Be a Do It Yourself Florist
One of the advantages of growing up in the South when I did was helping my grandmother’s in the spring and summer in their respective flower gardens. As different as these two women were, they were both master class gardeners and very active in their towns garden clubs. I didn’t know it at the time but “helping” would allow me to learn a few things about arranging flowers on the cheap. If you don’t have flowers in your garden that you can cut, go to one of the large warehouse stores where you can pick up fresh cut flowers in bulk. This will give you many flowers to choose from that are nice and inexpensive.
Simply cut some floral tape or electrical tape to crisscross and create a grid at the top of the vase. Take one strip and secure the grid by wrapping it around the top. Use the grid to arrange the flowers the way you like with your favorite cut flowers and finish it off by wrapping the vase with a nice ribbon of some kind. Once you experiment with this several times you will see how quick and easy flower arranging can be!