It just wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a beautiful bouquet. This enormous arrangement uses a mix of red and white roses, green coffee bean berries, plus several tropical flowers, including green orchids, pink protea, red ginger and heart-shaped red and green anthurium, also known as "little boy flowers."

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What you need

Large open pedestal-type vase. The vase bowl for this project is approximately 11" wide and 6" tall, not including pedestal. Because this is a large open bowl, 360 degree arrangement, it does require a lot of flowers. If the size of your vase is smaller you will need fewer flowers. 

• Two pieces standard wet floral oasis

• Floral tape
• Cutting sheers
• Rose thorn strippers

• Knife for carving the oasis
• 7 anthuriums

• 2 dozen red roses, 2 dozen white roses

• 10 stems green orchids

• 3 stalks red ginger

• 5 stalks pink protea

• 10 stems green coffee bean berries

• Floral moss
• Turkey baster

Directions

1. Fill a sink and soak your oasis for 15 to 20 minutes. It is important to thoroughly soak the oasis all the way through.
2. Cut the oasis to fit in the vase. Keep the pieces as large as possible. Carve the pieces with the knife so they fit snuggly inside the vase. The oasis pieces do not have to be exactly the same height.
3. Use floral tape to secure the oasis in place. Fill vase 3/4 full of water.
4. Prepare your flowers, by stripping them of their leaves and thorns. Stripping the roses is the most time consuming part of the process. Place the thorn stripper at the top of the stem, near the rose bud, and pull down the stem. The thorns and leaves will drop off as you pull down. You wil also need to strip the leaves from the protea, except for the leaves that encircle the flower at the top of the stem.
5. Once all the flowers have been prepared, you are ready to start arranging the flowers. Start with the structural flowers - the protea and ginger. Trim them and arrange them so they create the basic shape of your arrangement. You will then fill in the spaces between the structural flowers with the roses, coffee bean berries, orchids and anthuriums.
6. Turning the arrangement periodically, trim and fill in the the spaces between the structural flowers, making sure that you keep the spaces between the flowers relatively even, and that you vary the flowers so that you don't clump one kind all together.
7. When all the flowers are arranged, use the floral moss to cover any oasis that shows. Put the arrangement where you want it and add more water to fill the vase nearly to the top. I use a turkey baster to top off the water. Check the water every day and top off as needed. It is important that you keep the vase full of water. If you do the bouquet will last a week or more.

A great source for tropical flowers

For years I have been buying flowers from a sweet lady named Florence at her wholesale floral shop, Island Florals in Costa Mesa, California. She is a great source for Hawaiian leis. All of the flowers from this arrangement came from Island Florals, including the roses.