Drying and preserving flowers helps prepare for rest of year

Drying and preserving flowers in the summer will stockpile some arranging material for other parts of the year. Huron County Master Gardeners recently learned some flower preserving tricks from a great speaker, Mary Lou McPeek.McPeek worked for many years (1975 through 2019) at Corso's nursery in Sandusky, making arrangements, giving demonstrations and drying/preserving flowers. She tried other jobs but liked working with flowers best, so she went to design school, and ended up staying at Corso's all those years. Now she is retired and has her own business, The Seasoned Door.McPeek explained the first preserving technique — just plain drying flowers by hanging upside down. Hold the stems together with a rubber band and the bunch will stay together during the process. Or you can use a pants hanger to hold them upside down in a warm room out of the air and the sun. Or leave them in a little water to dry slowly, or cut off the leaves and drop stems through a piece of rat wire.If you take off the stem, either stick in a wire stem before drying or attach a stem afterward. Another way is to press them in a heavy magazine/catalog or paper-lined flower press. Pick flowers when they are relatively dry but not wilted. Some materials like cattails must be picked early (July 4) or they dry quickly and shatter. Spray cattails with hair spray to help them hang together.Still, another drying trick is to submerge flowers in a dry medium, like borax or cornmeal or silica sand, until they are very dry. Put the perfect flower head in a container of drying material and then sift more material around the flower head. If your container is big enough, you could do several at once. A metal tin with a tight lid is good. Some techniques require setting the whole affair in an oven or microwave. McPeek showed full petaled roses dried this way.Buckeyes should be drilled with a hole first then dried in a low oven. Drying pine cones in a low oven will melt the sticky sap that will then dry as a shiny glaze. Dry pussy willows by leaving them upright in water; pick them early around Valentine's Day and they will open before drying. If you want gray leafy artemisia, pick on Labor Day and hang upside down to dry. Boxwood will dry easily and stay almost green. Just put it in the arrangement live.To use ivy in an arrangement, coat the leaves with floor polish to keep it from wilting as it dries. Mix white glue and shaving cream to splash on pine cones to look like snow. Rub a little cooking oil on big leaves and dry in a heavy magazine or U Line catalog. You can even put big leaves between wax papers and iron to seal the leaves as they dry. Maple helicopter seeds can be glued together to make butterflies. Pine cones can be cut with pruners and look like zinnias when attached to a stem. All kinds of seed pods, branches, twigs, nuts, sweet gum balls, burs and others can be dried and used. Especially for fall arrangements.Besides all these drying techniques, McPeek described how to use glycerin to preserve leaves. On heavy stems or twigs, pound the stems to easily take up the glycerin. Mix two parts water with one part glycerin and leave the woody stuff sit upright for a while soaking up the mix. When the leaves look rubbery and are not falling apart they are ready to use. This process takes longer and may require a little practice to get it right.Being a Master Gardener is a great way to enjoy the outdoors and gardening. Volunteers work in public gardens, answer questions, visit garden events and exhibits, dig plants to sell, learn new things and make lots of garden friends.If you are aching to get a little of this kind of life, join the group from 9 a.m. to noon March 16, for a $10 spring seminar at the Norwalk High School with Janet Maconovich for a landscape design workshop. Call Sue Long at 419-677-6674 for the details.Huron County Master Gardeners recently learned some flower preserving tricks from a great speaker, Mary Lou McPeek.Huron County Master Gardeners recently learned some flower preserving tricks from a great speaker, Mary Lou McPeek.Huron County Master Gardeners recently learned some flower preserving tricks from a great speaker, Mary Lou McPeek.