What started as a few novel sets inspired by the builds of LEGO® employees has now become a fully fledged theme. The latest addition to the newly named Botanicals range is a colourful array of flowers displayed in a brick-built vase. The Flower Arrangement set features several flowers and foliage combined to create eye-catching and easy-to-display buildable blooms. Here’s a closer look at the LEGO Botanicals Flower Arrangement set.
Product Details
Set Name: Flower Arrangement | Set Number: 10345 | Pieces: 1161 | Theme: Botanicals
Number of Bags: Bags x 10 | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: N/A | Characters: N/A
RRP: £94.99/$109.99/109.99€/179.99AUD/139.99CAD
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online and LEGO Retailers
The build begins with the chalice-like vase. This becomes a canvas for the flowers to be displayed, but despite the name, the buildable flowers don’t sit within it as you’d expect real plants to do or indeed some of the other bouquet-style sets. Instead, the vase is topped with a plate featuring various rods. This covers the inner structure of the vase and also provides an area for the various flowers and plants to be connected, that make up the rest of the set.
There is a term in the LEGO community called ‘Nice Part Use’ and is often associated with sets that use LEGO elements in interesting ways. From the very first Botanicals set (or Icons as it was originally part of) NPU has been a defining factor of the range. This set is no different and it’s genuinely a delight to open bags and be greeted with some weird and wacky elements. Almost every flower is constructed with new elements or pieces used in different ways in other sets.
Night Rider Camellia is a large purply pink flower with a compact group of petals surrounding a bright yellow group of stamens. The LEGO version creates its disc-like petals from several elements often used in other sets as cockpit covers. These recoloured dark red discs surround a core of yellow ratchet hooks.
Itoh Peony is similar in size to the Camellia flower and also has a similar build but uses Peony uses very different pieces. In order the recreate the flower’s petals, a combination of clam shells and parasols have been used. The result is a glorious-looking flower. These are huddled around a pollen-enriched core of crown-like stamen. The interesting use of parts results in a quite realistic-looking flower.
Hydrangea are beautiful scrubs which produce flowering heads. They are comprised of tiny flowers which almost look like little butterflies. So how else would you replicate such a flower than with butterfly elements? A collection of plain purple butterfly pieces are connected around a couple of recoloured steering wheels. It can be fiddly to get each of the individual pieces eventually spaces but the result is worth it. In a fun twist, Hydrangea is a great flower to plant to attract butterflies.
Anyone who has ever bought a flower bouquet will know they are also bulked out with random sprigs of greenery and tiny white flowers known as Baby’s Breath. In LEGO form, the Baby’s Breath is equally basic simply pairing white flower buds with the newer flower stalks. Despite the simple nature of these flowers they still feature an interesting mix of elements. These include the new chunkier stem. like tripod elements, recoloured staffs and dark green 5-shoot flower stalks.
Of all the flowers featured in this set, the Persian Buttercup Ranunculus flower features the most traditional build techniques. Various plates and tiles are combined to craft the orange flowers clustered bloom. Along with the more standard elements, this flower also uses wheel trims to add an extra layer of texture to the flower’s compact petals.
All of the plants have varying levels of ‘NPU’ but Hummingbird Flower Bouvardia tops them all. The smaller flowers might be mere tiny buds but they are built using a very unusual element. The flower’s light purple petals are recoloured ladybird wings used for the Ladybird Girl minifigure from Series 21.
Many of the Botanicals sets find clever methods to replicate various plant life but one of the flowers found in the set cheats a little. The Lily Flower’s petals use newly created leaf elements. They appear in both orange and green. The orange elements are paired with slightly smaller, recoloured orange leaves to create the plant’s prominent bloom. The pollen-producing stamen are green wands and huddle closer once the petals are grouped together.
Finally, the set also features a couple of twigs of leaves. These use a mixture of older recoloured leaves first introduced in 2023. Similar to their inclusion in real flower bouquets, they are used to add a little extra detail.
This is another impressive Botanicals set, the use of parts is amazing and how the LEGO Design team connect the use of unusual elements to replicate the organic beauty of nature is amazing. Although they have a higher price point compared to other sets in the range, the Flower Arrangement is probably best suited as a gift because it also includes the vase. The set can be customised and rearranged using the flowers included but you can also expand your floral display by adding flowers from other sets such as 10313: Wildflowers and 10342: Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet. The LEGO Botanicals Flower Arrangement set is released tomorrow.
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The LEGO Group provided this set to BricksFanz.com for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Marvel. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
