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Kappi Naftel’s Homegrown Arrangements

Colorful blooms and vegetables combine for a trio of cheerful designs. Plus, learn how to make a centerpiece of bouquets that double as take-home gifts for guests
Floral designer Kappi Naftel stands in an abundant summer flower garden. She wears a green and white patterend sleeveless shift dress
Follow floral designer Kappi Naftel at @kapflower. See her step-by-step tutorial at the end of this post.
“My inspiration was the bounty of summer—classic seasonal flowers that I grow in my home garden and wonderful heirloom tomatoes that are at their peak.” — Kappi Naftel of Kap Flowers
summer flower arrangement with yellow, rust, and green towns, arranged on an antique wrought iron pedestal piece painted white with rust showing. The pedestal stands on a mossy brick patio, with a lush summer garden in the background.

Materials

  • Rudbeckia
  • Chocolate lace flower
  • Queen Anne’s lace seed pods
  • ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas
  • Chaste tree seed heads
  • Weigela
  • Heuchera foliage
  • Loropetalum
peach, pink, green, and rust-colored summer arrangement by Birmingham, AL floral designer Kappi Naftel of Kap Flowers. The vessel is a rust-colored urn, which sits on a picnic table alongside summer tomatoes, with an expanse of green lawn in the background

Materials

    • Heirloom tomatoes
    • Variegated grasses
    • Garden roses
    • Rudbeckia
    • Coneflowers
    • Dahlias
    • Begonias
    • Celosia
    • Silene
    • Weigela
    • Fern

Floral Tutorial

“This arrangement does double duty as a centerpiece and then as take-home gifts for your guests. It’s a fun surprise moment at the evening’s end.” — Kappi Naftel
A summer arrangement by Birmingham, AL floral designer Kappi Naftel of Kap Flowers featuring individual bouquets in assorted glass containers, placed a white wooden handheld container and decorated with eggplants, tomatoes, and other summer vegetables. It is displayed on old concrete garden bench in a shady garden

Materials

  • Zinnias
  • Celosia
  • Dahlias
  • Heuchera foliage
  • Foxgloves
  • Rudbeckia
  • Weigela
  • Coneflowers
  • Chocolate lace flower
  • Chaste tree
  • Fig
  • Hydrangeas
  • Fresh herbs
  • An assortment of tomatoes in different colors and sizes
  • Other produce, such as squash and mini eggplant
  • Small glass vases
  • Twine
  • Handled container

Step 1

Prep the materials: Strip lower foliage and trim stems, and organize bundles on work surface.

flowers and foliage for Kappi Naftel's floral tutorial laid out on a wooden work surface

Step 2

Begin your hand-tied bouquet by creating a binding point—the point at which the first stem is held vertically. The second stem should cross the first at an angle. All other stems can be added in a counterclockwise angled fashion, almost as if they twirl around the primary stem. The higher on the stem the binding point, the smaller and tighter the bouquet, and vice versa. Combine colors and blooms as desired.

Kappi Naftel holds her bouqet-in-progress at a bind point near the base of the flowers

Step 3

Once you have created the basic shape of the bouquet, you can start to poke in other materials to add fullness, color, and texture.

Step 2: adding flowers

Step 4

Once you are happy with your bouquet, it needs to be secured with twine. Wrap the twine around three times, tie off, and trim the ends of the twine.

Kappi Naftel ties the bouqut with twine

Step 5

Place your tied bouquet next to the container you are using to determine where to trim the stems so the bouquet sits well in the container. Trim the stems straight across and evenly.

Kappi Naftel holds her bouquet against a glass to judge stem length. The bind point is near the top of the vessel.
Kappi Naftel uses clippers to trim bouquet stems

Step 6 

Repeat the steps above to create enough hand-tied bouquets to fill the glass vases, and then place in the large handled container, which will serve as the centerpiece.

A shallow, flat white tray with a handle across the length of the top is filled with glass containers. Some are filled with bouquets.

Step 7

Create a summer vignette by placing farm-fresh tomatoes and other colorful produce around the arrangement. When placing on a dining table, you can also arrange produce by each table setting, if desired.

Kappi Naftel adds tomatoes to the base of her arrangement to finish the vignette

Produced by Alice Welsh Doyle | Photography by David Hillegas

This story originally appeared in Flower magazine’s July/August 2021 issue. Find Flower in a store near you or subscribe.

Flower magazine 2021 July August cover

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