British Grown Flowers : December Bouquet

With minutes of light to spare, the challenge of completing twelve months of creating British bouquets came to a close. And what an unexpected close it was. A burst of early flowering Mimosa stole the show with its sweet smelling fluffy blooms finishing my flowering year.

The project began to give time and space to creating bouquets with what was flowering in the garden each month. Driven by a need to have a record of bouquets of different shapes and sizes.

Being self taught, I can feel a bit of a fraud without traditional training. Whilst not a trained florist I am a fully trained designer with years of experience behind me. I needed just a little more time to put self doubt to bed and feel the bouquet making process with my head, heart and hands. Confidence, or lack of has always followed me. Over the years I have learnt how important it is to give myself space when creating. I now often leave a bouquet almost finished for 24 hours before I sign it off. Space is my magic touch.

From a design point of view the biggest lesson I learnt was keeping colour palettes tight. When you grow a rainbow of colours, the temptation is to use all of them. A cohesive bouquet in tonal shades makes any bouquet feel intentional and put together.

Limiting the colour palette and flower choices has made such a difference to how I put bouquets together. It is often what I leave out that makes the biggest change. In doing this process I feel more confident when putting bouquets together, especially, for my big events like weddings.

I can’t recommend setting a monthly project enough. Setting time aside to complete it has challenged me far more than expected. My temptation when busy is to let a project slide but I made myself do it any way. Some days I only had fifteen minutes to work with but I made sure I used those minutes wisely. As a result, I have a collection of twelve beautiful British grown bouquets, which are an honest reflection of the year.

The question to ask is; Shall I keep the project running for 2026 or try a new idea? I’d like to do a seasonal urn arrangement or maybe a seasonal table display? Maybe I’ll do all the above. What I love about a new year is the expanse of possibilities. Happy New Year, everyone!

You can see the full selection of bouquets here.