Really really pretty. Too bad about the dead fish smell, thank goodness for open air markets.
Johnny's has a good page about fillers. The bouquets we made for farmer's market we put together as for "hand tied" bouquet you can see lots of examples on YouTube, what will fit in your hand, rubber band to tie and trim with pruning shears, as CarolynK does. These would go straight into a florist bucket with some water in it, as many bouquets as could fit for transportation to market - then my friend had 3 or 4 metal vases that would hold about 3 bouquets at a time for display. Not selling with vase, and she keeps the bouquets smallish and go for the lower price point. Not sure how she packed the stems at point of sale, maybe a plastic bag/rubber band? just to keep from dripping she must use something. Our bouquets used mostly zinnias as focals, lots of bachelors buttons, some sunflowers, calendula. Very bohemian mix of fillers, as available. She has a couple of patches of ribbon grass - this is perennial and a mainstay for filler, greygreen and white striped. Dill especially flower heads and seed heads makes a great filler. Poppy seed capsules. And once the flowers come on in my perennial herb garden we had fillers galore - quite a few things that worked well including yarrow, oregano, betony, lady's mantle...
As for the shrubs, Boxwood is a really classic filler, I bet you could grow. Ideally you want a mix of different leaf shapes to work with. Round shapes like boxwood are very nice. My DIL is a pro flower arranger and I've helped her to do a couple of weddings, learnt a few things. We couldn't find boxwood and substituted poplar leaves for my bro's wedding flowers. If I were doing spring bouquets I'd look to other shrubs as well, thinking of alder which is really pretty and smells great too when the catkins are in bloom. Pussy willow of course if you can get em... Grassy shapes are another great filler type, so are fronds like fern. Whatever shade of green, the leafy filler helps the focal flowers to pop and doesn't distract like a skeletized compound flower head after it shakes out as many do (thinking elder and apple family shrubs). DIL was reluctant to try unknowns that looked promising on the bush, because some flowers will drop their petals within the 24h and screw up your arrangements in a hurry. Mallows from my garden turned out to be good and lasting. For the farm bouquets we've tried lots of things and then you rate them as you learn, which last long and which don't. Roses sadly have a habit of disgorging petals before they've been appreciated.
The pros like my DIL trim stems diagonally for overnight, also use bleach and sugar in the water to keep the flowers fresh, but that is a different scene doing arrangements for an event vs market bouquets people are enjoying in the moment...
Here's what Johnny's had to say:
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/growers-l...e-fillers.html