Garden Party Ideas for a Flower-Strewn Fête

Garden Party Decorations

While your garden offers plenty of beauty all on its own, here are a few garden party decoration ideas to embrace the theme, plus a practical tip or two.

Floral Ice Wine Bucket: Celebrate the beauty of your flowers and foliage by creating an ice wine bucket that's perfectly sized to hold bottles of wine, lemonade or sparkling water. Embedded with petals and leaves, the ice buckets elevate your buffet while helpfully keeping drinks cool. This project is quite kid-friendly and makes the most of blossoms that are slightly past their prime. Simply add the best petals to your ice mold and compost the rest.

Garden-Fresh Bouquets: Don’t feel intimidated by the prospect of arranging flowers. While over-the-top arrangements always make a splash, petite posies also offer a ton of charm. Whether you’re using store-bought botanicals or stems from your garden, consider combining flowers, herbs, grasses and branches. Small juice glasses make sweet vases for casual bouquets, just the right size to scatter amidst the offerings on your buffet table. And if floral design just isn’t your thing, simply skip it. The beauty of your garden will speak for itself.

Floral String Lights: Gather a bunch of faux flowers, slide the blossoms off each stem and fit each bloom around a string light bulb. Don’t worry about adorning every single bulb—a dozen flowered bulbs per string is plenty to create a magical effect.

Keep Bugs and Burns at Bay: To ensure your guests remember your garden party because of the fun and food rather than the bug bites and sunburn, provide a basket of sunscreens and insect repellants. Essential oil-based bug sprays are nice to have on hand for folks who avoid DEET. To discourage mosquitoes and add mood lighting, place a few lit citronella candles around your outdoor seating areas. An outdoor fan helps by blowing away bugs, while a patio umbrella provides welcome shade.

A Floral Feast

If you’re hosting a garden-themed party, you’ll want to focus the menu on flowers, herbs and vegetables, ingredients commonly found in gardens.

Celebration Salad: Pay homage to the bounty of your garden—or local farms—with a lush salad full of freshness. To create entree-worthy salads, combine a grain (wheat berries, quinoa, farro), cooked produce (grilled peaches, roasted cauliflower, grilled cherry tomatoes) and fresh produce (arugula, baby gem lettuce, watercress). Offer a selection of herb-based dressings such as dill-parsley vinaigrette, pesto salad dressing and lemon-thyme vinaigrette.

Al Fresco Cooking: If you’re able to cook outdoors, go for it. A grill is a natural gathering spot, allowing the chef to be part of the festivities and perhaps even share some of the cooking responsibilities with the more culinarily inclined guests. Grilled garden vegetables are a natural, but if you’re feeling ambitious, give pizza or fish a try. Garden-fresh pizza toppings include arugula, summer squash, asparagus, figs, chard and grape tomatoes, while grilled fish pairs beautifully with fresh herbs and citrus.

Flower-Strewn Foods: Whatever you choose to serve, dress up every dish with beautiful blossoms. Use edible blooms to garnish ricotta crostini, individual servings of soup, deviled eggs or desserts. Most food-safe flowers have a rather mild flavor, but you can also have some fun finding the perfect petals to complement each of your dishes.

Garden-Inspired Cookies: For an on-theme treat, bake cookies in the shape of flowers, leaves, beehives, birds, bees and other backyard animals. This dessert option does double duty as a party activity if you offer platters of unfrosted cookies along with piping bags or tubs of frosting, store-bought tubes of piping gel and plenty of sprinkles. Candied flowers add an exquisite finishing touch. Ready-to-decorate cupcakes are an equally delicious option.

Floral Cocktail Garnishes: Make the most of sweet garden berries by crafting fruit-infused Palomas. If you have a garden, feel free to use whichever berries are currently in season. (Simply omit the tequila for any guests who don’t drink alcohol.) For an extra touch of garden beauty, garnish each glass with a flower stem—chamomile, nasturtiums, pansies, geraniums or rose petals look lovely. Consider creating a loose bouquet of edible flowers with a note encouraging your guests to garnish their glasses with their favorite blooms. If Palomas aren’t to your taste, use the flowers to festoon glasses of wine, lemonade, iced tea or any other cocktail.

Floral Tea, Iced or Hot: Many flowers are used to create unique and intriguing teas, which can be brewed and served immediately or cooled overnight and poured over ice. Use butterfly pea flowers to create a beautiful blue tea, which turns bright magenta if you add a squeeze of lemon. Other delicious floral options include chamomile, jasmine, lavender, rose buds, saffron flowers and cornflowers.

Busy Bees

Lounging about in a gorgeous garden sipping a flower-strewn cocktail should be diversion enough, but your less languid guests may enjoy a few activities. The following options would all be fitting for a kids’ garden party as well.

Game Time: For guests who need to work off a little energy, games such as bocce, croquet and bag toss are active without being rowdy. Keep your younger guests entertained with bubble wands—the bubbles they create will only enhance the beauty of your event.

Get to Work: Guests that don’t have gardens of their own might find working in the garden to be a delightful novelty. Let kids and adults pick ripe vegetables, water flowers or snip fresh herbs. That way, they can take home a party favor fresh from your garden.

Flower Crowns: Set up a crown-crafting station with faux flowers and leaves of various sizes, floral tape and twine (a kid-safe alternative to wire). There’s a good chance a craft-inclined friend will offer to help kids—and less crafty adults—when they need it.

Goodies and Garland: Take the cookie-decorating and floral string light ideas mentioned earlier to create two more crafting stations where kids of all ages can make delicious desserts and gorgeous garlands.

Fundraising Fun: Consider turning any or all of these into fundraising activities for a local community garden or food bank or a fund for local farm workers. Guests can donate $10 to play a game of bocce, $5 per cocktail and $1 per cookie, for example. Be sure to make donations completely optional so your guests don’t feel any pressure or financial stress.

Floral Fêtes of All Varieties

There’s no one right way to throw a garden party. Depending on your tastes and the inclinations of your friends, you can go for garden glam or farmer casual, a morning party with mimosas and dainty pastries, or an evening event with mulled wine around a firepit. Here are a few more garden party ideas and themes to get you started.

Evening Garden Party Ideas

• String Lights: If you’re hosting an evening garden party, or if there’s any chance your daytime party will continue into the late hours, string lights are a must. They cast flattering light, provide gentle illumination and add that irresistible bit of fairy sparkle. Drape your lights on tree branches, wrap them around fences and deck banisters or wind them down the length of your buffet table.
• Snuggle Up: If the evening forecast calls for cooler temperatures, provide a basket of folded throw blankets for your guests. Or scatter a variety of throws, wraps and scarves on the arms of your outdoor furniture so they’re there whenever your friends feel a chill.
• Gather ’Round the Fire (Pit): If you have a fire pit, light a cheerful blaze once the sun has set. Pull up seating, and lay out s’mores supplies for an always-delightful DIY dessert.

Garden-Themed Birthday Party Ideas
Take all of the tips we’ve shared here, and add a few extra-special touches for the guest of honor.

• Cake Flower: Decorate a homemade or bakery cake with an abundance of fresh herbs and edible flowers.
• Blooming Gifts: If guests will be bringing presents, create a gift-decorating station by placing a roll of twine, pair of scissors, and vase of real or artificial flowers. Guests can add blossoms to their wrapped gifts to create a cohesive display of presents.
• Garden Royalty: A botanical crown will make the birthday celebrant feel positively regal whether it’s made of real olive branches or faux flowers.

Secret Garden Theme Party
If you or someone you know loves The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, use the beloved book as a jumping-off point for your event.

• Dress the Part: Invite your guests to wear their most festive finery. Wardrobe pieces mentioned in the book include a green brocade dress, black gloves, a very purple dress and lots of velvet dressing gowns. If you are able, gather a collection of suitable pieces from thrift stores, wash them and offer them to guests when they arrive.
• Set the Scene: If you’re entertaining indoors (keep reading for more indoor garden party tips), have the movie—whichever version you prefer—playing on your television with the volume off throughout the party. The lush visuals will add to the garden feel.
• Book-Inspired Menu: Serve your guests treats featured in the book—after stocking up on plenty of butter. Delicious options include hot oatcakes and butter, buttered toast, buttered crumpets, currant buns and roasted potatoes. Hot tea is a must. If you’re really feeling the theme, offer some porridge for good measure.
• Party Favors: Look for new hardcover editions of The Secret Garden if you’d like to give each of your guests a copy of their own. Antique-looking skeleton keys—a reference to the story’s all-important key—are often sold as wedding favors. A key tied to a book with velvet ribbon would be the ultimate gift for your guests.

Indoor Garden Party Ideas
Whether you’re a garden lover without any outdoor space, a host dealing with unexpected rain, or just someone desperate for a hint of spring in the depths of winter, an indoor garden party is the event for you.

• Party Central: Designate one room (probably the living room) as your new indoor garden where the gathering will be centered. If you're lucky enough to have an all-season sunroom or conservatory, that would be an amazing party spot.
• Flowers Galore: Fill vases, jars or glasses with an abundance of fresh flowers; a local farmer’s market or flower mart is a great place to score deals. And if fresh blooms aren’t an option, don’t hesitate to go for faux. Complete the look by festooning doorways and window frames with the DIY floral string lights described above.
• Greenery Galore: Gather all of your houseplants into the party room to round out the lush feel.
• Smell the Roses: Simmer fresh herbs and flower petals in a pot of water on the stove to fill the air with herbaceous aromas.
• Garden Feast: Most of the menu ideas above work indoors. Serve a selection of vegetable-, herb- and flower-forward foods, drinks and desserts to bring the splendor of the garden inside.

We’d love to see how your garden party decorations, menu and DIY projects turned out. Share all your favorite garden party tips with the hashtag #CrateStyle.