Use a Kenzan

All the reasons why I love a Kenzan, and how to make the most of them.

I am, if not flirting with minimalism, at least trying very very hard to reduce the amount of stuff in my life. There are some things I simply cannot put aside (textiles, books and groceries for the pantry) but much of the rest of the cottage and garden are fair game for a bit of a clear. Every time I consider expanding the shop again, and I am frequently tempted to join the ranks of women of a certain age with a minimalist website and a love of ceramics and set up a full on shop, I have to remind myself that the answer to our global and societal catastrophes and ruptures is not stuff and the world needs more capitalism like bees need neonicotinoids. Where am I going with this? Not sales, but I do want to tell you why Kenzans are up there with snips as essential for me and how to get the most out of them.

Kenzan with roses

When I first started wanting to make insanely opulent, super-stylish urns of flowers (I’m looking at you Miss Pickering) I was baffled. I put the water in the vessel and the flowers in the vessel, and they all flopped over. Imagine some lovely bluebells on a primary school nature table. They formed an untidy ring, leaning on the edge of the container. There seemed to be only one solution; to put more flowers in. To keep filling and filling until the jam jar, and it was often jam jars back then, was full. And then it looked stiff and upright and as crowded commuters on a tube.

 I was clearly missing something. How did one create arrangements that, as Constance Spry so unhelpfully but memorably said, that left space for the butterflies? It was Sarah Raven that finally let me into the secret. If you don’t want all your flowers to flop inelegantly to the side, you need to hold them upright. There are three ways of doing this: a grid at the top, or a pin frog at the bottom, or chicken wire in between.*

I do know florists that do all three, but they are probably flowering big weddings and having to carry urns between churches and receptions. I think that one is probably enough for the likes of you and me.

*there is a fourth, absolute cop out, and that is to just use about twenty bud vases. Never say never.

Tips & tricks

Fit the Kenzan to the container. If you are using a shallow bowl with sloping sides, you might need to use a bit of florist’s blue tack to get it to stay but I avoid this if I can. Unbelievably messy and it’s a pain to get off. Most of my urns and bowls have enough of base to fit the bigger Kenzan in and the Niwaki ones come with a rubber ring around it which does minimise a bit of slippage.

Start at the edges. If you are using a vessel without a Kenzan, the advice is generally to put a foliage base in first and cross the stems as much as possible so that they will support the flowers. The approach is the opposite with a Kenzan; start with putting your foliage base around the outside and move inwards as you need. If you don’t believe me, try it. You will have run out of pins before you have half your flowers in. Because I am quite a fan of a quite full pot and I never know when to stop with anything, I generally run out of pins by the end anyway. But by then, there are lots of other stems to support, and I can just use the lattice of greenery to get the last pieces to stay where I want them.

Cut your stems to a point. More a thing for the woodier stems although thicker stems (dahlias) will also benefit from being cut on the diagonal to a sharp point. They will go into the pins a lot easier and if you are having to push to get them to grip firmly then you risk moving everything else. And gripping firmly is a good thing, so get the first stems in really well.

Keep an eye on it. Using a Kenzan means two things; that the stems aren’t quite down to the base of the vessel, and you have probably managed to get a lot of stems in a small space. This means the risk of running out of water is quite high. Keep topping up and give it a full refresh after a day or so.