Enjoy your flowers doubly - in the garden as they grow throughout summer, and in the home in dried bouquets all winter long.
Although most varieties can be dried in powdery mediums like corn meal, fine sand or silica gel, this method is too complicated and time-consuming for the average gardener. It's easier and faster to dry flowers by hanging them in a cool, dark, dry place.
All flowers are not suitable for hang-drying, yet the choices are wide enough for a good assortment of colors, sizes, and shapes. Also, there's lots of good material growing wild in fields and along roadsides - yours for the picking.
Flowers suitable for hang-drying include strawflowers, statice, celosia, Salvia farinacia, globe amaranth, ornamental peppers and xeranthemum, which are all annuals. Then there's honesty, a biennial; and german statice, baby's breath, globe thistle, artemesia silverking, yarrow, tansy, pearly everlasting, and lavender, all perennials. Field plants include teasel, giant mullein, grasses and grains, dock, boneset and goldenrod. Finally, there are the seed heads and pods that add dramatic interest to dried arrangements: ferns, poppies, milkweed, rose hips, Queen Anne's lace and staghorn sumac.
Planting, Fertilizing, and Watering
Flowers for drying grow best in a loose, easy-draining soil, fortified with nutrients. Compost, leafmold, or aged manure plus an all-purpose fertilizer worked into the soil prior to planting will keep the plants growing vigorously into the fail.
Seeds can be started indoors in March or April for early flowers. But it is better and easier to plant seeds directly in the garden when frost is no longer a threat - late May or early June is OK for most parts of the country. After the seedlings appear, space them nine to twelve inches apart. Use the thinnings to make additional plantings elsewhere in the garden.
Most perennials can also be started from seed, but some varieties may not flower until the second year. It is possible to buy started plants by mail from garden catalogs or from local plant markets. Allow ten to twenty inches around each perennial - initially the space will appear to be excessive, but as the plant grows and spreads it will fill the area. In a year or two you may even have to thin and divide some perennials because of their rampant growth.
Right after planting, water the seeds twice a week with water-soluble fertilizer until the growth is vigorous. Later, if there is no rain, give the plants an inch of water weekly. To keep annuals blooming, give them a shot of liquid fertilizer every two weeks as soon as you start picking flowers.
Harvest and Drying
To harvest, cut slightly immature flowers late in the morning, after they are free of dew. Remove the leaves, then bind four to eight sprays with a rubber band. (It holds stems tight as they dry and shrink.) Hang them to dry where it's dark and cool. Long-stemmed varieties (twelve inches or more) can be inserted into tall baskets, vases, or pots.
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