How To: Make Horizontal Bouquet

The mix of blooms and branches is great inspiration, but you can easily replicate the effect with other flowers in the same color scheme. See what's available at your best local flower shop, and ask for help choosing alternatives.

1. Place a flower frog (find options at amazom.com), which is one of those little devices with metal spikes for securing stems in a low, oblong urn. (An oval-shaped tureen would work, too.) Fill the urn about three-quarters of the way with water.

2. Create an asymmetrical foundation with a few woody stems, like crab apple, and berry-covered stems, like viburnum. If you can find a fruited branch, such as pomegranate, at the flower shop, place it so the fruit rests on the table. (You can even use red grapes.) For better hold, cut the ends of woody stems on an angle before inserting them into the frog.

3. Add large, showy face flowers, like amaryllis, to each side of the arrangement, low and off center. Use one bloom on one side and two, clustered close, on the other. It's OK if one slightly covers another—they should look natural, the way flowers grow.

4. Fill in with medium-size flowers: roses, mums, ranunculus. Cluster similar flowers together, and place them in groups of two or three, at different levels, rather than making a mound shape. Cut some short to tuck into the low center of the bouquet, and leave others long and arcing toward the table.

5. Off to the side, weave in wispy flowers, like chocolate cosmos, plus a few pieces of grassy foliage, such as silver fox.

6. Step back and adjust. Push some blooms in and pull some out for a random, organic feel.