DRIED FLOWERS

Things Happen

Text and Photos by Jac Kyles Baker

DRIED FLOWERS. Really?

How obnoxious is it to suggest that I dried flowers before it was trendy? Very obnoxious.

I'm indifferent to trends but found myself aligned with a trend. Even if said trend was all the rage a century before last. I wonder if Ms.? Mrs.? Mr.? F.W. Burbidge, author of the unfashionably yet precisely entitled Domestic Floriculture: Window Gardens and Floral Decorations Being the Practical Directions for the Propagation, Culture and Arrangement of Plants and Flowers as Domestic Ornaments (1887)* smirks in the great garden of the hereafter. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A table of dried flowers: lavender hyssop, Autumn Joy and love-lies-bleeding.

Love dried lavender hyssop's unexpected colors.

Dried flowers and grasses in an upcycled bamboo wine carrier hanging on a wall.

This bamboo wine bottle carrier cost $1 at a yard sale. It seemed too fragile to carry wine bottles. I failed to make it work with fresh flowers. So I hung it on a hot stair well wall to dry flowers and herbs. It sat in the attic for years before I had this idea.

A dried flower arrangement in dim light.

Late autumn's dim light emphasize textures of dried flowers and grasses.

SEDUM MADNESS

I chuckled at the idea of dried flower bouquets. I dried plants and flowers for culinary uses and seed saving. Dry cut flowers? Devote time, effort and space to another endeavor? Nope. But life is strange. Now I love dried flowers, seed heads and grasses. All it took was sloth and serendipity.

Some would've said I grew far too many border sedums (Autumn Joy and Spectabile) in my garden. Those kind of people prefer wood chip mulch to flowers.

Sedum mania was for several reasons: my contempt for bare soil, roots deter digging squirrels, lovely foliage/flower displays for three seasons, easy propagation and sedums' eerie self-sufficiency (read that story).

Just one chilly autumn day of cutting sedums by the dozens... that's all I needed to find better way. Sedums anchor the garden so I judiciously cut them throughout the summer. Now I enjoyed lush, single flower bouquets. Why single flowers? The succulent stems dissolve into a putrid mess in water, decreasing mixed flower arrangements' lifespan. Bonus: sedums keep for a long time without water. Put cut stems in an inch or two of water; the flowers dry beautifully as the water evaporates.

One afternoon, a sweet smell penetrated my daydreams. I followed my nose to a forgotten vase of drying sedums emitting a potent honey-hay perfume. A scent worthy of interrupted idleness.

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Morning light shines on Milk thistle, sedum and anise hyssop in their own vases.

Milk thistle, sedum and anise hyssop in their own vases---the best way to skip the frustration (and mess) of tangled and broken stems while arranging mixed bouquets.

A table of dried flowers in rusted metal cans and glass jars.

Notice sedums' color variations from pink, mauve and maroon. How? Picked and dried from July through November.

A bronze buddha votive candle holder sits next to maroon dried sedum flowers in a rusted metal can.

Faded maroon compliments a rusted abstract pattern on a metal can.

INNOCENCE IN THE AGE of COCKSCOMBS

I was once an innocent in the ways of growing things. The only way to get the botanical lushness of my fantasies was growing plants from seed. Seeds are a fraction of the cost of the tiniest plants. I don't remember how many seed packets I bought (a lot).

Out of all the seeds I sowed to create my storybook cottage garden, only giant cockscombs made a show. A bizarre show. Imagine masses of brain like magenta flowers sitting atop grooved, flattened stems** straight out of a weird children's book. You know the books. The ones you wonder about the author's mind state.

When I remembered how fond I am of weird children's books, I welcomed cockscombs' oddities. They're conversation starters. Most people had never seen them growing in a garden. Or anywhere.

Cockscombs are charming cut flowers. Like sedums, cockscomb stems foul water. Never submerge the entire stems unless eau de bog water is desired. Only allow the bottom few inches of the stem in water. Flowers will remain remarkably soft and vivid. Drying may occasionally require a fresh cut and fresh water. Heads up to the obsessively tidy: the seeds are legion and drop like rain at the slightest movement.

Put a vase of cockscombs on a table; wait for the comedy. Almost all visitors questioned if the flowers were real. "Touch them," I said whenever they gave me a puzzled look. Who guesses that something that resembles the prickliness of coral reef is velvety soft?

My novice garden mimicked a modern art installation rather than a floriferous idyll. But I got a uniquely weird floral display. And a chance to be silly with people who wouldn't ordinarily notice a flower arrangement.

Sorry, I don't have a photo or video to prove my point. The only photos I had were on a first generation smartphone.

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Autumn afternoon sum highlights dried flowers seed heads and trailing dried love-lies bleeding.

Dried love-lies-bleeding isn't as bizarre as giant cockscombs. But beckons you to stroke it like a cat's tail. No need to worry about getting scratched for your curiosity.

Four glass containers of black eyed susan and purple coneflower seed heads and dried sedum flowers.

Prickly seed heads of black eyed susan and purple coneflowers on standby for future arrangements.

GRASS, YEARNING, WHIMSY

Americans love lawns and mowing lawns. In my old neighborhood, a putting or bowling green was the standard. Mowers and weed whackers disturb the peace on first mild spring day. Yards join in one after the other to form a droning choir drowning out nature's sounds. It's the song of order. I don't like the beat.

I'm ambivalent about lawns. And felt no desire to mow it. If it were my responsibility (glad it wasn't), then I'd mow grass before it flowers. Not because I'm a control freak (well not about lawns). It requires less effort for reel mowers. Maximum results for less effort is always welcome.

A passerby cast a hard side eye on my front yard. I overheard him say to his companion that "unmown lawns attract rodents". What? Not half eaten takeout litter? Not overflowing trash cans? I'm no expert on the rodent mind (as squirrels know). I'd abandon sewers and alleys for long grass if I were a rat. But pizza might be hard to come by in a long grass paradise.

I know who's attracted to long grass. Lady beetles. Their affection for unmown lawns dramatically reduced the aphid population. Take that, judgy pedestrians.

Grass flowers proceeded most plants and flowers in my garden. To ease a yearning for green, I picked flowering grass stems on a whim. Just like sedum and cockscomb, grass stems in water smell... unpleasant. I placed them in water to photograph ephemeral arrangements. Otherwise, don't bother with water. Without water, they dry to a delicately faded inflorescence.

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A closeup of dried perennial rye grass in a decorative glass bottle.

Dried perennial rye grass in an elegant brown ceramic vase.

I don't recall the time frame of perennial ryegrass's transformation into a dried beauty. Often dismissed, it aged elegantly. It looks expensive. No wonder I was so smug.

Far right:

A bundle of artemisia absinthe artfully dried itself. It's practical use is moth repellent.

Right:

A closeup of arching dried flowers of artemisia absinthe.

Curved branches of delicate dried artemisia flowers.

Branches of artemisia branches hung on a wall with a denim ribbon.

CYCLES & CHANGING PERSPECTIVES

Dried flowers are last gardening season's souvenirs and hope for future seasons. They're the needed reassurance when mid- January doldrums arrive along with a peculiar paranoia. Spring will never come. Beautiful seed catalogs and winter gardening chores are the anxious gardener's best distractions.

By the time daffodil and muscari foliage poke through the soil, the now dusty dried botanicals are thanked then added to the composter. On to the next phase of life's cycle.

Dried botanicals are as beautiful, charming (possibly bizarre) as fresh flowers and foliage. Use my lazy, all natural drying method. Anticipate unexpected transformations with little or no effort. Trends be damned.

NOTES

*Jokes aside, this is an excellent resource. It's filled with beautiful black and white drawings, practical advice and inspiration. Many look contemporary, epitomizing the phrase "what's old is new..."

**The botanical term for this phenomenon is fasciation: a rare flattening of stems when lateral branches fail to separate from the main stem.

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