A Bunch for the Weekend - # 15 - Helenium

This week on 'A Bunch for the Weekend' - I'm featuring Helenium.

Helenium is a perennial that you can grow yourself in the garden and it will come back year after year. You can also buy it at the flower markets or farmers markets.

What is brilliant about this flower is that if you keep picking - it will keep flowering - so it produces flowers over a long period of time.

They make very good cut flowers and bees love them - BUT wear gloves when you pick them as they can cause allergic skin reactions. 

It has mahogany-crimson flowers with a large chocolate-brown centre. Combine it with some of the smaller sunflowers or like here just on their own.

You will need:

- 10-12 stems of Heleniums

-  a wide-necked glass bottle (in my case it's a vintage milk bottle)

- 4-5 strands of raffia

- brown paper or wooden luggage tags  

Like always condition the flowers by removing any of the lower leafs that would end up below the water line in the container and cut the ends at an angle to maximum the water uptake. Put straight away in a clean container with fresh water in a dark, cool place preferable over night or at least for a few hours before doing the final arrangement.

I tied a few strands of raffia around the neck of the milk bottle and attached a wooden tag also with some raffia underneath.

Mix already fully open flowers with semi-open ones as well as others that are still in 'button' stage. It's a very informal and kind of 'just picked from the garden' arrangement. Colourful and charming in its simplicity.    

Have a Lovely Floral and Creative Day!

I'm still in a go-slow summer mode - but I'll see you again next week for another 'A Bunch for the Weekend'.

I hope you are having a wonderful summer

xoxo Ingrid

[The Helenium flowers are grown by Cel Robertson at the Forever Green Flower Company - on her flower farm in Norfolk.]