Each year I rank a selection of my cut flower arrangements from best to worst. These are the 5 best and 5 worst flower bouquets I made in 2025.
It was the best of flowers; it was the worst of flowers. I’m talking about my 2025 cut flower garden.
I like to do this at the end of each year to remember what all I made and to give myself motivation to keep going in 2026.
Looking at photos of my garden and flower arrangements also helps me start planning next year’s garden in the dead of winter and reminds me that I’ve come a long way… and that I have a long way to go!
Rules:
- Bouquets must contain all ingredients that I grew on my own property.
- Early spring and fall bouquets are exempt from judging due to the smaller number of ingredients available at that time.
- Scores are based on how much I enjoyed looking at and photographing the arrangement.
This post is a continuation of my flower arrangement ranking series. Find my 2024 rankings here and my 2023 rankings over here.
My 5 Worst Bouquets from 2025
Let’s start with the worst flower bouquets and save the best ones for last.
Overall, I think these “worst” bouqets are much improved from my worst flower bouquets of 2024 and 2023. I think I’m starting to get the hang of arranging flowers and knowing what I like and don’t like. My tastes are also changing colorwise, and I’ve been really enjoying creating brighter and more colorful bouquets.
We’ll discuss that further in a bit. First, you need to see my worst flower bouquets of 2025, starting with “kind of bad” and ending with “terrible.”
5. Zinnias and Grass
I was going for a wildflower look with this one, but I don’t really love how it turned out.
I think I should’ve cut longer stems on the zinnias and filled in with a bit more basil in the front.
This vase is not easy to arrange in because of its narrow neck. It makes flowers look very stiff in it, and zinnias already tend to look stiff in arrangements. Unfortunately this is what brings it from just ok to being one of my worst flower bouquets of the year.
I do love the grasses in it and the one cactus zinnia I managed to get out of the whole row I had planted.
It’s nice, but I give it just a 6/10.
4. Odd Numbers Really Do Look Better
I wanted to like this bouquet so bad. I have a lot of pictures of it because I just thought if I got the right angle, it would end up looking amazing.
Here’s the main problem I have with this one. It has an even number of focal flowers.
If I’d just had one more Shiloh Noelle dahlia or if I’d taken one away and added more filler flowers, I think it would’ve turned out nice. I also wish I’d doubled the amount of greenery in here.
This was a very hot summer day, as I recall, and I was cutting stems right around dinnertime. I remember being sweaty and trying to rush through cutting the stems. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up trying to fix my bouquet and just stuck with what I’d cut, so this is the result. 5/10.
3. Dahlias Stuffed in a Vase
I love all these flowers—Shiloh Noelle dahlias, Ivanetti dahlias, Sensation cosmos—they all look beautiful. However, I think I cut the stems too short and packed them into this vase a little too tightly. You can see the flowers struggling to breathe and differentiate themselves from their neighbors. It really takes away from how gorgeous these flowers are on their own.
Funnily enough, the backside of this vase is one of my favorites. I give this side of the arrangement a 4/10.
2. Awkwardly Shaped Arrangement
This floral arrangement has a weird shape. I don’t know why I left it like this.
This one was very close to being my worst flower bouquet of the year, but not quite.
I think if I’d added some more snapdragon spikes and a few airy, dancing bits that would’ve helped loosen up the structure of this bouquet. I also think that third Thomas Edison dahlia should’ve been given a more prominent position in the front here.
I do like the Sweet Annie’s texture and the fuzziness of that apple mint (or is it lemon balm? I don’t remember…) in there. This one gets a 4/10 again.
1. Purple and Lime Green Bouquet
Now we’ve come to my least favorite flower arrangement of the year.
I’m sad about this one because I really like the color palette of this bouquet: purple, pink, and lime. But color wasn’t enough to save it.
I don’t like how it looks in the vase. I think this bouquet would’ve looked nicer in a shorter wider vase, where the flowers could spread out a bit more. I also think I could’ve added a few more large light pink zinnias to this side.
Or longer stems might’ve helped.
This is really my worst flower bouquet of 2025.
I really struggle with getting all sides of a vase to look amazing. It’s much, much easier to focus on just one side looking nice.
That’s something I’d like to improve on for next year. I give this one a 4/10.
My Top 5 Flower Bouquets of 2025
Finally, we get to my favorite floral arrangements. These are hard to rate because I love them all so much.
Every year, I enjoy putting together different combinations of flowers and foliage and creating interesting color palettes.
This year was no exception.
I tried to focus on just 5 that really brought me the most joy to make and to photograph, otherwise we’d be here for ages!
(If you do want to see more of my flowers, take a look at my best and worst flower bouquets of 2024!)
5. Magenta and Purple
I love using cosmos to add height and movement to bouquets. They have such a romantic, wildflower look that’s perfect for loosening up arrangements.
I enjoy the contrast with big dahlias like these Thomas Edisons. I grew those for the first time last year and they were just as prolific and beautiful this year as they were in 2024.
4. Delicate Dahlias and Cosmos
I couldn’t decide which photo to use of this bouquet. In one, the majority of the cosmos flowers are still closed as well as the strawflower because I’d just picked them. But I love the background and lighting in this one with the dew drops on the asparagus.
In the other, the cosmos and strawflower are open and looking even more lush and full. There’s lots of color in this bouquet, and wildness from the cosmos and clematis vines. Definitely something I want to repeat next year.
3. Golden Hour Rudbeckia
I really loved photographing and creating this bouquet. I made it because one of my Sahara rudbeckia plants fell over, and several stems were damaged. The majority of the flowers in this arrangement came from that one plant. I added more flowers that were the same color. (Sahara rudbeckia come in a range of shades… mostly pinks and deep reds.)
I just adore this shade of yellow on the rudbeckias. I love the deep brown centers and the brown on the petals. It makes each flower look extra dimensional.
Then I waited until sunset to take a photo of the flowers during golden hour. I absolutely love the effect. This is one of my favorite series of photographs from this year because I love the lighting and of course the flowers are beautiful as well.
2. Pink Rosella Dahlias
I liked the shape of this bouquet. This type of vase is always great for open arrangements like this one. I use floral tape to create a grid on top of the vase and hold the floral stems in place. Small and simple arrangements are some of my favorites.
I noticed that I’ve been enjoying single color or single focal flower arrangements this year. Both are much easier to put together. Sometimes, of course, there’s not enough of a single color or flower type to fill a vase. But when I have an abundance and am short on time, displaying flowers en masse is a great technique to use.
1. White Dahlias, Pink Zinnias, and Blue Scabiosa
Big fluffy white dahlia flowers, light pink zinnias and blue scabiosa are the main flowers in this arrangement. It was hard to choose a number one favorite for this list. Any of the ones in my top five, I could’ve easily placed in the top spot.
However, Shiloh Noelle dahlias are one of my favorite flowers, and it’s hard to rank them low when they’re included in an arrangement.
Additionally, I love pink and blue bouquets. The Fama Deep Blue scabiosa really pop in this one I think. It was my first year growing these, and I’d like to double the number of plants next year. Blue is a difficult color to find in the flower world and I really like this shade on the scabiosa.
This color scheme is definitely one I’ll repeat again and again.
Honorable Mention
This bouquet was one of Pinterest’s favorites, too. I decide to write a whole post on the flowers in this peach-apricot color palette because of that.
It’s funny this was so popular because I put it together in just minutes. While on a walk through the flower garden one morning, the salmon zinnias stood out to me.
I picked a handful of them and looked for stems to add that would go well with those flowers. I ended up with feathery tails of pale green celosia, lime green dill, some deep purple basil, and light blue sea holly.
I really like how these additions contrast the form and color of the zinnias.
It’s definitely a color scheme I’ll return to in 2026.
Looking Forward to Another Season of Best and Worst Flower Bouquets
What did you think of my rankings? Do you agree or disagree with my best and worst flower bouquets of the year?
So now one year is over and we’re on the cusp of the next. What will the next season of flowers bring?
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Thanks so much for reading.