Mums can be very easy to work with, and fall pumpkins make fun accessories for mums. The easiest thing to do is to create an arrangement of fresh flowers, place them in a jar of water, and place this jar inside the pumpkin. A pumpkin can also be used as a vase. After it's hollowed out, use flower arranging foam to hold leaves, mums, and filler flowers. Golden-yellow and red-bronze mums are a striking combination.
An easy fresh flower arrangement is to arrange mums in a shallow bowl. Cut the stems of your flowers to touch the bottom of the bowl while the flowers just reach the top of the bowl. Place light color flowers across the center of bowl and arrange the dark color flowers on either side of the light ones.
A hand-tied spiral bouquet with raffia is a simple but beautiful design. Gather three to five stems of mums in your hand. Begin the spiral placement by placing additional flower stems at a 45-degree angle against the rest of the bouquet. After three to five stems have been added in this fashion, twist the bouquet in your hand and add additional flowers using the same method. Bind the flowers by wrapping raffia several times around the flower stems at the point you held the flowers.
You can also send flowers to someone you care about. Online florist Beyond Blossoms (http://www.beyondblossoms.com) offers hand tied mum bouquets including one called Wild Harvest consisting of red rover mums, football mums, daisies, safari sunset, and curly willow.
By Josh Grossman from Wilmington, MA
