One of the declarations in our Princess Code is “A Princess should be given fresh flowers everyday, even if she has to give them to herself.” and I wholeheartedly agree with this! Nothing brings life and light to a lady’s chamber better than fresh flowers.

I have a vase by my bedside that I try and keep filled with flowers, whether bought or hand picked. Different flowers evoke different emotions; happiness, peace, wonder and love. The Victorians even wrote a language of flowers which you can read about here, though there are many different variations of this language that sometimes contradict eachother so don’t take it too seriously. The personal meaning a flower has to you is far more important.

When picking wildflowers or garden flowers, cut them early in the morning and place them in to water as quickly as possible. Flowers with stiff or wooder stems tend to last longer. Cut your flowers with a sharp pair of scissors or pruning shears and always leave some on the bush so they can do their job at creating seeds or fruit.

When buying fowers keep in mind the colours that will look best in your room and also the effect you want to create, for example irises for serenity, roses for romance and daisies for joy. Choose flowers that have just opened or are half open, there should be some buds on the stems as well. Some cut flowers will open from buds but not all will.

Before arranging your flowers, cut the stems to the deisired length with some sharp scissors on a diagonal angle. Pull off any leaves that will be below the waterline. Fill your vase with slightly cool to room temperature water, you might want to add some product to prevent bacteria growth as well. If ants are attracted to your flowers, sit the vase in a small dish of water with soap in it.

Arranging flowers is a very personal thing. I love big bunches of a single type of flower, or two at most. To me these look simple and natural, like they’ve just been picked on a walk through the countryside. There a flower fashions too, some of the flowers that were popular in my childhood (carnations and baby’s breath) are out of fashion now and we are getting some pretty new additions such as ranunculus and oriental lilies. The flowers that are available to you will depend on the season and area you live in.

If you love more artistic flower arrangements perhaps consider taking a course in flower arrangement, or its japanese form Ikebana. There are some wonderfully creative ideas out there and you’re likely to learn a lot about botany and flowers as well.

For a cute effect tie a pretty ribbon around the neck of the vase where the flower stems cross over!

These are yellow daisies, I bought them today because their happy little faces were singing “summer!” to me and I couldn’t resist!