Most gardeners depend on their plants not only to produce a happy outdoor picture but also to supply a constant assortment of flowers for cutting.
This goal is reasonably easy to achieve during the spring and summer. Still, fall brings that fateful day when the depredations of Jack Frost make a sorry spectacle of a garden that only yesterday presented a bright mass of bloom.
Then what? No more flowers in your home until spring except for special occasions? Not if you have prepared all summer for this inevitable day.
Dried Bouquets For Winter
It is just as easy to have as many cheerful bouquets in the house during the winter as you would ordinarily have during the summer, and at very little expense.
The way to accomplish this feat is by picking and drying flowers for winter use all season long. I can hear some of you say, “Oh, dried bouquets: I can’t bear those dead-looking things!”
There was a time when dried bouquets were drab and colorless. But today, a winter bouquet is as colorful as one of fresh flowers. For a sample, see this month’s cover.
Until a few years ago I, too, scorned dried arrangements. Then, one January, I attended the first flower and garden symposium ever held at Colonial Williamsburg.
There the rooms of the exhibition buildings were enhanced by Mrs. Louise B. Fisher’s beautiful arrangements.
I was completely captivated by these unusual dried bouquets. Their bright colors complemented the decorative scheme of each room they were placed in.
I resolved then and there to grow and collect material for winter arrangements. This has become a fascinating hobby not only for me but for thousands of others.
Making Winter Bouquets
Aside from having lavish bouquets throughout my home all winter, I have learned to see. Most of us look at many things without actually seeing them.
We whiz along country roads, oblivious to the wealth of beauty that is ours, just for the picking.
Anyone can make winter bouquets. Those with gardens are doubly fortunate, for these will supply materials throughout the season. But those who do not have gardens can still gather wildflowers, many of which dry superbly.
Each year the demand for dried materials has increased tremendously. As a result, florists are now importing foreign material in addition to that which is grown in California and Florida.
Supply Flowers For Summer And Winter
If you do have a garden, why not make it serve a double purpose: to supply flowers for summer and winter? Unfortunately, all flowers do not dry well.
Among the double-duty annuals which do are these favorites of mine:
- Larkspur, all colors
- Ageratum, preferably the tall blue variety
- Cockscomb, the plumed and crested types in many colors, especially the two-toned Gilbert hybrids
- Straw, flowers and all colors
- Honesty, a biennial grown for its white seed pods
- Acroclinium, white and pink
- Statice sinuata, all colors
- Globe amaranth, rose, purple, orange, and white
- Zinnias, all colors, many types
- Marigolds, yellow, red, and orange, and many types
- Mealy-cup sap (Salvia farinacea)
- Blue Bedder
Many Perennials Dry Well
Some of the best are:
- Delphinium
- Pink, white, blue, and Lavender (try Belladonna and Bellamosum as well as the Pacific hybrids
- Spires, pink, peach, white, and red
- Baptisia (allow flowers to form the (lark blue seed pods)
- Yarrow
- Parker’s hybrid, yellow
- Butterfly-weed, orange
- Globe thistle, blue and gray globular heads
- Artemisia
- Silver King, gray
- Artemisia lactiflora, white
- Beebalm, red, lavender, and the new pink
Perennial Seed Pods For Textures
After the flowers have passed, seed pods of some perennials will contribute a variety of textures and form to a dried arrangement.
The seed pods of gas plant, peony, poppy, Thermopsis, daylily, Japanese and Siberian iris are all interesting additions. Roses, too, add color and fragrance to a collection of dried materials.
Red and yellow varieties dry best. The hips of multiflora roses form clusters of orange-red berries in the autumn.
Branches of leaves, either in their green state or after they have been gaily painted by nature in the fall, add much to dried bouquets. Dogwood, maple, beech, and oak are some of the best.
For Winter Use
Many wildflowers, ferns, and grasses along the roadside can be gathered and dried for winter use.
My favorite wildflower is goldenrod. Don’t let the hay fever bugaboo deter you from picking it; ragweed is the culprit, not goldenrod.
Its bright yellow flowers provide gay spikes all winter. Goldenrod is available practically everywhere, even on the outskirts of cities.
So is the common red-berried sumac with its brilliant red leaves. This variety is not poisonous but avoids the poisonous gray-berried type.
Red clover, yellow clover, hardhack, joe-pye-weed, dock, bee-balm, tansy, thistle, Queen Anne’s lace, and milkweed are commonly found in profusion in the country. You will be surprised, once you start to collect them at the delicacy and beauty of wild grasses.
Those without a garden or access to wildflowers need not be deprived of winter bouquets.
During the fall, florists carry many types of dried flowers as well as sprays of magnolia, gray-green eucalyptus leaves, western cedar, lemon leaves, rose-colored California pepper berries, and many other exotic materials from all over the world.
This type of material can run into considerable expense, of course, but it is minimized when you realize that your bouquet will last a long time.
Retaining Dried Flowers’ Natural Color
Whenever I speak about winter bouquets, someone is always bound to ask whether the flowers are not colored artificially.
Is it difficult to dry flowers and have them retain their natural color? Nothing could be simpler. If flowers are picked at the proper time and dried properly, they will retain their natural color.
All flowers, except strawflowers and joe-pye-weed, should be picked at the peak of their bloom; these two are picked just beyond the bud stage.
All leaves are stripped off, and the flowers are tightly tied into bunches of about a dozen and hung upside down in a dark, dry place.
An attic is ideal if you can exclude all light. A cellar is poor, as it may be damp, and then the flowers will mold. An unused closet might serve.
Remember, if your flowers are dried in a light place, they will fade; otherwise, they will keep their color.
Zinnias
Zinnias must be dried in an upright position, or else the petals become cup-shaped. Some of the plumed cockscombs and grasses should be dried in a peach basket to ensure graceful curves.
But almost everything else is dried upside down. Never put flowers in water; you want to dehydrate them as rapidly as possible.
Most flowers dry in ten days to two weeks. Then they can be packed away in boxes until you are ready to use them.
Leaves Are Dried Differently
Magnolia and dogwood leaves may be dried in a mixture of one-third glycerine and two-thirds water.
The branches are placed in a quart mason jar containing 4” inches of this mixture and left there until they have absorbed all of it.
Eucalyptus, lemon leaves, and western cedar should be bought just before making your arrangement and left to dry just where you place them.
Maple, oak, beech, and other leaves should be dried flat between layers of newspaper.
Clip out any overlapping leaves. Weight down the branches with boards. It will take about three weeks for the leaves to dry. If used before they are fully dry, they will curl.
Choose Your Container
Once you have chosen your containers and have decided where the arrangements are to be placed, you will need the following items: pin holders, modeling clay, green florists’ thread, and clippers or scissors. If you use a vase with a small neck, fill it with sand for stability.
With other types of vases, anchor your pin holder firmly with clay or make a mound of clay and press it hard against the bottom of the container. This is very important, for dried material is brittle and must be securely anchored.
Working With Dried Material
I find it easier to work from the highest point of the arrangement down to the focal point; others prefer to work oppositely.
One of the advantages of working with dried material is that you don’t have to worry about your flowers being in the water.
If some of the stems are too short, you can lengthen them by tying them to longer stems.
Try the arrangement where you plan to use it while you are still working on it. Then you can tell better just what is needed, perhaps more height or width or more leaves.
Enjoying Your Dried Bouquet
Once you have made your dried bouquets and enjoyed their beauty all winter, you will never be without them again. They will bridge the long gap between autumn’s last chrysanthemum and spring’s first daffodil.
But just because these dried bouquets will last, don’t keep them ‘around forever. Of course, you can use them again the following year, but starting fresh each fall is much more fun.
44659 by R Gannon