Flowers For Horse Jump Fillers
I was searching through my drafts and I found that I forgot to post the flower fillers from the hunter jump that we made a few weeks ago. So instead of not posting it, I thought I would put it out there, just in case you were wondering about adding some flowers to your homemade horse jumps!
So far we have made wing standards, painted rails, made a gate, and also some tall flower boxes. And we could set up our jump like this, but let’s say we wanted something a little more finished. To really make your jump resemble what you will find at a horse show, we need to finish our jump by adding flowers for horse jump fillers.
What are fillers? Fillers are the added elements that complete the jump. This can be gates, or anything that ‘fills’ the jump. And today we are going to be adding fill. And that fill is going to be in the form of flowers.
Flower Fillers
I LOVE adding flowers to my horse jumps. True, it isn’t always practical at home, but hey, I am not that practical. And you might be creating horse jumps for a show, or at least to emulate what you and your horse will see at a horse show. If that’s the case, you need to consider adding flowers to your jumps.
Flowers are a great filler for horse jumps. They add interest, as well as something that moves around in the wind. And you will see flowers at horse shows. So you might as well desensitize your horse to them now, before you get to the show.
Where To Find Flowers For Horse Jumps
You can spend a lot of money on silk flowers. I mean a LOT of money. However, if you get a little creative, you can make flower fill very affordably.
Have you ever seen the flowers offered for horse jumps at places like Dover Saddlery, or horse jump retailers? They are expensive! But instead, look for silk flowers in every day places. You will be able to find flowers much more affordably by being a little creative.
For example, for this jump I wanted new flowers to really make it beautiful. I went to Walmart and was thinking about getting purple flower bunches. Walmart sells 5 and 7 stem floral bushes for $0.96 a bunch. But when I got there, they had the Christmas flowers on clearance for $0.09 a bunch! I am sure my horses will not care what the flowers are, so I bought a bunch of poinsettia’s that were white and red, and some green leave style bunches. I spent around $20.00 total for over 100 different bunches of flowers! I can’t even tell you how excited I was to find these!
And since I had so many flowers, I could make some really fun crafts out of them for my jump.
Filling A Flower Box
The first thing I had to do was fill the flower boxes I made. This was easy, I just removed the tags, and shoved the flowers into the holes. But since I had so many flowers, I was able to add extra flowers into the holes to make them look even fuller. I like the way it looks ‘fuller’. Let me show you what I mean.
This is adding one bunch of the red flowers, and then adding 1 bunch of the green leafy bunch behind the original bunch. It makes it look much fuller, and also provides more fill in each hole. This will make the flowers more likely to stay put and not end up all over my arena on a windy day.
Making Floral Wreaths
And since I had soooo many flowers, I had enough to make some wreaths to hang on the wings standards. And again, these are simple to make. I just cut out some cardboard to make the wreaths,
Poked a bunch of holes in the cardboard, disassembled the flower bunches to be single flowers, glued them to the cardboard backing, attached a wire hanger, and hung them on the jumps!
And then, step back and look at the jump…
If you want to add more flowers, just look at your jump to see your presentation.
One thing to keep in mind, you want the floral’s to be secure, in case it is windy where you will be setting up your jumps. Secure the flowers, so they won’t blow away.
And you may also want to keep your flowers out of the grasp of your horse….
If your horse is anything like mine (curious) you will only want to have the flowers out when your horse can’t get to them!
And with that, our first jump is complete! I love the way the flowers add to the jump, and make it look complete.
Now we only have to do this 8 more times to complete our course, so that means I need to get busy building some jumps! I hope you will come back, and learn more so you too can have an incredible set of jumps, that you have created.
3 replies to "Adding Floral Fill To Horse Jumps"
I made flower boxes out of upside down plastic rail flower planters. I found two 36″ long rail planters on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OWEOSI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 for under $20 each. I also found come cheap flowers. When the rail planters arrived. I popped 4 holes in each in under 5 minutes and put the flowers in. They are light weight, made for outside, and another way to make some filler if you dont have much woodshop skills! Just thought I would throw out another idea.
Choosing the correct composition for your arena footing is extremely important. Unfortunately, there are no exact, universal specifications or ratios that work for every arena. Since each arena is different, it’s up to you to decide how to proceed. However, there are specific materials that almost all arenas use to differing degrees.
That looks awesome with those little changes. I think that some curious horses will try to eat it, but they will get disappointed with the flavor, hehehe.