Gardening Sweet Spots
By Donna Hessel
Perhaps you’ve never heard of them referred to as “everlastings,” but you have certainly seen them in your garden or in other gardens. The poster child for everlastings is probably the strawflower. But there are an estimated 600 species of flowering plants in this family. The botanical name for the species is Helichrysum orientale. They often are referred to by the names of everlasting, immortelle and strawflower, but you will recognize many familiar flowers that fall in this category.
Everlasting flowers are as easy to grow as any other kind. You just have to plan ahead to buy seeds from catalogs or plants from a local nursery of the varieties to be used for a dried flower arrangement or to press to use for floral crafts. Cuttings from these flowers can be dried and kept in an arrangement for up to a year before they begin to fade. Arrangements of them will add color when placed among a collections of houseplants or provide a welcome bright spot anywhere on dreary winter days.
Flowers you might consider planting include Amaranth (Love-Lies-Bleeding), Bachelor Button, Baby’s Breath, Bells of Ireland, Blue Globe Thistle, Sea Holly, Dwarf Goldenrod, Globe Amaranth, Lantern Plant, Money Plant, Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella), Queen Anne’s Lace, Snow in Summer, Scabiosa Starflower, Statice, Strawflower, Teasel or Yarrow. While most of these like sun and compost-enriched soil, you can search individual flower names on the Internet to find ideal growing conditions.
Preserving Your Cut Flowers for Arrangements
Everlastings are easy to dry and preserve. It’s best to cut flowers in the morning after the dew has dried. Look for buds and pods that are just beginning to open. Remove unwanted leaves. Cut stems to about six inches long. Rubber band them in bundles loose enough for air to circulate through the flowers (about 12-20 stems per bundle). Hang them upside down in a dry place out of direct sunlight. Space challenged? Use paperclips and a hanger to maximize space and tack the hanger directly to a beam. You can try spraying them with an unscented hairspray.
Your dried flowers should be ready to arrange in two to three weeks. This is the most common way to dry flowers, but there are other techniques you can try. Drying flowers in borax or sand is one. For plants with more foliage, such as Lantern Plant and Bells of Ireland, glycerin is a good preservative. Check out YouTube videos on this subject for specific instructions.
Use Pressed Flowers for Crafts
If you plan to use everlastings for craft projects, you will want to press the flowers. Small flowers are easily pressed and ideal for crafts. Press grasses, ferns and other types of foliage to add to floral designs. They make beautiful backgrounds. The easiest flowers to press are pansies, daisies and geraniums. Flowers need to be relatively flat to press well. To keep daisies flat during pressing, layer several pieces of absorbent blotting paper and cut a hole the size of the flower center. Place the hole over the daisy flower center and lay a sheet of blotting paper on it. This will keep your entire flower in contact with the blotting paper and it will dry evenly. Large flowers, such as roses, can be cut in half and pressed. Flowers with clusters of bloom, such as baby’s breath, can be thinned before pressing. Sometimes I remove petals and press them individually, to be reconstructed later in a design.
Pressed flowers can be framed on cardstock, a thin wood panel or even fabric adhered to another material. There’s no end of inspiration on Pinterest for using your pressed flowers! You might experiment with bookmarks, coasters, candles or notecards; any of which make wonderful gifts.
Experimenting with different flowers will result in growing those that dry well. Be aware that many flowers lose their color when they are pressed. Yellow, white, orange, and pale flowers tend to keep their color, while dark red, violet, and purple flowers fade or change to gray or brown. So disappointing to press fuschia or red blooms and have them turn gray! Foliage also tends to discolor except for silver foliage. Ferns I’ve pressed, however, seem to keep their color. Look at the craft projects on Pinterest to see which flowers display the best color when dried. The faster the plant dries, the better. Dried flowers are very fragile, so store them in a box or other container until you are ready to use them and pick them up with tweezers.
Homemade Flower Presses
Here are several inexpensive ways to press your flowers.
- Waxed Paper: Placed fresh or dried flowers between two sheets of waxed paper. Cover the waxed paper with a thin cloth (to protect your iron) and press with a warm iron on a low to medium setting. Flat flowers work best with this method.
- Homemade Press: You can use corrugated cardboard, newspaper or blotting paper, tissue paper or paper towels, flat boards, heavy books or bricks. Place flowers and foliage between two sheets of tissue paper, unembossed paper towels, or any thin, porous paper. Take time to arrange the individual flowers the way you would like them to appear once dried. Place absorbent paper on top and underneath the porous paper. Newspaper is the cheapest and readily available. Blotting paper is more expensive but is more absorbent and can be reused. Use 3–12 sheets of folded newspaper to absorb moisture. If you use fewer sheets, replace the newspaper with fresh dry paper on a daily basis for several days and then every few days thereafter. Today’s paper towels are embossed with designs or patterns and these may transfer to your pressed flowers; so if you are using paper towels, try to find a brand without a pattern. Don’t disturb the flowers and foliage or remove them from between the sheets of porous paper during the drying process or they will wrinkle and curl. You can dry flowers in layers by using corrugated cardboard to separate each layer. Place flat boards above and below your constructed press and weigh them down with heavy books or bricks. Your flowers will dry in two to three weeks.
- Telephone Books: I have used this method almost exclusively and very successfully. It works well for foliage – individual leaves from plants and ferns — and small flowers. Place the flowers between two paper towels. Again, look for unpatterned paper towels! Leave at least 50 phonebook pages between drying sheets. Weight the book down with other books or a brick and let flowers dry for three weeks. If you want to speed up the drying process, place your telephone book full of flowers in the microwave. Blast the book for 30-60 seconds at a time and check the flowers as you go. Remove the book when the flowers are almost completely dry and place them in a warm location for one or two days to finish the process. Removing them from the microwave before they are completely dry will ensure that they are not “fried.”
- Microwave Flower Press: These are available commercially (find one at leevalley.com for $39), or make your own. Use two ceramic tiles, rubber bands to hold the tiles together, paper towels (the absorbent layer) and two sheets of plain paper. If you don’t have ceramic tiles, substitute corrugated cardboard.
- Standard Press: Craft stores sell standard presses. They are usually made of plywood secured with four bolts and wing nuts at the corners. Plants are pressed between sheets of blotting paper separated by corrugated cardboard. If you use a standard press, don’t stack plants too high. Thoroughly dry and remove one batch of flowers before you add another. The pressure is adjusted with the wing nuts. Start with gentle pressure so that the flowers have some air circulation at first. Tighten the press after a few days.Emerald Necklace Garden Club is sponsoring an education seminar on Sunday, March 13 on the subject of Everlastings. It takes place at Christ the Redeemer Lutheran Church, 9201 Brecksville Road, Brecksville 44141, beginning at 1:00 PM. The seminar is free and open to the public. Attendance is limited; masks required. An RSVP is required to Jane at 440-526-4213 or [email protected]. Lynn Griffin, a member of Western Reserve Herb Society and an expert gardener, will share information on what flowers to plant, how to grow them, how to dry and press them and how they can be used in arrangements and for craft projects in her presentation titled, “Let’s Talk About Everlastings.”Credits: motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/dried-and-everlasting-flowers-zbcz1501/Dried and Everlasting Flowers (Reader Contribution by The Thyme Garden Herb Company).“Plant Talk” – Inside the New York Botanical Garden; Tip of the Week: Using Pressed Flowers and Growing Pressed Flowers, May 17 and 24, 2010 by Sonia Uyterhoeven, Gardener for Public Education.
Photos courtesy pexels.com
