Indoor Gardening

My Vday wish came true to do some flower arranging this weekend!  I actually ended up taking an indoor gardening class a local West Elm store offered.  

The presentation featured WE's new line of vases perfect for air, water, dry & cut flowers which showed New Yorker's how easily they could keep plants alive in their otherwise tricky apartments.  My design-bestie couldn't attend because she's out of town so James was a trooper and joined me.  We got front row seats... 

They showed us a couple different ways to make arrangements and then asked for some volunteers to try their own.  James immediately grabbed my arm and put it up and of course I got picked!  This picture was taken right after I went up...total deer in headlights look, haha!  I was a little nervous in front of a crowd of people!  Now I understand what the sham-wow guy must have gone through ;)

It was so much fun and each volunteer got to choose the vase we wanted to work with.  I used the sculptural multi vase on the right (below).  It has separate vessels- which was so cool!  It was from a new collection WE offers called the Shane Powers' neolithic collection.  I mentioned in another post how WE is doing such an amazing job with all their partnerships with artists, this one especially!  Shane is an interior designer/ prop stylist/ craftsmen/ set designer.  Seriously, how many amazing titles can 1 person have?!  He's worked on styling magazine shoots such as Vogue Living Australia.  So legit!  I also got the small little pot in the middle as a gift afterwards for volunteering- thanks James! :)

Here's some more of Shane Powers collections for West Elm...

This one is called the Water Lilies collection because the lipped edges resemble water lilies.  These are excellent for creating under water arrangements with more structured plants & flowers (orchids, eucalyptus, tulips all work well).

These cylinders are part of the cut clay collection.  They are great displayed on their own or stacked one within the other creating a staggered, architecturally pleasing foundation perfect for rocks, sand, dried flowers, cacti and other succulents.  They recommended stacking rocks or layering sand in the bottom of vases in order to secure any flowers.

I've also seen under water arrangement anchored by using decorative wire and wrapping it around the flower stem and then also around the rock so that it acts as a weight.  I'm going to try and recreate these soon!

They gave all the people who attended the class their own air plants to take home, which you can also buy in the store now.  

Air plants are a piece of cake to take care of too...all they need is a little light and a little water, literally you just have to spritz them twice a week.  If you don't have a green-thumb, these are most definitely the plants for you!

I really love that furniture & home decor stores are starting to incorporate plants and flowers.  West Elm also offers the dried flowers you see above so you can buy everything in one swoop and easily make your own arrangement at home.  Here's what I did with the plants we got...

 

And then I noticed the store was throwing out a small woven bag (that are used to hold the decorative rocks they sell) and some Eucalyptus from the presentation and so I asked to take home and ended up making this little arrangement...

 I had such a great morning in this class and love getting new ideas.  If you'd like to try making your own or see additional tips, here's a little 'how to video' by Shane Powers himself.