Outdoor Centerpiece for Fall

Let’s have some fun with easy fall decorating, shall we?

How To Make a Fall Floral Arrangement

I created a luscious fall centerpiece for my garden table, and I am loving it. I used mostly free and found materials. There are some faux berries mixed in, but most of the materials were real and came from my own yard or my neighbor’s (thank you, neighbor!). 

Making an elegant flower display like this is much easier than it looks. And if you follow my lead and use materials you can find for free, then it is also an inexpensive outdoor decorating idea.  Heck, this idea works great for a dining table fall decoration too. Like when I made a pinecone centerpiece for free.

Promise me you will try it because it has some serious wow factor.

Cheap DIY fall outdoor centerpieces that are easy to make and dramatic at the same time, what is there not to love?

Let me show you how easy it is to make a fall floral decor! This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Read my full disclosure policy.

Let’s get to it, and let me show you how to create DIY fall decorations for outside like this. 

Related Reading: Preparing for Fall – How to Harvest Flower Seeds in Fall

Supplies to Create Your Own Fall Outdoor Centerpiece

Basic Materials for Making a Flower Arrangement

• A container that is suitable for an arrangement like this. Think urn (I really like this one), large vase, basket, or bucket.
• Oasis foam 
• Barbeque skewers
• Garden shears
• A collection of blooms and leaves. I used fall garden flowers, colorful leaves, evergreen branches, small pinecones on sticks, small pieces of fruit like pears and apples, stems with real or faux berries. Anything that goes with the autumn harvest season is fine.

I find that the best fresh flowers to use in a fall flower arrangement are hydrangea blooms, aster flowers, dahlia flowers, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums. These flowers come in beautiful fall colors, they are strong, and they usually dry beautifully.

When you make outdoor fall decorations like this, it is wise to combine both real, natural materials with faux and fake ones. Fresh flowers and berries can shrivel and dry easily outside in the wind, sun, and rain. To keep your floral arrangement last for longer, it pays to add volume with fake decorations. 

I have added my favorite picks for faux fall foliage and berries at the bottom of this post.

However, feel free to use as many bunches of dried grass, fall foliage, and evergreen branches as you can find because they tend to last a long time.

My centerpiece is made up of two parts. On the bottom, I used a floral foam ring for fresh flowers and filled that with leaves, berries, and some flowers. The top is also constructed with floral oasis.

Instructions for Making an Outdoor Centerpiece

Making an arrangement like this is really amazingly easy. Green floral foam (oasis) makes it super simple to create a large floral arrangement like this. 

There are a few things to consider when working with wet oasis:

• You need to soak the oasis in a bucket for at least several hours. Do not dunk it. Let it soak up the water naturally, or air bubbles will form inside.
• Cut the floral foam when it is wet to fit your container. It will crumble less when wet. 
• Make sure it sticks out above your container. And round the corners. (for more tips for working with wet oasis see my post about DIY Christmas centerpieces. It has a video too). 
• Cut the stems of the flowers before pushing them into the oasis so they can soak up water. 
• Check your arrangement from time to time, and keep the oasis wet. A watering can with a small sprout makes this easier. If you keep it wet, your arrangement can easily last until Thanksgiving.

1. After giving the oasis a good soak, I placed it in my container. I filled the bottom of my urn with an old plastic plant container to save on floral foam. 

2. Next, I started working my way up from the bottom. Layering branches with autumn leaves and evergreens. The first rounds went in horizontally or facing slightly downward. The next layers went in more vertical. 

3. Work in circles because a table centerpiece has to look good on all sides. Use a skewer to pre-drill the foam for softer branches. 

4. When you use bigger elements, it works best in general to use odd numbers.
5. Keep adding until you have a full and lush arrangement.

When you add in special elements like fruit, mini pumpkins, or small gourds, then simply stick them on a barbeque skewer. If you can find those small heads of cabbage in purple and green, those would work wonderfully too!

I like using fruit or vegetables this way in a flower arrangement. It gives a quirky effect, a bit unexpected.

More Outdoor Fall Decor Ideas

Wooden crate decor

Fall wreath made with pinecones

Fall planter made from an old toolbox

Fall entryway decor

Decorating a Rustic Fall Floral Arrangement

A nice big centerpiece can be everything your front porch or garden table needs to look good all season. However, to give it some extra oomph and make it, even more, the shining star, it deserves to be it helps to add some more fall decorations around it. 

I am kind of known for a laid-back approach to decorating and I prefer simple and easy fall decorations, and decorating my outdoor space for fall is no exception. 

So this is what I did…

I layered a dried sunflower on some moss in an old weathered concrete birdbath.

I simply filled a rusty vintage urn with fresh walnuts that are now drying in the sun.

I added some fall candles and a pumpkin and hung a lantern or two to finish the look.

I took this picture early in the morning. Look at that sun flare! I think it is actually quite cool.

Related Reading:

DIY fall wreaths for your front door

Fun Fall Feather craft project

How to make a dried wheat and flower wreath

I hope you liked my DIY outdoor centerpiece idea. If you’d like to see me make one in real-time, you can check out how I used this same urn in a winter garden table decoration (that was so easy and fun to make I even included a whole how-to video).

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