Garden Gleanings
If you keep looking around, you may find that you still have flowers suitable for drying. Our frost is uncommonly late this year, and so even here in zone 6 I still have roses, Russian sage, lavender and other blooms that can either be dried to make vase arrangements, used in potpourri (along with scented geranium leaves) or used in holiday wreaths or even as tree decorations. I did a terrific small Victorian style tree one year trimmed with ribbons, lace and dried flowers - extremely romantic!
And if you still have pansies, they are extremely easy to press, as are other flat flowers and attractive leaves and grasses. Try gluing them to card stock for homemade floral greeting cards or pictures.
Notice, I haven't even mentioned the obvious yet - evergreen boughs and winter bloomers like the heaths that are just beginning to flower in my garden. Gardens are truly a treasure chest of wonders!
So before the really killer cold rolls in, take a last look around and see what your own garden might yield in the way of fall and holiday decorating materials. Whether you make wreaths or potpourri or simply dry some flowers for vases, it is a way of keeping the garden with you all year.
Family.com offers instructions on basic wreath-making.
Sage online offers advice on how to decorate a natural wreath
The University of Missouri Department of Horticulture offers advice on drying flowers
Nature's Herb and Potpourri offers potpourri recipes.
Make a flower press to preserve your flowers for cards and pictures.
Here are some more decorating tips from the garden written especially for this article by Nancy Maltais, our Greenhouse Gardening editor. And if the frost got to your garden too soon, you can find great wreaths and fixing at Maltais Flower Farm.
Great bows dress us any floral decoration. Learn how from Floral Home
