11/20/08

Many avid gardeners appreciate the hard work and dedication it takes to make the plain soil in their yards come to life with all the colors and shapes that Mother Nature is capable of creating. The toil and trouble seems all for naught, however, when the blooming season ends and the blooms just cease to exist until the next season when the battle begins again. Fear not, my dear green thumbs! There is an easy way to keep the fruit of your labors alive and flourishing the whole year: drying.

There are many flowers that dry quickly and easily and many methods available with which to dry them. The possibilities can be endless. A few species of leaf and flower that are quite easy to dry and produce an attractive product are roses, violets, carnations, daisies, zinnias, thistle, and hydrangea, to name a few. Some very nice leaves are fern, maple, oak, clover, and Japanese maple.

While the aforementioned specimens may not be growing in your own backyard, there are many places where they can be obtained. Many towns have plant nurseries that import certain plants if they are not indigenous to your particular locale, or you can have a florist special order your particular plant. Another possibility is your next-door neighbor. Yes, the very neighbor you compete with each year for the honor of best garden for 50 miles. Many people are quite open to the idea of sharing their garden with others. That brings forward another possible venue: the community park. Many of these little plant havens are attractively landscaped, and if you can get in good with the gardener, he or she would probably be more than willing to allow you to sneak away with a few clippings. Finally, a veritable treasure trove of flora can be found in the great outdoors. Remember to be on the lookout for more than the local wildlife on your next nature walk.

Once you've collected your vegetation of choice, it's time to decide on optimum means of preservation. The first, and probably the simplest method, is hanging. Simply tie three to five flowers in a neat bundle with a bit of twine or string. Next, find a well ventilated, shady or dark spot- like a closet or attic, for example- and allow them to hang, upside down, for about a week, or until no moisture can be felt in the stems or petals. One thing to avoid in hanging is a room too cold, too warm, or too damp. Dampness, when combined with heat, can create molded flowers, and a cold room will not dry them fast enough, as there is not enough heat to remove the moisture. This method works well for most flowers.

Another good method is sand drying. This method works best with roses and other "cup petal" flowers. Simply fill your flower with sand, and then place it in the box of sand, stem down. Allow 5-7 days for drying. It is important to use very dry sand, as even slight dampness will eliminate the ability to dry flowers effectively. To ensure that no moisture is present in the sand, take silica gel and spread it in with the sand. If the crystals turn blue, there is too much moisture present and the sand needs to dry further. Even if the sand is sufficiently dried, silica gel is also helpful tool on sand drying. As the sand absorbs moisture from the flowers, the silica gel can, in turn, absorb moisture from the sand.

Airtight containers also work well for drying flowers such as hydrangea, carnations and other bulky headed flowers. An unconventional yet effective method is refrigeration. Surely, this method has been used through the years to dry a prom night corsage or boutonniere that could be put away until the dog got into the shoebox in the closet and ate it. Flowers like carnations dry wonderfully under cool conditions, and are very difficult to dry any other way.

Finally, flower presses are an easy way to dry relatively flat flowers. An actual flower press need not be an expensive contraption you buy in the craft store. It can be as simple as a few leaves in between sheets of newspaper, or a thistle dried in between the pages of a boring book.

Even two blocks of wood covered with a sheet or two of newspaper can act as an effective press. Remember that the thinner the flower, the shorter the drying time.

As soon as your flowers are dry, you may select a few of the nicest ones to arrange in an empty vase. Smaller, thinner flowers can be pressed into the sides of a candle and then coated with plain Elmer's school glue to create a stylish decorative candle. Other uses for your beautiful flower by products are shadow boxes, collages, etc. The end results can be the eternal summer that gives your home the warmth and vigor of the gardens you so carefully tend to during the growing season.