Floral Design and Arranging

Krista I've seen different fruit and vegetables used in that way too. I haven't tried it myself. I think it would probably be better for a one evening event or something- not a dahlia show where you'd hope the flower looked good not only for judging, but for the entire weekend the public comes to see the show! Maybe I will experiment with some of the zucchini that gets forced upon me this time of year.
I still wholeheartedly believe that grid tops or pin frogs or some other sort of mechanic built in to the ADS vases or tops is the long term answer for foam-free dahlia shows. We aren't building flower arches for goodness sake - we don't have to have foam or a foam replacement for most entries. Something that doesn't need to be continually purchased would make the most sense in both environmental and financial sustainability. I just don't have the time or energy to make it my mission right now. I should have written an article for the bulletin when all my research was fresh in my mind.

One of the things I learned about keeping cut flowers beautiful for a normal length of time is to keep them away from ethylene. Ethylene is produced by ripening fruits. So don't store your buckets of cut flowers in the same cooler with the box of apples or pears you jut picked! I am not sure how much ethylene items such as you mention give off ,but it would be something to keep in mind as you experiment.

The shredded floral foam has been discontinued. Our club is working on a replacement. We are buying a $200- shredder for garden use and some blocks of foam. A Washington exhibitor has tried this method and claims success. I will update you all on the progress. Shredded foam is used for show entries and no acceptable substitute has been found. Very many things have been tried and very clever people have failed. I bought a 3 year supply of the old stuff before it was discontinued, so I am not as interested in this as some other people.

I grow flowers so that I can pick a bouquet at a moment's notice. My 9b climate readily grows Alstroemeria and annual statice, both of which are great bouquet flowers. I've been staring at a 6' by 6' "beast" of a Dahlia (23049) that overwintered without division. It's planted in a super nice place, a raised bed vegetable garden, and I decided to pick some today.

DarcyD
Bonnie Blooms must have a lot of self esteem judging by their pricing...Maybe they should invest a little time in learning about form .

A little bit of morning flower therapy.

BackyardBouquets_17 beautiful!

This may not be the place to post this but why not. I noticed that one of our second year seedlings gets immensely brighter in color in the days after picking the flower. It went from the standard light blend of golden yellow with some dark pink on the center florets to blazing torch of bright orange on a yellow background.
Only have an "after" picture.

I would like to see more of that one

Teddahlia
That’s very cool! I have recently encountered a rose & sweet peas that change color. Sweet pea “shift” varieties change colors, “blue shift” goes from pink to purple to blue. My in laws have a rose that starts orange and gradually turns bright pink on the edges (picotee looking) with the rest of the petals turning yellow, but it doesn’t look old or faded as the color changes. I find this to be a fun trait in flowers, almost like 2 varieties in one

After entering my first show arrangement a couple weeks ago, I'm hooked and I'm excited to do a few for the upcoming midwest conference dahlia show next weekend. While working on my ideas I remembered all the Holly Chapple pillows I bought a couple years ago but haven't used because I don't really do big fancy arrangements often. I am using a big round one not pictured here and it's so much nicer than chicken wire - IF one of the shapes and sizes fits the vessel. Anyway, they're just 2 pieces that snap together and they won't rust like uncoated chicken wire and they don't have sharp edges to poke you either. I've been playing around with them and I love them and thought I would show them to you as another foam free arrangement alternative.

Where does one get those? They look very useful

calico20hill looks like Amazon has them. You have to use “bouquet pillow cage” as a keyword search unless you want to search through a long list of floral throw pillows.

calico20hill I ordered directly from Holly's farm.
https://hopeflowerfarm.com/products/holly-pillow-shipping-available

KitCMC hahaha. But seriously, I learned a couple things just from the comments on the original post. "Height should be 1-1.5x height of the vase." "Lily bloom will impede bloom of the rose." Etc.