Tara Dennis suggested using plain greenery as a modern alternative to regular cut flowers. You can buy greenery from the florist, or better still, collect some free foliage from your own garden. As Tara demonstrated in our segment, even simple arrangements can look stunning.

Shapely branches

Instead of going to the florist shop and buying tortured willow, use any interesting branches or prunings from the garden. You don’t need any water - just pop the twigs into a dry vase with some pebbles.

Gymea lily leaves

Tara put some Gymea lily leaves into a tall glass vase, and then dropped some limes into the bottom of the vase to support the leaves and create a more striking effect. She then filled the vase with water. This arrangement had amazing height and structure, so Tara decided to stand it on the floor, rather than on a table or sideboard.

Foliage combo

To make an elegant statement, take a monstera leaf, cycad leaf and some spear grass, bunch them together and put them into a vase.

Stick feature

You might remember a few weeks ago Don covered a shed with a product called Natureed. Tara removed the wire from the offcuts, bundled them together and twisted them into a great ‘stick feature’.

Copyright CTC Productions 2003