Spring centerpieces can be easy or complex

Think spring, think entertaining, and of course you think flowers.

Sunday's Easter dinner inspires floral centerpieces, and we need them throughout the season for everything from sit-down dinners to backyard picnics.

While everyone agrees that centerpieces quickly get awkward if too big or too tall, we found two widely different philosophies about their creation.

Elizabeth Britt, horticulture manager for College of DuPage, shares her tips on picking up flowers at the grocery store for last-minute, no-fuss, low-cost centerpieces.

Harriet Tedrahn, owner of Olde Schaumburg Flowers in Schaumburg, and Karen Zoellick, a floral designer, show the advantages of a professionally designed centerpiece or purchasing your flowers in a specialty shop.

Britt's first choice is grabbing a ready-made bouquet that you like in the grocery store.

The most important rule for showing these flowers at their best is making sure the neck of your vase is small enough to hold the flowers in that tight arrangement that caught your eye.

"This is what attracted me - nice and tight and together," she said. "People don't like cutting off the stems. If you don't cut them enough for the vase to hold them just the way you want, everything kind of goes floppy."

And the larger the top of the vase the more flowers you will need for this effect.

She arranges the flowers in her hand, then cuts them and puts them in the vase, rather than inserting one stem at a time.

While Britt will use "easy" accessories like aquarium rocks, marbles, lemon slices, squares of tissue paper and colored vases, she does not take time for traditional tools such as floral foam.

"It's gotta be so easy," she said. "It's usually the last thing I do before guests arrive. Get it done and get the mess cleaned up, the less fuss the better."

The showy centerpiece from Olde Schaumburg is a different story.

Not only did Zoellick insert wet floral foam in the plastic-lined basket, she wired it in to provide a stable platform for the large ceramic bunny and carrot that is the focal point of this centerpiece. The rabbit keeps it from a "cookie cutter look," said Tedrahn.

"Generally speaking professional designers can come up with quirky things. Our designer put a daisy in the bunny's hand. That can take it up one notch from where it normally would be," she said.

And all three agreed that spring calls for bright and cheerful colors, with no need for a monochromatic design.

To cut expenses, Tedrahn recommends selecting seasonal flowers. Tulips, for example, are plentiful through Mother's Day and at Christmas. Other times of the year they are available but might be expensive.

Be warned: Tulips are the only cut flowers that continue to grow, which can be significant when you're planning an arrangement.

Zoellick distributed the flower varieties and colors evenly around the basket, except for the two areas of taller tulips grouped with pussy willows to frame the bunny.

If you want to make your own creation, perhaps with a cherished collectible as the focal point, buying materials in a specialty shop means you can select the exact number you want of each flower and piece of greenery, rather than taking a whole bunch of any variety you pick.

Tedrahn prefers looser bouquets. Each flower should be visible, she said, perhaps showing off in front of the greenery that's around the edge of the arrangement.

"You spend a less money by spreading out the flowers," she said.

Say you select a few more expensive flowers like roses. "You would want the roses to be noticeable and taller in front of the other flowers," said Zoellick. "It would be silly to waste extra money and put the roses deeper and the daisies taller."

When you use a branch or pussy willows such as Olde Schaumburg selected, try to find flowers that follow the same curve to keep the design coherent.

If only red roses will do, then Olde Schaumburg uses Freedom roses because they have a high petal count and seem to last longer.

Most people would rather spend money on the flowers than the container, agreed both Britt and Tedrahn.

When you're figuring a budget, said Tedrahn, roses and lilies are more expensive than tulips and iris. Daffodils are difficult to push into foam. Chrysanthemums come in many colors and varieties and are lower priced. Carnations are available in that popular mint green and bi-colors or one shade trimmed with another.

"Carnations are one of the nicest flowers," she said. "I don't know why, but a lot of people say right off, 'Don't use carnations.'"

And what about rules of floral design such as selecting flowers in multiples of three?

"It seems the more I hear about professional designers the more rules you break the better," said Zoellick. "I go with what looks good to me."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <div class="moreSubHead"> Video</div> <ul class="video"> <li><a href=" /multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=324"> Making a spring centerpiece </a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>