Create a Foraged Autumn Harvest Arrangement

Celebrate the beauty of fall with a foraged arrangement of late season flowers, foliage and seed pods.  Apples add some natural beauty for an easy-to-assemble arrangement that welcomes fall to your home or outdoor living space.

Happy Monday!

It’s always a happy Monday for me when I join my blogging friends

for some flower therapy and Monday Morning Blooms!

You can find my blogging friends’ links to their floral inspiration at the bottom of this post.

Fall officially arrives tomorrow for those of us in the

Northern Hemisphere and I’ve been counting down the days!

Mother Nature is on board (for a change ;) bringing us a taste of fall

with highs in the low 70s, a welcome change after our hot and humid summer.

My favorite season is pumpkin season and when the calendar page turns to

September, I’m ready for harvest of pumpkins, leaves and apples!

You can find a harvest of Fresh Picked Apple Recipes for Fall,  HERE.

To make an easy autumn harvest arrangement, I started with

 a galvanized bucket I found at T.J. Maxx a few years ago.

Limelight Hydrangeas have begun their fall metamorphosis and the blooms

 will continue to ‘pinken up’ and begin to deepen and burnish to a bronzy-hue.

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs in your garden!

If you’re looking for an easy to grow, low maintenance shrub that will

provide you with beautiful cut and dried flowers too, see

 my public service announcement: Plant a Limelight Hydrangea…or Five.

In addition to hydrangeas, I foraged for some foliage free-for-the-clipping . . .

Goldenrod, Chinese Chestnut pods, Crape Myrtles seed pods and Loropetalum.

Goldenrod blooms along the roadside and in fields from August through October

in North Carolina and is an important late-season source of nectar for pollinators.

It’s blamed as the source of hay fever in late summer and early fall,

when ragweed pollen is actually the culprit, in bloom at the same time.

Tip: When using an arrangement with fall grasses and goldenrod indoors, give

 them a spritz of hair spray to keep the grasses and tiny flower clusters from shedding.

I used my favorite flower arranging tool, chicken wire, to support the flower and foliage stems.

This is an easy and organic way to create an arrangement for fall using late season flowers, foliage,

 pods, berries and / or grasses, all gathered from the great outdoors.

 Removing 3 – 4 inches of the outer wood of branches of leaves or woody stems

with a vegetable peeler helps the stems ‘drink’ and stay fresh longer.

I keep a vegetable peeler with my flower arranging kit and supplies

so I’m not dulling the blade of my kitchen vegetable peeler.

No flower arranging skills required with this arrangement,

just let your materials ‘fill and spill’, tucking in clusters of pods or berries

to add texture and interest.

Branches of fall leaves would be a beautiful addition too.

Apples were added to the arrangement with bamboo skewers and then placed

 in the center of a grapevine wreath, surrounding it with a few harbingers of fall. . .

Pumpkins, Indian corn, leaves, apples and more seed pods.

Every year I find myself drawn the texture and color of these ‘warty’ pumpkins. :)

Our leaves don’t typically turn until November in North Carolina . . .

I collected the first leaves of our Autumn Blaze Maple that had dropped

prematurely and are showing a hint of fall color to come.

Visit my talented friends to see their floral inspiration this week:

Pam at Everyday Living

Shirley at Housepitality Designs

Lidy at FrenchGardenHouse

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With Summer’s best of weather

And Autumn’s best of cheer.

-Helen Hunt Jackson

Thank you for your visit, sharing with:

 Between Naps on the Porch