Learn how to design a Permanent Botanical (artificial) Orchid Arrangement

1. Introduction 4 (1): Building a permanent botanical orchid arrangement is really super easy to do. You get your sticks, all your materials from orchids to plants, a few of your supplies, and I'll show you every step of the way on how to build it step by step. It really doesn't take too long to do. Just doing it properly is really important. The willow or sticks that you use, acts as an anchor to help hold orchid stems. The little clips or wires that you use, help attach everything. And then the end, you have a finished product that looks real, but it never needs to be watered. You can choose from white orchids to pink to the magenta, like I used. That's a lot of fun. 2. How to design a Permanent Botanical Orchid arrangement : This permanent botanical orchid looks so real. We're going to start with grabbing our container and wedging the dry foam in, just cut it to fit to size, and I just want to show you this orchid. It moves very easily. It bends, it's wired everywhere. You can move it around once you get into your design and wrap it around your willow. We're going to start with a curly willow and inserting one of the branches into the foam. And push it down securely. Until it looks good and not crooked as you're turning it around. If it looks like it's leaning to one side too much, you can wedge it around. The permanent botanical moss is easy to work with. You just spread it around to cover up the top of your foam. In and around the willow. When you insert all your different pieces of willow, you might have to move the foam at or the moss a little bit just to wedge it in. But I put a few pieces of willow just to make it look more real and it helps support the orchid once you insert your orchid. You might want to just bend it around a little bit and weave in the willow or cut off pieces that just don't seem to work hanging off the side. But you can gather the extra stems that are kind of wisping out and take your banding wire or your clip and just tie it down to the willow. Until later in the design, we'll cover it up with some moss for a more completed look. So I have two stems of orchids. I'm going to cut one a little shorter than the first one. And some of these stems can be really difficult to cut because the wires are really thick. So you might have to bend it back and forth a little bit until it kind of snaps apart. Once you cut it with your wire cutters a little bit. Try and get it close to the main stem of the willow for support. As I said, they move around easily because they're wired. Now if you can't find these orchids, you can use other orchids that you can find locally. But I just showed you how the moss is adhered to the willow with a banding wire. So it stays in place. This is orchid foliage that you buy separately. It's also got a long stem on it just to insert into the foam. The leaves are wired, so you can bend it down on this particular one to make it look like it's more natural. I'm using two different groupings cause I have two orchids in there. So each orchid has its own groups grouping of leaves for a more natural look. I constantly turn my pot to see if things look good from all angles. And the roots and stuff you can have hang out of the pot. So when you go to get near the end of completing your design, you go ahead and take your banding wire and your moss and attach the orchid to the willow to give it support so it doesn't flop over. And just twist it and cut it off. I'm constantly moving and bending my orchids just to get them where I want them to be. But the banding wire is something that you're going to keep doing in different places up and down the orchid to secure it. Now, if you don't have the banding wire or the taped wire, you can use regular wire as well. Most of the moss will cover it anyway. The willow is very pliable because I got fresh willow that's still green on the inside, which you can buy at a local florist or a garden shop. And that's pretty much it. You never have to water it. It looks like it's growing. And it really adds a nice plant to a room. I love the ones that have the orchids, the roots coming off the orchids. So make sure you try and find one like that. The orchids like to grow outside the pot. And you can get different colors, white, purple, whatever color you like. I hope you have fun creating it. It's really simple as you can see. Enjoy.