The food gets the planning. The flowers get bought on the way home, dropped into the tallest vase in the cupboard and set in the middle of the table, where they spend the evening blocking the view. A few habits borrowed from people who arrange flowers for a living fix most of that.
Ask any Los Angeles florist what goes wrong on a dinner table, and the first answer is height. Guests should see each other without leaning to one side. Keep arrangements about a foot tall at most, measured from the tabletop, or lower if the table is narrow. Wide and low reads as generous. Tall and dense reads as a wall.
The second answer is quantity. One large bouquet in the center leaves no room for platters, and most Los Angeles dinners are served family style. Three or five small vases in a loose line down the table do more with fewer stems. Bud vases, juice glasses and jam jars all work, and they can be moved when the roast chicken arrives.
Then there is scent. Strongly perfumed flowers such as Oriental lilies, tuberose, gardenias and hyacinths compete with the food and the wine. Save them for the entry or the bathroom. On the table, choose blooms with little fragrance: ranunculus, dahlias, tulips, anemones, lisianthus, hydrangea. If you want aroma, take it from the kitchen. Sprigs of rosemary, mint, bay or basil tucked between the stems smell like dinner instead of fighting it.
Southern California has flowers in every month, which makes buying in season easy. Ranunculus and anemones arrive in late winter and spring. Dahlias carry late summer and fall. The cooler months bring chrysanthemums, amaryllis and branches of persimmon or citrus. Farmers markets in Hollywood and Santa Monica sell cut flowers a few steps from the produce, and the wholesale flower market in Downtown opens to the public on most mornings for a small admission fee.
The menu is a good source of material too. Kumquats or lemons still on the branch, artichokes, pomegranates, grapes and herbs sit comfortably next to flowers. A bowl of persimmons with a few stems of something green can be the whole centerpiece, and you can eat part of it the next day.
Color is easier than it looks. Pick one color from the plates, the linens or the main dish and repeat it in the flowers. When the menu is already colorful, let the table go quiet with white and green.
One caution for cooks. Flowers from a florist or a market bucket are grown to be looked at, not eaten, and they may have been treated with pesticides or preservatives. For garnishes, buy flowers sold as edible, such as nasturtiums, violas, borage and calendula, from the produce section or from a grower who labels them for the kitchen. Keep the two supplies separate.
Timing matters more than technique. Buy the flowers, or have them delivered, on the morning of the dinner or the day before. Cut the stems again at an angle, strip any leaves that would sit below the waterline and use cool, clean water. Keep the vases out of direct sun until guests arrive, and away from the fruit bowl: ripening fruit gives off ethylene gas, which ages cut flowers faster. Once the candles are lit, check that no petals or dried grasses lean toward a flame.
For a long table, or a day that is already full, ordering is a reasonable shortcut. Give the florist the length of the table, the colors of the linens and plates, and the menu if it is set. Studios such as the Los Angeles florist Pink Clover, based in Downtown, deliver the same day and send a photo of the finished piece before it leaves, so there is still time to adjust.
When the plates are cleared, split the flowers into jars and send them home with your guests. It is the easiest party favor there is, and nobody leaves it behind.
