DIY: Great bouquets and flower arrangements for Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, the spotlight turns to all mums. On this day, we put our mothers first by pampering them completely. You can do this with delicious food or a cute card, but the best way to do it is with fresh flowers from your own garden. Pick your mother's favourite flowers from your garden and put them in a beautiful vase. Or get creative by making a flower arrangement yourself. We'll give you some great ideas on how to make the best Mother's Day gifts with your own plants.

1.   Simple beauty: a flower in a vase

Elegant and beautiful: a single flower in a vase. You can put it anywhere: on the table, next to the television or on the floor in an empty corner. For this, you'll want large flowers that make a statement by drawing attention to themselves. This will make them the highlight of an entire room. Beautiful flowers to put in a vase are Allium, Peony or Sunflower. These all flower in late spring, can grow very large and provide a lot of colour. Just cut these flowers from your own garden; they are well used to it. Place them in your most beautiful vase with some water and food. Then you can enjoy these powerful blooms for weeks. The perfect gift for Mother's Day!

2.   Colourful mix of flowers and branches

Wanting to give your mother a more elaborate bouquet? You don't need to go to the florist, just pick them from your own garden! For this special day, you can make a wonderfully cheerful bouquet bursting with colour. A mix of flowers, twigs and greenery brings you back to nature. Flowering bulbs take on the main role in the bouquet. With their bright colours, they provide an element of fun. Will you choose a frilly tulip or a trumpet daffodil? Or perhaps you would prefer a calmer bouquet? In that case, the white flowers of the lily of the valley are a good choice. For an attractive effect, add some green twigs to the bouquet. Ribes, for example, has flowering branches in April and May, a win-win!

3.   Enjoy for longer with a dried bouquet

Dried flowers are very on trend and extremely popular at the moment. Collect the flowers from your own garden and dry them for a bouquet that will remain beautiful for a very long time. Drying the flowers makes the colours fade slightly, which creates a hip vintage look for your home. Who wouldn't like that?
It's important to use the right flowers and plants, such as lavender, poppies and grasses. These plants have quite woody, thick stems, which remain sturdy after drying. Other flowers and plants can go limp or lose their colour completely. You can create a beautiful purple and red dry bouquet using a combination of lavender, poppy, red peonies and miscanthus stems.

The fastest way to dry flowers and plants is to put them in silica gel in the microwave. Take a microwave-proof container and cover the bottom of the container with silica gel. Place the flowers and plants face down in the trays and add some more silica gel. Be careful when selecting a time and power level for the plants in the microwave. Some plants are more fragile than others. Often, 2 to 5 minutes in the microwave is sufficient. After drying in the microwave, clean the flowers and plants and spray them with acrylic spray. It's amazingly quick, less than 15 minutes' work! And looks great on a garden table during Mother's Day lunch.

4.   Floral wreath

Everyone is familiar with Christmas and Easter wreaths. But have you ever thought of a floral wreath with a summery theme? This brings nature into your home for a pleasant Mother's Day. You can of course choose any flowers you want: from flowering bulbs like tulips and hyacinths, to cut flowers like those of the clematis. Choose the most cheerful and colourful flowers for great results! Perhaps even more beautiful, thanks to the large quantity of flowers, is a wreath made of hydrangea blooms. The blue or pink flowers radiate love for your mother. Ideal for Mother's Day and also easy to make. Take a ready-made floral foam wreath. Cut a number of branches from a hydrangea and insert them into the foam. Finish it off with some iron wires to keep everything in place. Great for hanging on the front door.

5.   Spring arrangement

Truly creative types will naturally want to create a complete flower arrangement themselves. For this, it is important that you have floral foam at home. Soak it well before you start. You could opt for a spring theme, which suits the time of year perfectly. It also radiates happiness and joy. Focus on brightly coloured flowers such as daffodils and hyacinths. Hyacinths also add a wonderful scent to the flower arrangement. Insert them neatly into the floral foam and group them together on top. Or maybe you would prefer a more summery look? In which case, why not consider including iris in your arrangement? Finish it off with fresh green leaves and twigs. Working eucalyptus leaves into a flower arrangement is very popular, for example. Your gift will not only be cheerful but also completely on trend.

Tip: Don't you have any cut flowers in the garden yet, but want to make a beautiful bouquet or flower arrangement? Then go and pick flowers in a public picking garden near you.

Are you fired up with ideas for what you can do with cut flowers? Then start a cut flower garden now, or add some more beautiful plants and flowers to your existing garden. You'll find an extensive collection of fresh plants for cut flowers in our garden plants range.