Fresh flowers? It’s all about ‘brown bouquets’ now
As dried stems take pride of place at Chelsea Flower Show, Madeleine Howell explores the trend
As with most mad style trends, all roads lead back to Hackney. All the rage among florists right now are displays created using once-fresh flowers that are past their best, on the turn and, in some cases, in need of a deadheading. Which is fortunate for exhibitors at this week’s delayed Chelsea Flower Show, as the gala event is taking place in autumn for the first time in history, at the wrong end of the growing season.
Before visitors reach the displays of browning blooms and workshops dedicated to preserving flowers, they will pass the show’s Bull Ring Gate entrance, festooned with seasonappropriate planting which, out of sheer necessity, includes curling petals, dried pods and seedheads.
This boho approach to making do with whatever is around you stems from 2018, when a Stoke Newington florist made headlines selling artfully trimmed but still common-or-garden twigs and branches at £18 a pop. Increasingly, alternatives to fresh flowers are in vogue.
“There’s no shame these days in using flowers that are slightly drooping or on the way out, rather than chucking them in the bin,” says Philippa Craddock, who created the floral arrangements for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding.
“In fact, there is something utterly beautiful as a stem begins to droop, softening into an almost velvet-like finish as it dries. A vase with a scattering of petals, confetti like around the base, is something rather magical.”
This summer, brides – who had long given up on ordering fresh flowers for their wedding day, only to be foiled by the pandemic – sparked a rush on dried floral arrangements, and even embraced the idea of walking down the aisle with a (gasp!) “brown bouquet”. Online marketplace Etsy reported a 261 per cent increase in searches for dried flowers, known in the trade as “everlastings”.
Earlier this month, dried bouquets were a hot topic on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, with panellist Matthew Wilson suggesting that a bride who was considering an artificial bouquet for a wedding next September should instead cut, hang and dry her own autumnal blooms now, to mix in with fresh autumnal annuals for her big day.
Notting Hill designer Shane Connolly – who supplied flowers to the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-bowles, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – says brides have taken to using ‘‘brown’’ flowers as a way to go green in the autumn, ditching brightly coloured imported blooms in favour of inseason alternatives, such as flower-free foliage, coffee-coloured petals and even fruit.
“Autumn flowers feel grown up,” he says, “and have an extraordinary sophistication and elegance. And brown flowers are beautiful.” And all you need to keep a dried flower arrangement looking good for years is the occasional blast with a hairdryer to remove any dust.
As well as at weddings, dried and seasonal displays are now also taking
Brides are using brown flowers as a way of going green
centre stage in our homes. In a previous era, decorating with dried flowers might have been associated with the dusty fireplaces of the 1970s, or even the Victorian era.
“But dried flowers often last months, if not years, and this is appealing, particularly to more conscious younger generations,” says Bex Partridge, author of Everlastings (£14.99, Hardie Grant). “A vase of dried flowers brings extra movement and texture to a room and invites nature in as we move to the darker months. Structural seed heads and grasses offer something for those who are looking for a contemporary look, and branches of beech and acer can be cut and laid to dry in sheets of cardboard to flatten out their leaves.”
Tapping in to the trend, Phohm (phohmdriedflowershop.com), a dried flower emporium, opened in Brighton last summer, while letterbox flower florist Bloom and Wild (bloomandwild.com) now offers dried bouquets alongside their fresh selection, including hand-tied bouquet The Jo (£42), a pretty posy of dried, brown-ish white gypsophilia, pink spray roses, delphiniums and oat grass.
But it’s something you can also try at home. Take hydrangeas: even as they start to turn, the big, blowsy parchment-coloured heads, when placed single-stem in a flute-like vase with just a drop of water, makes an instant September showstopper.
Craddock likes to display hydrangeas on their own, or incorporated with bronze woodland bracken, in dramatic, forest-inspired displays that usher in the autumn. “The fronds are breathtakingly elegant when used simply en masse with their full length,” she says. “They retain their shape well and their slightly washed-out antique, blush tones are exquisite.”
Because, in truth, dried flowers are not generally “brown”, but have merely acquired a more distinctive, faded patina. According to Craddock: “I think the blooms that look the most beautiful when dried include larkspur, strawflowers, cornflowers, nigella, achillea and lavender”, while florist Paula Pryke loves using “dried umbel, wild teasel, berries, hips, fruits and vegetables in autumn, to make my work more textural”.
And if all else fails, try adding a couple of twigs into your usual arrangements – head to the park for fallen branches or stump up £18 to buy some from a hipster Hackney florist.