Happy Thanksgiving from Hanbury House!

One of my favorite things about having a garden and growing my own organic flowers is sharing them in floral arrangements with the folks I love and care about.  This year, my daughter, B wanted to help make our arrangement to take to Nana’s house, so I decided something more kid friendly was called for.  We still had a left over unused pumpkin from Halloween out on the front porch that I figured would make the perfect fall themed container for Thanksgiving.  Making a homemade floral arrangement is much simpler than it looks.

• Start by soaking some Oasis or florist foam in water, plan to do this at least 30 minutes ahead of time. While the oasis is soaking I gather the foliage and flowers.  Oasis foam is easy to penetrate with delicate stems and will hold the water that is needed to help keep your arrangement fresher for an extended period of time.  *If you bought extra flowers, like I did for this fall arrangement, from the store that came with a packet of floral preservative, add the packet to the soaking water before submerging the foam.
• Cut your pumpkin top off and scrape out the seeds to make room for the foam. You don’t have to be super neat with the inside.  I tucked a plastic cookie carton inside the pumpkin to help it last a little longer.  If you wedge the foam in tightly, it won’t need floral tape to hold the foam in place, like would be necessary with some other kinds of containers.  B squeezed two blocks into our pumpkin and trimmed it a bit.
• Use any pretty foliage you find in the yard or garden that doesn’t wilt quickly.  We used fern leaves and Camilla foliage.
• Add your largest flowers first.  In our case, we had sunflowers from Trader Joe’s.
• Then B added pomegranates, apples, and pears on wooden picks next.  I have also used lime foliage with fruit from our bearss lime tree this time of year and then no picks are needed.
• Finally, add any mixed filler flowers.  We added mums and alstromerias at this point, then filled in any remaining bare spots with sprigs of leaves and nandina berry clippings.

Happy Thanksgiving!