Drying flowers for winter

The start of a new school year, September marks the turn of the flower growing season for us. Time to put fork to soil once again, wheelbarrows loaded up with spent annuals heading in one direction, compost and mulch in the other, heads full of planting plans, hands with seeds and bulbs for next year’s crops. With all the activity going on in the garden it can be easy to miss what is still flowering! Our studio has a strong focus on British-grown flowers and we want to utilise as much own-grown produce as possible during the winter, so this is an important time to harvest and store all those materials that can be dried for wedding and Christmas decorations in the coming months.

We have a large variety of ornamental grasses growing in the perennial section of the garden, and this is their time of year to really put on a show. From Pennisetum and Panicum to Stipa, each variety brings texture, height and a wispy wildness to flower arrangements.

Our store of dried materials gradually builds through the summer to late autumn and we love to try drying different plants each year to see what works. The key is picking at the right time, stripping off green foliage and hanging materials in bunches somewhere warm and completely dry.

Along with grasses, we also dry many of the perennial flowers. We haven’t tried drying Verbena bonariensis before, but hopefully the flowers will hold some of their colour to help brighten Christmas wreaths and wedding decorations during the winter months.

In addition to experimenting, we always come back to those fail-safe materials perfect for drying - Limonium sinuatum or ‘statice’ in shades of white, peach and lavender, and Helichrysum bracteatum - papery stawflowers.