Wreath Alternative - Flowers in a Basket

I have to confess…I was super excited to be asked to join my friends to share summer wreath ideas, but when it came time to create a wreath, I hit a roadblock. I think it may be that the lilacs were blooming that week and I was obsessed with the beautiful, fragrant flowers in our yard. In truth, I had a wreath planned using some realistic, faux flowers, but those darn lilacs were calling to me, so I created a wreath alternative using fresh flowers in a fishing basket!

I’m sharing exactly how to make a fresh flower hanging basket below and my talented friends have details about the beautiful summer wreaths they created, so be sure to scroll down to the end to see them all!

The easiest way I’ve found to add fresh flowers to a hanging basket is to put mason jars, filled with water, inside. This particular fishing creel fits three mason jars perfectly.

I placed them inside the jar and filled them 3/4 of the way full with fresh water. Because we had so many beautiful lilacs blooming this week , I decided to use what I could forage on the ranch to fill my basket.

You could use any flowers that are growing in your garden or supermarket flowers to achieve a similar look.

I began by adding foraged greenery to the basket. i made sure to trim any lower leaves from the stems in order to keep the water fresh.

I filled in a good portion of the basket with greenery before adding the flowers.

You don’t need “florist grade” greenery to recreate this look. You can use anything you find in your yard!

Once the greenery was in place, I began adding lilacs. I let them spill over the edge of the basket on all sides and then filled in the middle section.

I added a generous amount of lilacs, well… because, you can never have too many lilacs!

Once I had the basket completely full, I adjusted the greenery a bit and folded down the lid.

When it was completed, I tried my pretty basket in several locations, and truthfully, it looked great everywhere. How could I go wrong with these beautiful fragrant flowers hanging on a door or wall?!

It looked beautiful hanging on the bedroom door of the guest cabin.

It was equally pretty on the rustic wood barn door.

But I liked it best hanging from the pretty feather hooks above the rustic wood desk in the guest cottage.

The whole room was filled with the fragrance of lilacs and the contrast of the purple tones against the soft white shiplap wall was striking.

I really enjoyed creating this basket of fresh flowers as a wreath alternative. If you want to recreate this look, I have added some affiliate links below with some supplies you could use.