A Foliage Bouquet

A bouquet of lilies sent my friend to the hospital last year and she no longer keeps flowers in her house.  But I wanted to give her a bouquet.  So, I took my last remaining pair of scissors that I haven’t lost in the garden this season and I began cutting interesting foliage and sticking it into a five gallon bucket filled with water.  

I wanted to include the scale and interest that I use in my flower bouquets but with using the different texture, shape and colors of the leaves.  And I couldn’t resist using the old seed heads from my cape fuchsias that I hadn’t deadheaded yet.  I ended up using foliage from my hostas, rice paper plant, zebra grass, maidenhair fern, lady fern, an ostrich fern stem blackened from the heat, a stem of cardoon flower buds and leaves, bleeding heart, ligularia, mahonia, hellebore, and Japanese maple. 

And I ended up with a fun and fascinating bouquet that expressed my affection without setting off my friend’s allergies.  And she loved her ‘green’ bouquet!