The current era.

In the base, a piece of wooden beam (residual wood), a number of gold-colored metal fern-like leaves are placed in a regular rhythm: very straight upwards. To create a nice contrast between the two elements, the flowers are placed organically. The arrangement symbolizes the time of now, where the gold-colored ferns are the people, and the flowers are the surrounding nature. Very different and yet not clashing, they form a beautiful whole.

Back to nature

A beautifully robust slate container is filled with Oasis Terra Brick. Many different special types of flowers have been incorporated, placed as they naturally grow from the earth. A beautiful mix of French tulips, orchids, Cambria, Ludisia, Cornus, Talinum 'Long John', Osmunda fern curl, Ranunculus, and Nerine are incorporated here. All materials are biodegradable and can return to nature.

Beautifully fragile

A fully biodegradable arrangement with beautiful water carriers in a beautiful model. The water carriers have an opening at the bottom that exactly fits a bamboo stick. The bamboo sticks are then placed in drilled holes in a beautiful wooden disc. Beautiful fragile flowers with thin stems are incorporated in the water carriers. By cutting the tubes shorter, the opening becomes larger and thicker stems also fit in. Talinum 'Long John', Clematis, Cambria orchid and a beautiful purple Gloriosa are processed as they grow in nature.

Flower garden

The icing on the cake.

The base of this graceful floral ensemble is a brown Bio Cake dummy from Smithers-Oasis that has been dipped in candle wax several times. This makes it waterproof – and you can process this surface as such. The flowers are vegetatively inserted into the floral foam. The brown variant can remain visible and therefore requires fewer flowers. Placement of the flowers and materials is very precise: all flowers must have their own place. Make sure you insert correctly in one go so that no holes are visible in the floral foam.

'Reuse to Reduce'

Floral designer Hanneke Frankema is always looking around for bases. That yielded her, for example, a set of beautiful wooden tables, one of which she was able to use immediately for this edition. ‘Keep your eyes open, I always say. For example, we had bought residual wood from a staircase maker, and what was at the bottom of the Big Bag? All beautiful cylindrical hardwood pieces in different sizes. I put them in a nice dish and incorporated the flowers in between. Waste can be beautifully reused in this way.’

'I also like to use (residual) wooden boards and beams as a base regularly. For example, a piece of beam that was left over from the construction of my classroom next to our house has found its way into an arrangement where it is used as a base. So what would normally be thrown away could now be used very nicely for an arrangement.'

'Old materials are also regularly given a second life. For example, I used dried Craspedia as the basis of a fine, sweet heart – so I never throw them away! You can make beautiful dried and therefore long-lasting bases or objects from it. You can also often remake the surfaces themselves numerous times with other and/or fresh materials. In short: reuse to reduse!