University of Wisconsin-Madison

06/13/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/13/2025 13:15

Extracting beauty from flowers, by finesse or by force

During two June 7 workshops at the Allen Centennial Garden of University of Wisconsin-Madison, participants made flowers into beautiful products, but in vastly different ways. During the bouquet-making workshop, they learned how to select seasonal flowers and arrange them into beautiful bouquets. During the flower-pounding workshop, they hammered flowers, stems and leaves into fabric, where their pigments left beautiful designs. These and other workshops continue all summer.

1 Program Apprentice Ava Jeffery hands out a bouquet to a participant at the June 7 bouquet making event. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

2 Flowers, including pink peonies, await their inclusion in a bouquet. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

3 Jeffery, left, looks at a participant's bouquet. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

4 A wide variety of colors and shapes make for a beautiful flower bouquet. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

5 A child and mother share the beauty of a bouquet. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

6 During the flower pounding workshop, Jeffery shows participants how to extract flower pigments into design cotton fabric by pounding them. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

7 Campus community members participate in the flower-pounding workshop. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

8 Parts of flowers await their fate - being pounded into a piece of fabric that absorbs their pigments. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

9 This finished product: a bag decorated with the pigments from flowers. Photo by Xiaomeng Shen/UW-Madison

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