|
This article is not for those of you who enjoy plastic, fiber or silk flowers. It is for those of us who still prefer "the real thing" preserved in a lifelike manner. Flower preservation is an easy and popular hobby that can be enjoyed by everyone. Flowers such as marigolds, zinnias, goldenrod, yarrow, roses and hydrangeas are readily available from your own or from your friends gardens and the costs of additional materials needed are relatively inexpensive when compared to that of other hobbies.
Matter of fact, this hobby, when done well, can provide you with a nice little income.
You can preserve colored fall leaves, magnolia leaves (for wreaths) and mistletoe (for holiday decorations) with glycerin, giving them a very natural appearance. Many people like to preserve the flowers from a wedding bouquet.
Preserving flowers and foliage can be fun year round. The instructions for some of the more common methods employed to preserve flowers and foliage is very easy to follow.
Harvesting your Flowers
It is best to cut your flowers in the morning hours after the dew has evaporated from the plants. Once cut, group stems into bunches using rubber bands (pure rubber type rubber bands work best) and remove them from the sunlight as soon as possible.
Most people pick flowers too late
There are definite developmental times which are best for cutting flowers for drying. This can be very specific for different plants or even different cultivators of the same plant. In general, it is best to pick immature flowers (ones that are not completely open) since flowers continue to open during the drying process. If you pick a flower at the time that it looks perfect, it will continue to open while drying, leaving you with a flower past that ‘perfect stage’. For example, have you ever seen a pretty dried rose? If you really look at it, the flower is still fairly closed. Avoid harvesting flowers too mature in development. Such flowers will generally shed upon drying and will not hold up well in arrangements.
Where to dry your flowers
The barns offer ideal conditions: 1) darkness; 2) very good airflow; 3) cool updrafts; 4) perfect (usually) humidity levels. Or for air drying simply string a lot a wire in a cool, dark place. Drying in the dark is the most important factor in maintaining good color. That is why it is important to get your flowers out of the sunlight as quickly as you have picked them. No barn? Then hang your bunches in a well ventilated attic, large closet, or even a dark shed or garage or even in your basement, providing it is not damp. Make sure you hang your flowers upside down in order to insure straight stems. Hanging them the other way will give you distorted stems.
FLOWERS
Many materials have been used to preserve flowers, some more successfully than others. These include sawdust, washing powder, talcum powder, alcohol, cornstarch, silica gel, cornmeal, borax, sand, antifreeze and even kitty litter! No one material can be considered the best because what may prove best for one flower may be an inferior material for another flower. In addition, it is important to realize that there is a certain amount of expertise involved. People may become skilled using a certain technique, while others may get poor results using that same method with the same flower species.
Except for microwave drying, the methods employed involve slowly drying freshly cut flowers in a manner that results in preserving them in a lifelike manner relative to color, form, flexibility and texture. This may be accomplished in several ways:
Pressing: This may still be the most popular or familiar method of preserving flowers. The plant material is placed between the pages of a book, which is closed and weighted. Special devices called plant presses give excellent results. Violets, pansies, larkspur and ferns preserve well when pressed in this manner. Material preserved with this method can be arranged in framed displays.
Air-Drying: Expose the flowers to warm, dry air in a dark location. This is the oldest and simplest method, and is commonly referred to as the "hang and dry" method, a method name somewhat misleading because some flowers are air-dried on wire racks (peonies for example). It was the method used here in America by the English colonists. The majority of the flowers in the dried arrangements displayed at Williamsburg, Mount Vernon and other historic houses were preserved in this manner. The plant material to be dried is collected, tied, and simply hung upside down in a warm, dark, dry place. The darkness helps preserve the flower color. Flowers dried in this manner should be cut just before being fully open.
Examples of flowers that preserve well by this method are baby’s breath, cattail, statice, celosia, dock, goldenrod, heather and pussy willow. Flowers dried in this manner are extremely stiff once dried. Blue and yellow flowers retain their colors when air dried, but pink flowers fade. Roses and peonies shrink somewhat when air-dried.
Desiccants: Embedding the flowers in a granular, desiccating material is probably the most commonly used method and many consider it the best all around method. Several materials may be used, and they vary in cost and the results that they produce. It is important to use the correct procedure when covering the flowers so that their form will be maintained. To cover a flower, put about an inch of desiccating material at the bottom of the container; cut the flower stem to about a half an inch and stick this into the center of the material at the bottom to hold the flower. Next, pour the desiccating material along the perimeter of the container, away from the flower, building up a continuous mound of about an inch. Then tap lightly on the container and the material will move to the flower, not altering the form of the petals (in other words, the material will not weigh down the petals as it would if it were just poured on top of the flower). Continue adding the material, tapping on the container, etc. until the flower is completely covered. Lastly, add an inch of the material above the top of the flower.
A Couple of "Borax Methods": This involves burying the flowers in a mixture of borax and white cornmeal (2:1) or borax and sand (2:1). These methods result in flowers that are less stiff than those preserved with the "hang and dry" method, but the particles tend to cling to some flowers. Also, in some cases, the sand, because of its rough edges, may produce small holes in the petals.
These methods are "trial and error" because the flowers can be burned if embedded too long. About 10 days is the average if cornmeal is used, and about 16 days of drying is needed if sand is used.
Silica Gel: This may be used with sand alone or with the borax methods just described. Its designation is a misnomer for it is not a gel; it is granular. The material can absorb about 40percent of its weight with water. It is not cheap, compared to the materials mentioned above. It is appropriate for quick-drying flowers and for drying flowers with closely packed petals such as roses. When silica gel is used, the container should be sealed for maximum effect. The flowers will dry in about a week. The commercial material contains fine as well as coarse granules, which, in some cases, produce very small punctures of the petals. Silica gel may be oven-dried (at 300 F) and reused. It is blue when dry and light pink when it has absorbed water.
Oolitic sand: Most connoisseurs of the art of preserving flowers agree that the best material available for achieving excellent results is oolitic sand, a material found along the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
Oolitic sand is heavy, which puts steady pressure on the flower while it’s drying; it is smooth therefore, it doesn’t injure the flower; it is hollow, which enhances its ability to absorb water; and it has a relative high pH, which helps to preserve the flowers color. It may be reused.
Common sand: Clean sand can be treated to produce a product similar to oolitic sand. Builders sand or play sand should first be washed thoroughly. Put the sand in a bucket of water with a couple of squirts of liquid dishwashing detergent. Stir it and pour off the water. Then, continue to add fresh water (pouring it off, adding some, etc.) until the added water remains clear. Then, dry the clean sand. For quick drying, it may be placed in a 250 F oven on a cookie sheet.
Once the sand is dry, weigh 15 pounds and place it in a medium-hot oven on a cookie sheet until it is evenly heated throughout. Remove the heated sand from the oven and stir into it 3 tablespoons of melted paraffin wax, using a large spoon. After its cooled, add 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda and 1 tablespoon of fine silica gel, distributing these throughout. The wax smoothes the sharp edges of the sand (but reduces its absorbency); the soda raises the pH (which preserves color); and the gel increases its absorbency. Like oolitic sand, this may be reused.
How much sand is needed? A 1-pound coffee can hold 4 pounds of sand, which is enough to dry one rose.
Often, dried materials lose some of their original colors. A practical approach to restoring colors to dried flowers is chalking them with a camel’s hair brush. The best grade of soft chalk can easily be grated on waxed paper and stored in plastic bottles for long-term use. Colors can be mixed to obtain exact hues. Once chalked, the flowers can be moisture-proofed with a spray like hair spray.
|
Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 Resources: Excerpted from “Food For Thought Series” by Arlene Wright-Correll
For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/ and click on Arlene’s Books you can download or buy my gardening & cook books. All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and we thank you for your attention to this site.
Didn't really find what you were looking for?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](images/rss.gif "Subscribe to our XML Feed for RSS")
(Read 50+ times)
