How to bend
Calla Lily Stems
Manipulating Calla Lilies
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hello welcome to design time I'm Jackie
lacy today I wanted to talk a little bit
about manipulating calla lilies I know a
lot of us love to use calla lilies
they're beautiful elegant flower it
stands alone if you're going to be using
the large what's known as an open cut
calla lily a lot of times they're kind
of pricey so we only use a few of them
but we want to be able to manipulate
them when we're looking at ordering
we'll often get the open cut calla lily
in like this it's completely closed up I
call it a candlestick because it
basically looks like a candlestick it's
tall and narrow doesn't have the
elegance that an open cut calla lily can
so we want to try to help nature along a
little bit by opening up and
manipulating it but you have to be very
careful when it comes to calla lilies a
lot of times you can bruise or damage
the flesh of the floral product by
handling it too much so you're going to
want to make sure that your hands are
nice and cold either wrap them around
the glass container I know this sounds
very uncomfortable but soaking them in
ice water is the optimum because it
brings your temperature way down so it's
going to also help protect the floral
product but if we use our one thumb on
the underside take our other thumb and
we're just going to help unroll that
tightly-bound bloom very gently by
pulling it open and we can start to see
the interior of the calla lily now once
you get it opened a little bit you're
going to want to let it rest or let it
sit in the container these were opened
about an hour or so ago and every little
bit I may go by
and run my hand in there another thing
you can do is if you saturate or soak
either some batting material or a little
bit of a cotton you can take a few
cotton balls paper towel
soak it completely in water and stuff it
on the inside you can see how it would
prop open the bloom by propping that
bloom open and leaving it at room
temperature we're going to allow that to
breathe and relax a little bit and then
we get a much more beautiful calla lily
that's something that really states its
true value because when people look at
calla lilies they recognize that they're
an expensive floral product one of the
other things that a lot of times when we
get the calla lilies in their come in in
a group of 10 so in the entire bunch we
have some of those that have those
beautiful perfectly open front facing
blooms but that's really rare most of
the time we're going to get them like
this where they're curving in an
opposite direction than what we really
want them to if you will allow them to
just lay in your desk kind of like I
have done these here for a little bit so
that they can come to room temperature
then you can make them must move much
more malleable by just helping redirect
that curve so it curves in a natural
forward facing manner so that you can
truly see the beautiful open calla lily
that's really important especially if
you're using these for a cascading
bouquet or a waterfall bouquet you want
something that pitches forward but that
you can truly see the bloom if you're
going to use calla lilies in something
that's either tight or round like this
you're going to want something that
curves really well on the inside and if
you try to take this which is still very
crisp because it was left in the cooler
and in the water you can see how it's
starting to get a little challenging to
get that nice curve
there and you don't want to damage the
bloom we made it happen but what
happened because we're forcing it it's
starting to bend at the top again let it
lay on your table for a little bit calla
lilies contain a lot of moisture so they
have plenty of moisture inside them but
because now it's at room temperature as
I begin to manipulate the stem and push
those fibers in the direction that I
want it to go it's much easier to place
that inside this tightly curved cylinder
and not damage or bend the stem
we've curved it completely on the inside
there and we don't have any bends in
that stem at all one last suggestion if
I wanted to put a calla lily in here and
have that beautiful curve then I'm going
to have to manipulate it a couple of
more ways so that I can get a full
circle like that this is a little trick
again let it come to room temperature
and we're going to remove a few sections
of the outer skin of that calla lily
simply by pulling on it and you can see
how it already starts to have that
natural curve now you don't want to do
this for something where you want the
calla lilies to last for a very long
time because we're removing the ability
for that flower to retain its moisture
we've just opened it up but if this is
going out for a special event and it
just has to hold up for the event we can
see how we can still curve these and
look we can almost tie that into a
circle completely and it gives you a
couple of options to create some really
interesting and different looks with
that all-important and elegant flower
known as the calla lily hope this will
help you take some new ideas out to your
clients and give you a new option a new
way to deal with the calla lily
join us again next time for design time
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