We love the bright, saturated colors of the Dahlias and Zinnias in the gardens and markets in early Fall. These big, colorful blossoms make it so easy to make spectacular bouquets at home.

Arrangements can be tightly packed and elegant, or loose, carefree and zany.

For an elegant arrangement we took two just slightly different shades of dahlias and arranged them, alternating colors. We snipped the stems so they were just a bit shorter than the silver bucket we were using as a vase (this allows the arrangement to rest on the edge of the vase).

Next, the flowers were dropped in vase, fluffed and adjusted just a bit and voila…an elegant bouquet.

What a thrill to find a healthy bunch of Celosia (or cockscomb or chinese woolflower) at the flower market. This unusual looking velvety ruffle of a flower beautifully accents the bold colors of a dahlia. It is more common to find it in more of a purple shade. We thought this yellow-green was an ideal tone for orange dahlias.

Again, we arranged the stems in one hand, packing the Celosia ruffles around the flowers. We cut the stems so they were a little shorter than the silver mint julep cup vase. Dropped in the flowers, a little fluff and…

Splendidness!!

We admired this loose, duo-colored, Van Gogh-esque bouquet at a friends birthday party we recently attended.

The full heads and intense colors of dahlias and zinnias also look great packed in an arrangement with other autumnal colored flowers.

More on the berries in a future post.
For the love of Zinnias!

We could study their color shades and combinations endlessly.

We love the pin cushion shaped jewels in the center of many of the flowers, with the random petite petals.

Just trim the ends, place them in a vase, and spread them out to let everyone enjoy their unusual beauty close up.

This group is a little sleepy, but, still, wouldn’t they make splendid cocktail rings??