Put Together a Holiday Centerpiece the Slow Flowers Way
Forage for local seasonal blooms and foliage to create a long-lasting arrangement
Author, speaker, outdoor living expert and Houzz contributor Debra Prinzing is passionate about floral design that uses local, seasonal and sustainable flowers. Prinzing wrote about this approach in her 2013 book, Slow Flowers, which showcases 52 arrangements based on these principles. Since then, she has lectured widely on the topic and has created a Slow Flowers online directory where people can find florists, wedding planners, flower farmers and others committed to using American-grown blooms.
Here, Prinzing has designed a seasonal centerpiece crafted from plants grown in her yard and near her Seattle home. She provides step-by-step instructions to help you re-create the look using flowers and foliage from your own area. Take some time to slow down during this busy season and enjoy foraging for and arranging a beautiful holiday centerpiece.
Here, Prinzing has designed a seasonal centerpiece crafted from plants grown in her yard and near her Seattle home. She provides step-by-step instructions to help you re-create the look using flowers and foliage from your own area. Take some time to slow down during this busy season and enjoy foraging for and arranging a beautiful holiday centerpiece.
Slow Flowers incorporates principles similar to those of the Slow Food and Slow Gardening movements applied to the floral industry. It’s about choosing blooms and foliage that are in season and sourced locally, foraging outside for branches, berries, pinecones, foliage and flowers to help fill out an arrangement and helping to make the floral industry more sustainable.
It also can be about slowing down and envisioning what you’re going to use in your arrangement, thinking about the places where the blooms and leaves came from and taking the time to create a beautiful arrangement. Prinzing likens the benefits of her time arranging flowers this way to those of meditation. While she’s usually busy multitasking, when she takes time to create arrangements it’s her sole focus.
1. Choose Your Vessel
For Prinzing, this particular centerpiece began with a recent gift from Semia Dunne, a floral business owner who commissions local Rhode Island-made vessels for her shops. This was the first time Prinzing had the chance to use it.
“This vase is really remarkable, and I was dying to use it,” she says. “I love using these footed compotes for centerpieces because you can have cascading elements off the sides and they won’t hit the table.”
Footed compote: J Schatz