Globe Amaranth have adorable, button-like blooms that look great in bouquets. To dry them, hang freshly cut stems upside down in a warm dark place for 2 to 3 weeks or until they are firm to the touch. Celosias often last 2 weeks as fresh flowers. These easy-to-grow flowers come in a wide variety of shapes, colors, and forms, ranging from a crested cockscomb to spikey, plumed forms that are great accents for bouquets.įlower heads get bigger over time, so pick when they are the size that you want, but before they go to seed. Grown for their unique textural blooms, celosias are vigorous and free-flowering. To dry, let all but the top three to four blooms open, then pick and hang upside down in a warm, dry place out of bright light for 2 weeks. Speed up germination by chilling seed in a refrigerator or freezer for a week before sowing. Larkspur can be planted in fall in even the coldest corners of the world. Plants do best when sown directly in the garden. Larkspur (second from right, above) is one of the easiest cut flowers to grow-cold-tolerant and early to bloom, its adds tall, colorful spikes to spring gardens.ĭirect seed in late fall or early spring or start seed indoors in trays 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, and plant out while weather is still cool. Fresh flowers have a 7- to 10-day vase life. Harvest when all flowers on a stem have appeared. Start seeds indoors 6 weeks before last frost transplant out when all danger of frost has passed. Easy to grow and great for beginners, this versatile plant’s papery flowers bloom all summer long. Statice, another standby, is one of the best flowers for drying and also wonderful when used fresh. For drying, you can cut them at the desired stage of openness, and they’ll hold in that stage. Bottom-water until seedlings emerge, and transplant out after all danger of frost has passed. Seed requires light to germinate so do not cover. Start seed indoors in trays 6 weeks before your last frost. Strawflowers (pictured above) are a traditional standby, but the gorgeous new colors and varieties make them seem entirely different from those ’80s flowers, and they actually look incredible when mixed with fresh blooms. I thought it would be helpful to share some of the varieties that are the easiest to grow and most popular for drying. There are so many ways to use dried flowers, seed pods, and grasses: in late autumn arrangements, adorning fresh holiday wreaths, or even mixed with fresh blooms. A couple of years ago I discovered a dated but incredibly helpful book, Flowers: Growing-Drying-Preserving, by Alan Cormack and David Carter, that goes into great detail on all the different varieties that you can dry, plus step-by-step instructions for how to do it, whether you’re air drying or using silica gel. If you use the right method, you can dry just about anything, and there are dozens of books on the subject lining the shelves of used bookstores and thrift stores. Back when we were finishing the winter chapter of the A Year in Flowers, I realized how useful and versatile dried flowers really are. Drying flowers means you can preserve the abundance from your garden to be enjoyed later, when nothing is blooming. Now I can’t believe it took me so long to discover their benefits. I always used to turn up my nose at them because they reminded me of tacky, dated flower books from the late ‘80s. Only in recent years have I become a fan of dried flowers.
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