Review: LEGO 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece

February 14, 2023 | 4

The LEGO Botanical Collection continues to grow with 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece, a fresh new concept that brings a fresh twist to LEGO flowers.

The set eschews the bright botanical blossoms found in sets like the 10313 Wildflower Bouquet and 10280 Flower Bouquet for more subdued earth tones but still maintains the intricate and imaginative botanical building techniques that fans of LEGO Flowers have grown to love.

It’s still stunning, and for fans of unique LEGO builds, and if you’re a fan of LEGO Botanicals and Flowers, you’re more than likely to enjoy adding this one to your collection as well.

Here’s an in-depth review of 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece which is now available globally. If you’re in Australia, the set is on sale from Amazon Australia!

See below for regional pricing and product pages

• 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece [US] – US$49.99 
• 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece [AUS]  – AU$99.99 
• 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece [UK] – £44.99 
• 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece [EU] – €49.99
• 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece [CA] – CAD$79.99 

If you’re considering picking up the Dried Flower Centerpiece, please use the affiliate links in the post as I may receive a small commission with each purchase.

10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece Set Details

Set Name: Dried Flower Centrepiece
Set number: 10314
Pieces: 812
Retail Price: US$49.99 / AU$99.99 / £44.99 / €49.99 / CAD$79.99 – also available from Amazon or Amazon Australia
Theme: LEGO Icons
Release Date: 1 February 2023
Designer: Chris McVeigh (@powerpig)

Here’s a look at the instructions manual, which have now switched over to the all-white backgrounds found in LEGO Icons and adult-targeted sets.

There are two booklets as the Dried Flower Centrepiece is designed as a “Build Together” set, which means that two people can build the set simultaneously, making this a great group or romantic date activity.

While I’m not a fan of the stark white backgrounds, I do like the design, which forms a complete photo of the finished set when placed next to each other.

As with most LEGO Icons sets. there is a brief introduction to the concept of dried flower centrepieces, and a small profile of set designer Chris McVeigh.

Interestingly, there’s also some inspirational display suggestions, where you can either hang it up on your wall, or combine two or more sets for a larger centrepiece. Just don’t try and mount the combined sets!

Here’s a look at the completed model – both instruction manuals build out two sides of the Centrepiece, and when you’re done, you bring them both together and connect them to one another, creating a centrepiece with a wide footprint.

The build experience was an interesting one, and more technically challenging than expected. The model, as you can see has plenty of intricate details, with the flowers and botanical elements oriented at different angles.

The angles are achieved with an array of ball-joints, which are effectively hidden amongst the dense arrangement.

Because there are so many different types of flowers, stalks and other interesting elements used, one of the chief pain-points of the set is that the assembly is quite fiddly, and if you’re not deft with your fingers, you’ll often find yourself knocking bits off, especially when arranging the botanical elements.

It’s not the most beginner-friendly Botanical set, so if you’re new to LEGO Flowers, I’d recommend 10313 Wildflower Bouquet or 10280 Flower Bouquet instead as they’re more accessible. But if you’re a seasoned LEGO builder, you shouldn’t have too difficult of a time.

That said, the end result is stunning, and I really like the Autumnal tones evoked by the Dried Flower Centrepiece.

The blend of colours used are a highlight, with just the right mix of darker tones against lighter pops of orange and cool yellow. The silhouette is also engaging, with plenty of unique textures making this a feast for the eyes.

Points of interest include this stunning rose, with its petals made out of nougat shoulderpads, matching mudguards and an upside down light nougat astromech droid head.

The overlapping swirls give the rose such a realistic look that catches your eye from each angle. Even as you peek inside, I like the slightly-hidden LEGO studs which allows it to exhibit LEGO’s signature look.

The other dominant feature is the gerbera, with its dark red paddle petals encircling an inner orange clip core. If the technique looks similar, you’re not wrong as the paddle technique was previously employed in 40524 Sunflowers.

The colours work slightly with the gerbera, and designer Chris McVeigh, has a clever trick up his sleeve to jeuje it up a little, which is the use of a dark brown Asian conical hat for the gerbera’s disc giving it another unexpectedly natural-looking feature.

The rest of the botanical elements in the centrepiece are designed mainly to fill out the space, which it does so with great effect. You’ll be able to spy elements like these stalks of baby’s breath, with eye-catching olive stalks and leaves.

These small olive pine trees, a new recolour are also excellent inclusions.

There are these bright poppy bunches of small blooms, which introduces the flower studs in cool yellow for the first time ever.

Those nugget-shaped buds are meant to be dried daisy heads.

And my favourite little build (apart from the Rose) are these Orange Cosmos, which are made from orange epaulets that you might remember from LEGO Pirates sets.

I just love how simple yet effective these look, and the black rods in the middle really tie the entire Cosmos design together.

On the edges, to visually lengthen the silhouette of the model are these dark red blade-shaped leaves.

I especially like the use of tan gears to create the texture of these Pearl Millet stalks.

And more repetitive use of these dark tan egg shells for wheat stalks.

And these little pumpkins hanging from brown whips are meant to be Bladder Cherries.

Throughout the Centrepiece, Chris McVeigh masterfully uses layers of leaves to create more depth and texture and fill these spaces out at the same time.

There are several modifications that you can make to the Dried Flower Centrepiece – the sections can be split apart and connected to an L-shaped bracket that’s included. The bracket has a clip and bar at each end, which allow you to connect multiple Dried Flower Centrepieces together for more elaborate table displays.

So it can look like this.

Here’s the base of the Centrepiece, which has two recesses that you can use to hang it up on the wall. You know, in case you are beginning to run out of space at home for LEGO.

The size of the Dried Flower Centrepiece surprised me as I was expecting quite a small model, based on promotional images.

From tip to tip, the model measures 40cm (16″) long and here it is next to the Succulents set, which is its closest analogue as they’re both “flat” builds, as opposed to taller Botanicals like the Orchid or Bird of Paradise.

What I liked:

• Beautiful mix of colours, textures and shapes
• Fresh new take on LEGO Botanicals
• Very aesthetically-pleasing and easy on the eyes

What I didn’t like: 

• Some parts are fiddly, and makes the build challenging/annoying in parts
• Is “flat” so doesn’t quite have the same display presence as other LEGO Botanicals
• Can be hard to display
• Price is atrocious in Australia for no good reason

Final Thoughts:

10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece is an excellent new entry into LEGO’s growing Botanical Collection, offering up a brand new type of flower arrangement and display experience.

The Autumnal colours used are sublime, and give the set a really sophisticated and interesting look. The use of colours are masterful, with Earth-tone elements complementing each other well, while at the same time maintaining visual fidelity with pops of colours.

The texture and silhouette also keeps the design engaging, as there’s a very pleasing mix of shapes and repetitive elements that ensure there’s always something cool to look at, amongst the layered botanical elements.

The build experience is challenging, making this a beginner unfriendly build, as there are fiddly parts that have the penchant of getting knocked out or popping out of place at the lightest touch. Even moving it around to display caused a few bunches of flowers and leaves to fall off.

It’s also flat, which doesn’t make this the easiest set to display, as you’ll need to essentially look at it from a height to fully appreciate it, unlike some of the taller Botanical sets, but thankfully, there’s a means to hang it up on a wall so it’s at eye level.

The price is fair, unless you have the misfortune of living in Australia or New Zealand where the set costs AU$99.99 / NZD$109.99 a far cry from the very accessible US$49.99/£44.99 price-point. It feels unnecessarily punitive for Australians, as it would otherwise be quite a fair-valued set, especially as it’s reasonably large and comes with plenty of useful botanical and foliage pieces.

That said, I rather enjoyed 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece, mostly for its elegant use of colours and interesting use of shapes and textures, and can recommend this if you enjoy sets from the LEGO Icons Botanical Collection.

Build [2] – Build was fun, but challenging and in parts annoying as it’s quite fiddly/fragile
Real Value [4] – Lots of usable elements and useful recolours. A score of 2 if you’re in Australia/NZ
Innovation [3] – Takes the well-trodden LEGO Botanical formula, and enhances it slightly with great use of colour, and angled shapes
Coolness [3] – This feels like it will appeal more to those in America, where Autumnal decorations are more common. Might not have the same resonance elsewhere in the world
Keepability [4] – One of the nicer Botanical sets, and one that you can easily leave on display.

Rating and score: 3/5 ★★★✰✰

Thanks for reading this review of 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece, The set is available now from LEGO.com, but it’s likely that it’ll be slightly cheaper on Amazon or Amazon Australia

Have you had the opportunity to build and display 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece? What did you think and how does it stack up against the other LEGO Botanical sets?

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