality flowers is like winning the lottery. You’ll have the strong desire to take exceptional care of them, and you should, right away. Clear a working space that offers you plenty of light. Position a mirror (full-length is ideal) nearby. Unwrap the flowers, cut the stems a bit, and remove any leaves or excess foliage around the bottom of the stems, where your mom’s hands will be. Plop each flower into a bucket of water as you work through all of them. When you’re ready to design, remove your blooms from the water and lay them out in groupings, keeping like with like. This will help you see all of the floral riches at your disposal. 

Step Three: Commence Designing!

Stand in front of the mirror and begin to create a base of foliage or greenery, about 5 stems, in your non-dominant hand. As you work, keep your hand firm but loose, and check the mirror for perspective. Once you’ve framed out your base, begin adding in your heavier, more prominent flowers, 3-5 at a time. Alternate feature flowers for interest, texture, and color. Pop in smaller blooms and accent ones, filling out your bouquet. Embellish with more greenery. Once you’re finished, carefully turn the bouquet upside down and cut all of the ends evenly, for a clean, polished look. Take your floral tape and wrap it around where it will be held. Leave the floral tape sticky side up for the last couple of wraps, which will allow the ribbon to stay in place. Wrap over the tape with the ribbon, affix a few corsage pins, and voila! You’ve just made a Mother’s Day Bouquet.

If you want to present your bouquet wrapped in wax paper, that’s easy enough to do. Simply leave off the floral tape and hold your flowers together with some twine. Fold your flowers into the paper, burrito-style, and tie it all together with the perfect ribbon.