Succulent bouquet garden
Learn how to save the succulents in your wedding bouquet and plant them to make your own succulent garden! Remember your wedding day for years to come!
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I am so excited to share this post with you! I've had several people email me about using succulents as their wedding flowers and I have to say…
A succulent bouquet is a great way to make a statement at your wedding!
The best part is you can save the succulents from your bouquet and create a succulent garden with them! Then you'll be able to keep a beautiful memory of your wedding in your home for years.
Your Succulent Bouquet
Rather than making a succulent bouquet myself, I got a bouquet from Succulently Urban on Etsy. I was so glad I did!
Her bouquets are absolutely beautiful and it arrived in pristine condition. The packaging was designed in such a way that the bouquet wasn't able to move and there wasn't anything that could touch or damage the succulents during shipping.
I highly recommend buying from her if you decide to purchase a bouquet online.
I also wanted to point out that this bouquet was delivered to me on Friday but I wasn't able to photograph it until Monday. I realize that succulents can last a while without water, but I was amazed at how well the other flowers in the arrangement lasted too!
This really is a durable bouquet that will definitely survive a full day of use for your wedding.
Something fun about this particular bouquet… if you look on the right hand side of the picture below, you'll notice the bouquet actually has Aeonium blooms in it (did you know that succulents actually flower?)!
I thought that was a really nice touch. Plus, succulent flowers last quite a long time.
Remove the ribbon
The first step is to remove the ribbon from the bouquet. You can either cut it off or untie it. I tend to save all sorts of ribbon so I untied mine. This will reveal all the stems and wires of succulents and flowers.
Cut the floral tape
Cut through the floral tape and remove it to expose the stems and wires.
Pull out non-succulents
With this bouquet, most of the flowers were under the first layer of floral tape. Remove any flower stems that aren't succulents. You can throw these away or save them if you can find a use for them! I love the thistle in this bouquet. I think they would save and could look interesting as decoration on a shelf.
Pull apart succulent stems
Continue to cut off floral tape and separate the floral stems from the succulents wires. You should be left with a collection of succulents attached to wires.
Peel back floral tape, cut and remove wires
I found the best way to remove the wires from the succulents was to pull back the floral tape and clip the wire near the top. Leave enough wire that you can then pull out the pieces. Do this for each of the succulents so you are left with just the succulent cuttings.
Remove dead leaves from succulents
To encourage the succulents to put off roots and grow healthy and beautiful, pull off any dead leaves around the bottom of the succulent. Removing these leaves helps to prevent rot later on.
Leave the cuttings to dry
Removing the wires from the succulents can cause some slight damage to occur. It's nothing serious, but any “open wound” on a succulent can cause it to rot when watered. I recommend letting the succulents dry out for a day before you place them in soil.
Plant the succulents
Now for the fun part! You get to arrange all your succulent cuttings into a stunning container arrangement.
My bouquet was mostly Echeverias which are all about the same height. They are also particular about over watering. So, I selected a shallow bonsai pot to plant them in.
This shallow container was perfect! It provided enough room for soil but is low enough that it allows the succulents to be the focus. Originally I had selected a much deeper pot, but it was distracting and shifted the view away from the plants.
For a step by step tutorial of how to plant the succulents in the pot, visit my post on how to plant succulents. It's pretty straight forward, once you have the soil in, just place the succulents in the soil and then add a top dressing.
Turning your succulent bouquet in to a beautiful container garden is quite simple. Plus, if you are paying hundreds of dollars for a bouquet, it's nice to be able to save it, right?
This tutorial should help you create a wonderful keepsake from your wedding that you'll be able to enjoy for years to come!
Have any of you already used succulents in a bouquet for your wedding or are you planning to? I'd love to see pictures!