The 6 Elements of Floral Design: Spotlight on Focal Flowers

Focal flowers are at the heart of every design. And in my six elements, every stem has a purpose. The focal flower's role is obvious. It's the star of the show. In today's video, I'm gonna show off some of the best focal flowers and how and when to place them in your design. I'll also share some of my favorite varieties. And at the end, I'm gonna reveal a mistake that I see a lot of beginners make. A while ago, I made a video called the six elements of design. And once you understand the six elements of design, your arrangements become easier to make. Today, we're digging into focal flowers. So what is a focal flower? They are the focal point of your arrangement. They are often the biggest flower in your design, and they're often a face flower. And a face flower is a flower that's a single flower with a single out-facing bloom. So unlike something like a filler flower that has a single stem but lots of flowers on it, a face flower is a single, big, showy, fancy bloom. These are locally grown peonies. They're very fragrant. We've got lots of different varieties of them today. These are beautiful poppies. You can see their big face. Another focal flower is locally sourced roses. These fragrant beauties really pack a punch when they're used in design. There's other focal flowers that you can use, sunflowers, dahlias, zinnias, heritage mums. You can use cut poinsettias. I'm gonna put a full list of all of my favorite focal flowers in the notes. Focal flowers play a lot of roles in your design. The first is that they attract your eye to the arrangement. So focal flowers are really the first thing that you see, so it's really important to choose a focal flower that fits the vibe, the color palette, and the style of design that you're creating. The next thing that focal flowers do is that they influence color palette of your design. These are the biggest flowers. They're gonna have the most colorful impact. So when you're choosing the focal flowers, that's gonna be the dominant color in your arrangement. Focal flowers also carry most of the visual weight of the design. When you're looking at an arrangement, your eye goes to the heaviest, biggest, most important piece first. And so that is the role of the focal flower. The rest of the elements in your arrangement work to make your focal flowers look the best they can. So I've used some foliage here as my mechanic. So they're kind of a resting place for my focals. I've also used my line flowers to guide your eye to the most important flower that we have. Focal flowers also influence the style and vibe of your arrangement. If you're using a focal flower like a lily, that's gonna give off a very formal feel. It's gonna affect the entire arrangement. If you're using something like peonies, this is gonna add to the garden, natural, loose feel that a garden arrangement has. Placement and the timing of the placement of your focal flowers is key to creating a really beautiful design. So I like to start my arrangement with foliage and line flowers first, because these go to support the focals. The third element I'm gonna put in is my focal flower. And I wanna make sure that I give my focals plenty of space in my design. That's why I'm gonna fill in later with my other elements, like my fillers, my secondary focals, and my bits and pieces. I don't want anything to impact my focals. I want them to be the clear, dominant flower in the design. You wanna put these in at this point because you don't wanna put them in towards the end because you don't want them too crowded. You don't wanna put them in first because mostly your flowers will flop to the side. You can see how heavy a lot of focal flowers are. These are huge heads and the stems are not that strong. So you need your other elements, your foliage and your line flowers, to help prop up and support your focals. Before I share one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making with focal flowers, I wanna tell you about my free online newsletter called Flower Nerd. You can subscribe in the link in the profile. It's where I share much more information about flowers, farming, design, and more. The number one design mistake that I see people make with focal flowers is overcrowding or overstuffing. And believe me, I've been there. I have been an overstuffer. I have been in a situation where I have jammed everything in a design. And people overstuff for all kinds of reasons. One, I hear people in my flower more community say all the time, there are so many great focals to choose from, we wanna use them all. I understand that, they're all so beautiful. Another reason why people overstuff is because they're afraid, especially if you're selling an arrangement, that they want to provide a lot of value to their customers. And that's fine, but overstuffing your design is not the way to create value. Another reason why people overstuff is that they just don't know when to say when. They don't know when an arrangement is done. I have people ask me all the time, how do you know when an arrangement is done? They keep stuffing in because they're not sure. And the problem with overstuffing focal flowers is that you can see what happens. You've got flowers like peonies and roses that are gonna continue to open, and they're gonna get much bigger. This peony right here, this is gonna probably get twice or three times the size it is right now. As it is right now, there's no place for it to go. There's no place for it to expand. You have a beautiful poppy right here that is so crowded in that you can hardly even see it. Its petals are squished, it's not fully open, and you're not getting the full pleasure that you can get out of it. That is not the way to build value. It's not the way to build a design. You really want to limit the number of focal flowers that you have so that they have enough space to open, expand, and be the focal flower that they were meant to be, to be the thing that focuses the attention. In this arrangement, your eye has no idea where to look. There's too many things. So you wanna leave your focal flowers as the focals. Don't crowd them, don't squash them, let them have room to shine. Focal flowers, they are the wow factor in your design. Once you understand the role of focal flowers and how they work together with the other five elements of design, your arrangements are gonna come together much quicker, much easier, and they're really gonna show off the flowers that you've chosen.