How To Make A Pedestal Arrangement

Hello, welcome to Flower Juice. My name's John McDonald, and today I'm going to show you how to create a pedestal arrangement. So a pedestal arrangement is a large, generally front-facing arrangement, quite a traditional, or it can be quite modern, but today the one that we're going to do is kind of garden style with a mix of foliage and a mix of flowers. So firstly, what we need to do is we need to look at the base that we're going to use. So you have to think about where you're going to place your pedestal, what kind of stand it's going to be on. So you might have a stand that's similar to this wooden stand with a nice wooden top, or you might have one that's more just a single leg with a round top. So there's different containers that you can use for your base. This is an oasis tree that we can use, and this is an excellent one, and this is the one we're going to use today. This is also an oasis tree, and this one works, this is called the designer bowl. This is good, it's a bit of a top hat design, but if you were going to use a traditional wrought iron pedestal stand, then this would sit there quite well. And another popular choice is using these bulb bowls. So this plastic container is really aimed for planting up and using for plants, but it can just as equally be used for oasis. So say we were going to use this for oasis. We've got some wet blocks here. I can literally take a few blocks and three blocks like that and place that in there. And then what I would do is I would tape round, and this gives us a really good piece of foam for using for a pedestal. The great thing about this is this is going to be at the back so it's actually already putting some weight at the back. So if you're going to have your flowers more to the front, it's giving you a bit of physical balance. So that's one way to use that container. For this container, again, I would use the same idea and just drop that in. And what you can do is with this block, you can cut that top third off. So you can have a staggered arrangement where you've even got a little bit more weight at the back and you've created foam at the front, but you don't necessarily have to have as much as this. So that's another option, but using a lower dish. Great thing about this is you can fill this with water. So this is if you're going to put it in a church and you want it to last for a week, week and a half, this is a great, great idea. If it's really for something that's going to be for a day or a day or two, then this works very well because it's very easy to transport and you don't have a lot of weight with water. But what we're going to do today is we're going to use this style of container. And the great thing with this is this allows us to place our foam in a flat way. So I was always told that if you have foam and you place it like this, the water tends to come out of the oasis. If we put the oasis like this, the water is retained within the foam. So we can place two blocks there and then we can take another two blocks and place them alternatively that way. So we've got those ones going that way and the top ones going this way. So this gives us a lot of foam and it also gives us a lot of weight. So the weight is good if we're making a particularly big pedestal. So what I'm going to do is when I think about a pedestal and making the base, I like to really make sure it's secure. And the best way to make it secure is I think this band of tape really gives you the security. If your oasis is sitting up the way or even like this, there's a danger that these move apart. So putting this band of tape round really gives you a lot of security. And then we can just tape over. And if you want, you can go right round it. Not a problem. It's up to you. But I would always say, err on the side of being more rather than less because you're making something that you want to last. It's going to be in the public eye. You don't want it to have any structural failures. So this is our base and now we can get started on our design for today. Okay, so we've got our floral foam and it's been secured in this plastic tray, which is perfect. So we've got four blocks, which is quite a lot. But the benefit of that is it really gives us a lot of weight and we can continue now. So I've got a range of foliage and I've got a range of flowers. And what I did was I really just went out and looked for some nice foliage that is really just like a garden style. So this is some lovely rowan. Now, when I'm working with big things, I like to just make a mess. So I'm looking for a nice piece of foliage just to go vertically up. And yeah, just make a mess. It's more fun and you can concentrate on the flowers. This is some lovely beech. And what we're going to do is just look for the right shapes that's within that. So what I'm really doing is I'm creating height and then also coming sideways and coming forward. So I'm imagining there's an imaginary point in there that everything's radiating from. So just because the stem there doesn't go to that point, the actual stem of the branch looks like it's coming from inside there. Now, it's quite a good idea just to come down the front as well. And if you want, you can use ivy and you can bring different materials down to droop as well. So I find a little bit of this laurel. And because it's quite a heavy material, I'm just going to keep that low down and more to the back. Now, I put a bit there, so I probably want to put a bit more to the other side as well. So what I'm doing is, if you think about this as the middle line, I want material to go through the arrangement. I don't want it just all sitting beautifully to the front. I want it to work three-dimensionally. So things are coming forward, but things are going back as well. What a lot of people do when they're making a big arrangement is to get very excited about the possibility of everything coming forward. And if you end up with all your material facing forward, you will actually make it physically unbalanced. So you're talking about a big weight of material, and you want that material to not go anywhere when it's sitting on a pedestal. So if this is our middle point, we want this to sit there and not physically move. So this was just material that I really got from outside at work, from where the hedge is. And we've got some beautiful beach, some hawthorn, some elderflower, some rowan, and yeah, I think that's it, and some laurel. So we've got a range of different material. And even here, by putting a piece like this coming forward, I'm starting to fill this space and add volume. So we're really creating a bit of depth into this. And it's okay to use pieces that are a little bit loose as well. So that's the great thing about going and sourcing your own, is you're gonna make it look more natural straight away by the fact that it's less commercial material. But I do wanna put in a little bit of commercial foliage. So we've got a little bit of asperdistra. And I'm just gonna pop in a couple down here. And I can put one up there. Actually, I think I wanna go a little bit lower with that one. And I've got some leather leaf. And we're just gonna use, really, the leather leaf as a filler. And this is just gonna give us a little change in texture and a little bit of a contrast. So I must admit, I love working with big arrangements. People sometimes think that they're gonna be more difficult to make. I actually think they're easier, but don't tell anyone. So I'm bringing some lower down and putting things in at an angle that come down as well. So this helps hide the container, soften the edge. And again, it's just giving us, it's making it look natural because we've got lots of different types of material. Now, I've got some salal, or gold theria. And again, we can put this in and this, again, gives us more texture and more variation. But you can use any greenery. I think good base greenery is the salal, the leather leaf, the asperdistra. They're all good basic fillers to give you coverage on any foam base. And then all you need is some interesting material higher up. So then if you're wanting to keep more commercial, you could use French ruscus, eucalyptus for a change in colour, formium. There's such a range of foliage and you'll get different effects. But for this, we're really going for kind of like a garden style and just a kind of nice summer kind of style as well. So I'm looking at this leaf, thinking that just needs to be trimmed. And now we can move on to the flowers. So I've got a range of flowers here and probably our key flower is going to be, well, really the gladioli. So I've got this beautiful gladioli. Now I'm just using some flowers here to demonstrate this. And this is not, this is purely for our video today. So these are a little bit older, but what's great about that is that they're actually a little bit full. So I'm putting them a little bit back and I'm looking at what I've got and I've got a couple of ones that are shorter. So now we can move on really to using the knife instead of the secateurs. So I'm going to bring a couple of these lower down. So this is going to be quite a classic traditional style. So really what we're creating is we're creating a point on our two sides and then we can come in either way. So again, I'm wanting it to look like things are radiating out from a central point. And we can play a little bit with the angle of things. So this doesn't need to sit like this. It can sit in a slightly off way and that will make it look more natural. And when I first started working with flowers, I got told you're meant to pull these off and it seems such a shame. I think that's a little bit sad because I think this gives lots of interest and lots of movement. So now I would just leave them on. Our secondary flower then is going to be these chrysanthemum blooms. Now this is quite a structural flower and it's also quite a big thick stem. So now's a good time to put this in. So really what we're going to do is we're going to just place them in into like a line. So if you think about a centre line, this one's probably sitting back and then we're going to just stagger it down through the arrangement. So with the knife, I'm just cleaning off any foliage and putting a nice slanting cut. And then we can just work creating a natural line. So really one to one side, one to the other, one to the other, but not necessarily in a clinical way. That one's a little bit lower. This one's a little bit out. That one's a little bit different again. So they've all got their own character and they're all facing in different ways, but they should all look like they're radiating from one place. Now, if I want, I could bring ones out to here, ones into there. It depends how many you've got. In fact, let's do that. So let's put one there and let's put one more back here. So this one's at the back and it's facing away, but it takes some physical weight back there, but it also gives more three dimension and more interest. So our next flower are these beautiful Esperance rose. And this is a big headed rose. It's got a lot of oomph and we can just place that in. So really with our roses, I was always told it's the most expensive flower. So you really want people to see them. So again, we're going to kind of mirror the image of what we've done with the croissants or the blooms by staggering this down. So there's no right or wrong. I would just say work away in a logical way so that things are spaced. Like you don't want to have flowers where they're on the same level. You want to have them looking natural. So whereas we put that bloom to this side, why don't we put a rose back here? And that gives a balance to that flower, but it's a different flower. So if they've got any outer petals that are not so good, just take them off. Okay, so we've got some exciting flowers going on there and I want to use these lovely lilies. Now you might want to take off the pollen and that's just the case. While they're like that, before they really show the pollen, that's a good time to do that. And because we've made these the stars of the show, we can actually put this a little bit less central. So that could go there. I want a tall one at the back. And again, this has got some foliage on it. So actually that adds to the whole look of the arrangement. And then I'm looking at how this sits. So this has got a beautiful flower. Now this pollen has started to come, but we can still take that off and just blow that away. So I'm cutting this and really, I'm going to bring this in low. So that that flower ends up sitting quite central, but we've still got that contrast. So really we've created a line with those. So our next flowers, now actually for my next flowers, I'm going to use something that's a bit of a filler. So this is limonium and we're going to look at splitting this down. So we're going to split a piece and a piece and another piece. So straight away, we've got one piece that's nice and long because we kept that bit of stem. And we can come in at the back with that, nice and secure. I know that that's in foam. Come in at the side, back to our centre piece. We can bring that into the middle and this is creating a lovely contrast. So I've got another piece here. We're going to take a bit and a bit. So I've broken this down into three distinct pieces that are very usable. So again, if I want to do a long bit, I've got a long bit for going right through here at the back and that's fine. And then we can bring in the other pieces to the sides or even to the front. So again, everything's looking like it's radiating out. So our next flower that I want to use are these lovely larkspur. And the problem with larkspur is they're quite soft. So already that one's had a little break. If you're using material and it breaks, then please recut it or adjust it. Don't just put it in and hope it'll be okay. You need to sort it, especially if you want the arrangement to last. So because the larkspur is quite light in comparison, it's not a heavy, heavy flower. We're just going to place this more as a secondary flower again. This is a nice space for that. So we're really wanting people to see all our lovely material and for it to work in different ways. So we've created a line, like a structure line with the croissants, but now we can use the lilies to go this way. We can use the larkspur to go this way. So we're creating different lines within our actual overall shape. If you're using very soft material and your pedestal is going to be transported, then be careful about using the soft material more down the bottom edges because it's much more at risk of getting damaged. So this is really exciting for me today because I've been wanting to make a pedestal for you guys for a long time. And it's getting the opportunity and it's having the flowers, but for us, it's summer and we've got a lot of different flowers just now. And actually just getting that foliage makes it much more easy to do. So if it's summer with you and you've got lots of flowers in the garden or you've got lots of material to hand, even if they're older and you need to put in a wee bit of practice, then give it a go. So I've got some beautiful alstroemeria. And really this alstroemeria, we're just going to bring in again in a kind of secondary way. Some more coming into these spaces that I'm looking at. So I'm just looking and thinking, this is nice. Oh, I've got a little space here. I can put that in. And it's maybe about keeping different heights. So this one's a little bit more recessed to that and that to that. And that's what will make this interesting. So now I'm looking and I'm thinking this is quite weighty here. I want to bring a little bit of weight up the top. So if you can step back, look at what you're doing and just assess what you've created and what stage you're at. Don't overthink it, but actually you might want to just think, right, I'm needing a bit here. I'm needing a bit there. Not a problem. So here I'm looking and I think, yeah, I've got those. I've got that. I've got that one. I can put one down into here and even going backwards. Because what you will find with pedestals is that you probably place them somewhere that people are going to be walking around. They tend to be in an open space. So if you think about it, you'll tend to walk towards them, but there might be times when people are walking sideways towards them as well. And if that's the case, you need to make sure that there's flowers there and it does look nice from those angles as well. So I've just got one or two of these beautiful green carnations. And a carnation's a perfect flower for using for pedestals, especially for putting in colour and just taking colour out to the other edges. It's perfect. So we've put our ones down there. So I just want to take a little bit of that colour further up. And actually it can just be hidden. Now I did feel that start to go and this is where they're at risk of getting damaged. So there's no point in leaving it in there and pretending it's okay. We're just going to move that one down a little bit. And just to finish then, because really we've got a lot of material in there, we just want to add a few flowers that are interesting and just the kind of small details that you would expect in a garden style. So these are the small alliums. And again, I'm just going to pop them in and we want them still to look like they're radiating from that central point. Just to finish, I've got these beautiful grasses. So we can pop them in and we can make them look quite fun. So again, this is the thing that just makes it interesting. And actually this is a, I mean a commercial grass, but you don't have to have commercial ones. If you're out walking the dog and you see a beautiful grass, then why not borrow a few bits and if it's just growing wild, not so good if you've got hay fever. But that's us, that's really our finished design. Okay, so we've got our finished pedestal and what we've really done is we've tried to create a mixed floral look. So we've used structural elements like the gladioli to give us strength and define our boundaries. We've used heavier flowers like the lovely blooms and the lilies to take some weight into the design. And we've really modified the height of flowers to give a natural appearance. And just using a variety of foliage, we've got a natural look as well. So it's really using things that are big and things that are small to make it look balanced. But we've also followed quite a classic design. So if you think about a middle line, we've got equal quantities on either side. And what I've done in regard to our base is not all our material is falling forward and it's not up here. It is kept backwards and it's kept on that central line and there is material coming backwards as well. So physically this is balanced and actually with the weight of the foam that we've used as well, this is very balanced. So I hope you've enjoyed today's video. 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