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April Showers Bring May Flowers

© Vickie Ferguson

This is true, except in the Sunshine state where we are experiencing one of the worse droughts we've had in many, many years. My poor flowers are struggling to bloom!

As I've talked about in previous articles, I periodically experiment with drying different varieties of flowers to see which type "dry" up the best. At the moment, I have impatiens, heather, oleander, salvia and hibiscus blooming in my garden.

I have dried impatiens and also pressed them and have discovered two things. First, the dried flower retained its color while the pressed flower became almost translucent and retained a hint of its original color. I'm going to try this again using a different color, probably dark pink, and see how the results turn out.

Since I have oleanders blooming for the first time, I am going to try the drying process on them. For those of you not familiar with oleanders, they are quite lovely and fragrant and also very poisonous if burned or chewed. They flower in a cluster, sort of like a carnation, but the petals are a little larger. I am also going to snip off some purple heather to dry. I believe these flowers are well suited for drying.

I have had many visitors to the "Art of Drying Flowers" article and so I thought it might be time to go over the processes you can use and find some helpful links for you to visit.

There are many methods you can use to preserve your flowers. These include silica gel, borax and cornmeal or sand, air-drying, pressing, microwaving and glycerin (for foliage/leaves). The agricultural publication of the University of Missouri is a great reference source for how to use all of the above methods. They also give a listing of flowers for each of the drying methods that are best suited to the individual process. Click on the drop down menu and select Horticulture and Gardening. Once the page loads, scroll down to Flowers and House Plants heading where you'll find the publication for Drying Flowers and Foliage Arrangements, #G6540.

I actually found heather listed under the pressing method and air-drying method. Didn't find any oleanders!

Another page you might like to visit is Clemson Extension. Click on the Landscape, Garden and Indoor Plants icon, then scroll down to Flowers. Beneath the heading you'll find Drying Flowers. Click on html to load the page. They also cover the most popular methods of drying and give examples of some of the best flowers to use. They also have information on drying flowers using sand, which I have never tried, and instructions for microwaving your flowers. There's also a link to Making Wreaths.

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