Creating a Tropical Floral Arrangement in the Winter

My favorite thing about picking out flowers is getting to experiment with colors and textures. There is usually a flower that stands out at market that will catch my eye or a specific request from a client. In this case, the request was to include tropical flowers in the arrangement. I find that a lot of tropical flowers have clean lines and simple petal structures.

For this arrangement, the red Anthirium and orange bird of paradise were particularly vibrant and caught my eye. I picked those as the base for my arrangement and built on it from there. I find that green Hypericum Berry adds a great texture and that brightness of the green enhances the saturation of the Anthirium and Bird of Paradise but does not take away from them.

I also added Fusica Dendrobium Orchids as another touch of tropical. Now, in order to balance out the clean lines of the tropical flowers, I did a complete 180 and picked a ruffled Rose and traditional Spider Mum. The complex petal structure of these two flowers builds on the clean-lines of the tropicals and gives the eye something to be drawn to.

In addition to adding a few traditional blooms, I take the arrangement one step further and mix in some winter evergreen; after all, we are in Minnesota and what is more abundant in our winter climate than fresh evergreens!

I find that mixing unexpected textures, elements from different genres and bold colors creates a spectacular tropical floral arrangement that are very pleasing on the eyes (and nose).