A few blooms beside a bed of crisp white sheets can really ramp up the glam in your bedroom. To celebrate British Flowers Week, we asked award-winning wedding and special event florist Jay Archer, whose romantic, wild and natural designs have featured in magazines such as Conde Nast BRIDES for her tips on creating the perfect summer bedroom floral display.
Go for scented
You can't go wrong with pretty looking and sweet smelling blooms. I always recommend scented flowers to my clients who want to bring the essence of a quintessentially English country garden to life with their arrangements. Personal favourites include stocks, flowering mint, sweet peas, garden roses, and scented leaf pelargoniums. The added bonus is that all of these varieties are easy to grow, so your garden will be full of an enticing scent. They also have a good vase life.
Make them last
If you find your beautiful blooms aren’t lasting as long as you would like, I recommend cutting stems daily and regularly changing the water. It’s always best not to overcrowd the vase, which also helps them to last longer.
When cutting flowers from the garden, cut first thing in the morning when they've had the evening dew to refresh them after a hot day. Remember to bleach vases in between arrangements, to help keep the new flowers as fresh as possible and prevent bacteria shortening their lifespan.
Fill up with foliage
Foliage is often overlooked but can do wonders for plumping up an arrangement. British varieties, which are easy to come by and add interest include beech, white leaf, hebe and lemon balm.
Sleep easy
Lavender is probably the most well-known of all plants when it comes to aiding a restful night. Research shows that lavender scents slow down heart rate, lower blood pressure and reduce stress levels.
Lavender is a summer flowering shrub and you can start to see a purple haze in late May with full colour from mid June and throughout July.
Jay’s favourite picks
In the summer, I love fluffy peonies, roses and majestic delphiniums - bright, jewel tones against a backdrop of beech greens and soft grasses.
I often have a posy of sweet peas next to my bed, and they're the first thing I see when I wake up! The nostalgic scent takes me back to childhood memories of playing in my grandparents’ garden, crushing lavender pips between my fingers and stamping them into the concrete path to release the scent.
Jay Archer Floral Design www.jayarcherforaldesign.com
Jay Archer Floral Design Flower School www.jafdflowerschool.com
