Mason Jar BOUQUET • Video Tutorial

Hillary Alger
Product Manager, Flowers

Filling a Mason jar with seasonal blooms and branches is a favorite weekly ritual. It's amazing how the diversity of flora can change in just a week's time throughout the growing season. Whether it is blossoms, fruits, herbs, or vegetables, taking a little time to collect and reflect on the season's offering heightens our awareness of time, place, and seasonal rhythms.

Here are a few tips for collecting and arranging this simple bouquet.

1. Before cutting Consider which colors are most appealing and complementary. Choose one type of flower that is either abundant or inspiring. Then choose other blooms with colors that complement that special or abundant flower. This starts the process of constructing your arrangement as you harvest the blooms.	Stock: Quartet White & Apricot Delphinium: Belladonna Mix Cynoglossum: Chinese Forget-Me-Not Sweet Pea: Elegance Pink Diana & Elegance Salmon Rose Echinacea: Cheyenne Spirit Centaurea: Standard Mix & Choice Mix
2. Start with the sturdiest Once you've collected your materials, create a base for your bouquet by placing the sturdiest stems and those with a branching habit in your jar. The base is like a background — it outlines the initial shape and volume of your bouquet. We created the base for this bouquet with stock, our beefiest bloom; Chinese forget-me-not for its branching habit; and delphinium for height and gestural lines.
3. Crisscross the stems Placing stems in a crisscrossed fashion helps secure them in the jar and creates a pleasant, arched distribution of blooms.
4. Complete the base Continue building your base until the bouquet is about 40–50% full, more or less, depending on your preferred style.
5. Fill it in. Now begin to add more delicate flowers, like sweet peas and bachelor's buttons as well as larger, focal flowers. If these blooms were added before the base was built, they would get lost or squished in the arrangement — you might be able to fish them out and reposition them, but that's not ideal.
6. Small pieces. Textural details can seem insignificant on their own but when carefully placed add gesture, movement, and an airy appearance. In this case, small flowers and stems — unopened delphinium buds — give the bouquet sparkle and shimmer.
7. Finishing touches Don't be afraid to edit — if a stem or bloom doesn't quite look right to you, snip it out or adjust its position. At this point, it's better to snip than to pull out unwanted blooms so you don't dismantle your work.

Enjoy…

A larger jar (quart) will hold more water, requiring less frequent replenishment. We got a little carried away, stuffing our jar with so many beautiful blooms!