Friday 19 August 2011

Silk Flowers (Foxgloves)

I love silk flowers and because it's Friday; welcome to another Floral Friday :)

In today's post I shall show you how to make a display like this: my lovely everlasting foxgloves.

The cream stems are made by Sia. The smaller pink foxgloves and the Bells of Ireland are made by another manufacturer but I thought they complimented each other quite well.

Lella Loves... Silk Flowers

To start, I took an old terracotta planter which had been in the garden for years. Bringing it indoors, I cleaned out the soil and let the planter dry out for a few days. The outside of the tub is lovely and weathered so I have left the algae and the salt marks as I like the look.

Once I had all my items ready, I made sure that I put the tub in situ before I started the display. This is important unless you live with a weightlifting champion as the display weighs in at about 30 kg when finished.

So, with planter in place, I took broken house bricks and set them inside the tub so they were wedged in at angles. I wanted to use the holes in the bricks to act like a florist's 'frog' - a useful tool which holds stems in place in a vase.

I then fed the large cream foxgloves in to the holes and the back gap so I had three flowers in a triangle formation in the square planter. Taking the shingle, I started to back-fill just the bottom of the stems. I then placed the cream flower bud stems, the pink foxgloves and the bells in between, filling the planter with more shingle as I worked.

Lella Loves... Silk Flowers

The foxglove leaves were placed around the base of the large cream stems as the last 3 inches of shingle is loaded in. 

To finish, I took some moss and placed it over the shingle to give the display that true hedgerow feel as that is where foxgloves grow in the wild.

To make a similar display for your home, you will need:

3 very large foxgloves in cream
3 smaller foxglove stems with their buds opening
3 small pink foxgloves
6 stems of foxglove leaves
3 stems of Bells of Ireland
Garden tub or other pot
Broken house bricks or large stones
Rubble, shingle and some dried moss


Lella Loves... Silk Flowers

I do hope you like my foxgloves. The expense of exceptional quality silk flowers will, if you work it out across the time, give you hours of pleasure. They are to be enjoyed: everlasting blooms are such good value in the long run.

The large cream foxgloves were about £20 each and I bought 3 with the leaf foliage and the budding stems for that price. The smaller pink stems are £8 each and Bells of Ireland can be found for £2 a stem. When you add it all up but then divide that total by the 7 years (so far!) that I have had this display, it works out at pennies per day.

*Tip: Buy top quality silk flowers and they will last forever.

Have a lovely day and treat yourself to something floral this weekend.

Do leave a comment if you wish.  :)

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