Bouquet of the Week: Celebrating Finland’s Wild and Restrained Charm

As part of our recurring Bouquet of the Week series, Garden Collage continues to present a weekly inspirational bouquet that incorporates intriguing new elements into the traditional practice of flower arranging. This week, Garden Collage contributor Antonia Hamberg styles a “wild and restrained” bouquet to reflect the landscape of her native country: Finland.

This loosely-gathered bouquet of elegant Winter Bells, bold and passionate Hortensia, minimal-yet-strong Leukadendron, and subtly-charming, pale Flash Point tulips was inspired by the allure of my home country of Finland.

Finnish nature is wild and intriguing in its vast rocky seashore, immense forests, and open, uninhabited landscapes. The strong, structured Leukadendron reminds me of this, while the deep, muted burgundy-colored Hortensia represent the hope, comfort and joy that the colorful summer flowers make us feel each year. The Winter Bells harken to Finland’s iconic lake districts: landscapes that, like small entities unto themselves, gather around a lake in a breathtakingly beautiful, natural harmony. The poetry of this landscape is encapsulated by the materials that went into this arrangement.

The pale tulips reflect the raw quirkiness of our nature, a certain minimalistic but deep and authentic aura that characterizes Finland and its people: taken together, these flowers represent the unique contrast between light and dark, winter and summer, open space and dense forests, the sea and lakes, the north and the south, and the historic influence of the east and west. Woven together, opposing flowers are both intriguing and unexpected, exuding a wild and restrained charm.