How growing and drying flowers will help you to get your Nature fix all year round
4 minute read
You glance out the window sadly as the rain buckets down outside, the wind howling through the garden whipping it ferociously against your windows.
You long for those endless summer days when the sun shines and the garden explodes with colour and wildlife.
You know that spending time in your garden amongst the flowers you’ve grown helps you to feel well, to feel like you can handle anything life may throw at you.
BUT even if the weather was kind to you during winter so you could get outside there still wouldn't be the abundance of summer to soothe your soul.
What if there was a way you revel in garden treasures from November right through to those first Spring bulbs appearing?
Well good news, there is!
In this blog I share the ways growing and drying your own flowers can get you your nature fix no matter the season.
Spring
The start of our journey with growing flowers for drying takes place in March and April.
Filling those little trays with compost and lightly sprinkling some Helichrysum (Strawflower) seeds across the surface before gently pressing them down to make contact with the soil and give them the best jumpstart in your quest for armfuls of colourful papery flowers.
Eagerly checking on their progress until UTTER JOY, you see those tiny green shoots appearing atop the black soil.
Daily checking and nurturing as they gather strength and leaves simultaneously until they are too big for their current pot. You take 10 minutes for you as you pot them on into bigger pots, giving them the luxuriousness of space that you crave in your own life.
Until finally you introduce them steadily to their new outdoor environment to ensure their transition to their new home and your garden sanctuary is as smooth as it can be.
Summer
The season that takes your amaranthus from 20cm tall foliage-only plants to swathes of colourful seed pods trailing lazily right down to the ground. Your fried-egg like everlastings bringing a much welcome pop of colour to your borders.
You can’t help but reach out a hand to feel and hear their papery texture against the soft pads of your fingertips.
Ornamental grass seed pods waft lazily in the breeze as you sip your early morning cuppa before the rest of the household awakes.
As the days grow shorter you begin to harvest the bounty that the garden has to offer- brightly coloured larkspur, the bold domed shapes of achillea and the crown-like cornflowers in pinks, blues and whites.
Hung upside down to gently dry, the promise of their beauty lasting right through the winter months and beyond.
Autumn
Every surface already seems to hold a bunch of quietly drying flowers and yet the garden seems to keep giving. You are harvesting armfuls of flowers daily, revelling in the knowledge that they wont be in the compost heap by the end of next week. They will live on in your everlasting arrangements
Self seeded Nigella pods rattle gently and dispense their seed-shaped treasure onto your head as you brush past them on your way to hang another bunch of bright red gomphrena.
You carve out an hour for yourself, wrestle some previously dried flowers from their elastic band ties and lay them out on the table in front of you.
You close your eyes, and take a deep breath in. The scent of the eucalyptus is intoxicating, relaxing and invigorating all at the same time. You needed this. Some time to get creative with your dried flower haul.
You attached the flowers a few at a time to your grapevine wreath base, securing the stems in place with tightly pulled raffia. The action is monotonous but oh so soothing for your frazzled brain. Select flowers, shorten the stems, wrap, select flowers, shorten the stems, wrap, over and over.
You are so focused on the task at hand that your worries and stresses fade into the background. Right now, you are in creation mode with your flowers and it feels magical.
Winter
As Christmas approaches and the shops become full of sparkly colourful decorations, you smile knowingly to yourself. Your treasure trove of colourful decorations is stored at home.
Huge spiky allium seed heads ready to be hung from the ceiling above your Christmas dinner table, their sparkler like quality adding some glamour to your Turkey with all the trimmings.
Bright red Strawflowers and glimmering honesty seed pods ready to add that Christmas magic to the Christmas wreath that will welcome festive visitors.
Presents wrapped in brown paper adorned with tiny wreaths of dried flowers, each one unique and specific to the recipient, sit patiently under the Christmas tree.
The creation of them and those that will be made on the long cold winter nights yet to come, has given you a lightness to your days at a time when it can be all to easy to feel consumed by the darkness.
It is for this reason that you will do this planning, sowing, growing and harvesting year after year so that you have some of Mother Nature’s beauty to carry you through until the days begin to lengthen again.
For a step by step process for harvesting, drying and storing your flowers for use throughout winter and beyond and the insider knowledge on my must grow flowers for drying, come and join me in my How to dry flowers for year round creative projects masterclass.