While nobody with a heart and soul will deny that fresh flowers are gorgeous, fragrant and charmingly ephemeral, a lot of people overlook the fine qualities of their artificial cousins, silk flowers.  You wouldn’t, for example, knock a writer but let’s face it – a printing press can do the job faster and better.  Ok, maybe that’s a strange analogy but I think you catch my drift!

Even though it’s undeniably an “apples and oranges” comparison, silk flowers offer some clear advantages of natural flowers that I’d like to chat about today.

Environment

All of the fertilizer and chemicals you have to spray on your plants to make them look anything resembling normal is ridiculous and has a powerful environmental impact.  While silk flowers aren’t devoid of some type of environmental ricochet via the manufacturing process, it doesn’t require constant input of chemical agents just to maintain the garden, household plants, etc.

 

Ease of Care

The thing about artificial flowers – and artificial plants in general – is that they don’t require any maintenance, whatsoever (except, perhaps, an occasional dusting).  Now, we all know that nothing beats fresh flowers in your garden but let’s say you love calla lilies and you live somewhere where they won’t grow no matter how hard you try to get them to.  If you get some silk calla lilies and put them in your garden, then from a distance, nobody will be any the wiser and I won’t tell if you don’t!  You can easily supplement your natural flower portfolio (portflorio?) with artificials to achieve the kinds of colors, textures and patterns that you want in your garden and blend them in such a way as to make them virtually indistinguishable from the organics.

It’s a bit harder to pull off this optical illusion in your home because people will be close enough to tell that your flowers are fake.  However, buying, trimming, replacing vase water, dealing with insects and decaying organic matter isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and many people don’t have the time or patience to deal with anything BUT artificial flowers.  That’s understandable and nobody will think any worse of you for using the fakies!

 

Flexibility

Artificial plants enjoy year-round freshness and availability, which allows you to put together some really stunning and unexpected arrangements.  Say you want to combine fresh carnations with tulips but carnations are nowhere to be found in your town…darn!  Ah, but silk carnations can certainly be found and will allow you to put together the craziest bouquets and arrangements that you can imagine!  This flexibility is important for more sensitive occasions where you may want to choose the flowers in your arrangements very carefully to suit tastes, cultural associations and color schemes.  Weddings and funerals, for instance, though obviously very different events, both call for subtlety and sensitivity when setting up the floral situation.

There’s a huge variety of flowers including centerpieces, hydrangeas, peonies, sunflowers, tulips, gerbera daisies, carnations, and more that come in a staggering plethora of colors such as white, pink, black, blue and purple.  Silkflowers are also usually available cheap or at least at a discount, particularly when purchased in bulk.

Now the other nice thing is that you only need to buy silk plants once and then you have them available year-round.  When Christmas rolls around, you can bust out the holly, mistletoe and poinsettia year after year without reinvesting in fresh ornaments.  Likewise, when summertime is nigh, the roses will be in perennial bloom, ready to come out of your closet and into an eagerly waiting vase.

 

Economy

While both artificial and fresh flowers run the gamut of prices, taking care of fresh flowers can be downright expensive!  Depending, of course, on the scope and intended lifespan of your arrangements and bouquets, you may have to invest in fertilizer, plant food, insecticides and a ton of other items on which you’d probably rather save money.  This is on top of the investment of your time that taking care of these silk flowers requires.  The question is: how valuable is your time to you?

 

Ready-Made Arrangements

While we can certainly all appreciate flowers, real or artificial, it definitely doesn’t mean we know what we’re doing when it comes to creating aesthetically pleasing and occasion-appropriate arrangements.  Luckily, due to the almost endless availability of different colors, sizes and shapes of artificial flowers, creating a beautiful arrangement for say, a wedding, luau, funeral or just about any other occasion is as simple as going online and finding a picture of the kind of look you want and simply picking the right flowers and organizing them to replicate what you saw.

 

Gifts

Artificial flowers can make a very thoughtful gift to a friend who’s stuck at home sick or in a hospital recuperating from an illness.  They’re also rather non-committal gifts on the part of both the giver and recipient in that they don’t require any care but they certainly don’t represent an over-the-top gesture from the giver.

Though no artificial creation can replace the splendor that nature has been perfecting since time immemorial, silk flowers are a wonderful understudy to the real deal.

While many dramas and headaches have unraveled at weddings, ultimately the occasion is about celebration. The union of two lovers who have taken step to publicly proclaim their commitment to one another proves to be one of the strongest acts performed by humans throughout the course of history.

Weddings adorned with elegant outfits and colorful ornaments are are humble attempts at symbolizing the happiness the act of marriage bring not only to the couples but to their guests. Wouldn’t it be wonderful then to be able to have assurance that there’s at least one thing that you can obtain for the wedding that is guaranteed to not get ruined?

A Sure Thing

It’s one of the biggest most important day of your life. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the flowers at your wedding lasted just as long as the memories you will be creating as you stand on the altar? Forget about the delicately fragile flowers that wither away in sheer days or even in matter of hours depending on the weather condition.

Silk wedding flowers are the resilient symbol of what true love should be. Resilient, beautiful, permanent, and always in full bloom. The silk wedding flowers are available in varieties of species and virtually indistinguishable from the real flowers. They don’t wane and they don’t perish like the flowers you ordered from your local flower shop.

My Love For You Is Indestructible

What better way to symbolize the permanent union of two lovers than with virtually indestructible silk wedding flowers? There’s no maintenance required and comes at a fraction of the cost of the real wedding flowers. And that means more for you to spend on stuff that counts more, like reception and hosting the extended families that’s come from near and far to celebrate the happy occasion.

Silk wedding flowers require no care, so that is one less thing to worry about when it comes to organizing your dream wedding. No dead or browning petals strewn about with these artificial plants. The silk flowers of all kinds can be arranged and purchased no matter what season or weather condition you host your wedding in. Let your love bloom forever, just like the silk wedding flowers.

If you have an unlimited budget and simply HAVE to have real flowers, then I guess you have to, Queenie, but silk flower arrangements might be a much better choice for you.  Here’s why:

One thing to keep in mind for your big day is that some of the flowers you want in your bouquets and are inevitably going to be out of season which means they’ll be WAY more expensive than if they were actually in season.  That’s because you’ll have to get them shipped overnight from a location where they’re blooming which may be across the country or even across the border!

Now with silk flowers you really only have to worry about getting the arrangements perfect in terms of the look and feel you’re trying create for your wedding day.  Well, here you’re in luck because silkies are incredibly versatile and come in just about every color, every shape and every type of flower you can imagine.  There are silk rose petals, silk orchids, silk roses, silk calla lilies and so many more!

Another thing to think about is if you’re holding any part of your wedding out of doors, real flowers can wilt or get disheveled while silk flowers will not only keep their form and appearance but have the added benefit of being able to hold various signs and cards and ornaments!

Sure, when you’re tying the knot, it’s the one time when you can let yourself splurge but there’s nothing fun about running around freaking about dead flowers and if you’re at all prone to worrying about stuff like that, silk flower arrangements may keep you sane through the hectic day.