Green flowers & foliage

Green really does bloom — and in surprising variety. Santini chrysanthemums like ‘Kermit’ glow lime green, viburnum opens its apple-green snowballs before they turn white, green hydrangeas bring lush volume, and the anthurium ‘Midori’ makes a modern statement with its lacquer-green spathe. Add bells of Ireland and the mossy globes of the carnation ‘Green Trick’ — blooms that radiate freshness without needing a second colour.

The other half of the green world is cut foliage: eucalyptus — above all the silver-green Eucalyptus cinerea —, finely feathered ferns, pistachio, bear grass and asparagus fern. What used to be a filler is often the star today: a branch of eucalyptus defines the line of a bouquet at least as much as any rose in it.

At the workbench, greenery is the framework of every bouquet — quite literally. We place the foliage first: it keeps the stems spaced in the spiral, gives each bloom air and supports heavy heads like hydrangeas or dahlias. As a rule of thumb we allow about one third greenery — a bouquet without a framework collapses, visually and literally.

A practical note from the workshop: cut foliage usually outlasts the blooms by far. Eucalyptus, fern and friends can simply be recombined or dried once the flowers fade. Just make sure to strip every leaf below the waterline — foliage in the water turns it bad. We buy our greenery fresh at the Veiling every day, by variety and by the bunch.