Mugwort flowers amplify and balance the sweet flavors of winter squash, carrots, parsnips, and onion. If you roast fall fruit as a side dish for a savory entrée, add some mugwort to pears, apples, figs, and grapes. In simmered and soupy dishes, mugwort pairs very well with dry beans and lentils.
Above: A medley of potatoes with a flurry of dried mugwort flowers for seasoning. Above: The potatoes are tossed in a bowl with avocado oil, salt and mugwort. Above: The mugwort potatoes roast on a sheetpan for 40 minutes at 400°F. Above: A 9-minute egg tops crunchy mugwort roast potatoes.
Roast Potatoes with Mugwort Flowers
Above: Potatoes roasted with a mugwort flowers.
Serves 4 as a side (2 as an entrée)
A classic side dish, roast potatoes can also be standalone and very respectable meal (serve them with a crunchy salad of greens or radicchio and apple). I usually use avocado oil for its higher smoke point, but if you are not vegetarian and have some duck fat lurking, that combination is spectacular.
1 1/2 lbs potatoes, cut into wedges or quarters (halve if small)
1/4 cup avocado oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons dried mugwort flowers and leaves
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Line a sheet pan with baking parchment.
In a bowl combine the potatoes with the oil, salt and mugwort flowers. Toss until combined. Spread the potatoes out on the baking sheet and roast for 40 minutes, or until they are turning dark golden (shake the pan halfway though to turn some of the potatoes).
My secret to gorgeous, dried flowers? Silica gel, of course! I love using these dried flowers for my resin creations, but you can also use them for all kinds of décor, from shadow boxes to potpourri. With some delicate handling and these tips for drying flowers with silica gel, preserve the beauty of this season’s blooms.
Ranunculus bloom dried by silica gel
I’m excited to share yet another way to dry flowers that many aren’t as familiar with. Unlike hanging flowers to dry or dehydrating the petals, this method retains the shape and colour of the flowers extremely well. Sometimes they look identical to their original flower!
You know all those little packets you get in your food containers and shoeboxes that read do not eat? That’s silica gel. In another form, this silica is actually marvelous at drying flowers.
Silica gel is a desiccant, meaning it absorbs and holds moisture. For crafting purposes, they come in hard small beads that are a white or light blue colour. You can likely find silica gel at your local Michaels craft store and on Amazon.
Using silica gel for drying flowers is fairly easy, but there’s definitely a technique to it that helps you achieve the best-dried flowers possible. Let me show you my tips!
This button mum retained its structure perfectly when dried in silica.
What Flowers Can I Preserve in Silica Gel?
Most flowers dry very well in silica when done properly. But some are easier to dry than others! Bright and colourful blooms always dry best, as their colour remains fairly consistent throughout the drying process.
These silica-dried hawthorn flowers look nearly identical to their fresh counterparts.
Fresh, locally grown flowers are also ideal. You want your flowers to be hydrated and in tip-top condition, since they will dry exactly as they are.
Here are some flowers that are known to dry exceptionally well in silica:
Silica dried flowers, including cherry blossoms, ranunculus, butterfly ranunculus, gerbera daisy, button mums, hawthorn, grape hyacinth, and lady’s mantle.
Flowers to Avoid
Flowers with lots of delicate petals are very difficult to dry in silica, as their petals are likely to fall off due to the weight of the gel. This includes mums, cosmos, and anemones.
You may also want to curb your expectations when it comes to white flowers and other light colours, as they’re very prone to bruising, especially if you plan to preserve your flowers in resin afterward. They’re also very likely to change colour, turning more into cream and yellow than white.
Wearing gloves when handling the flowers at all times will help prevent your oils from bruising the petals down the line.
Tropical flowers and anything with fleshy petals are also likely to develop some bruising and browning down the line. Most will change their colour during preservation. This includes orchids, classic lilies, and canna lilies.
Even if the flowers are listed here, it doesn’t hurt to try! Experiment, practice, and be delicate with your blooms, and you just might have some success.
This white hydrangea turned cream and browned in the areas it wasn’t completely covered in silica gel.
Drying Flowers With Silica Gel: Step by Step
Drying flowers in silica is one of the best preservation methods, and it is fairly easy to do. Once you have the silica, you can use it multiple times to dry flowers all season long.
Materials
I’ve used Ashland and Activa brand silica gel.
Preparing Your Materials and Flowers
Choose a container that’s deep enough to hold your flowers. You can also layer flowers if the container allows it. 2-4 inches is usually deep enough, since silica can be expensive, and I avoid using too much. A rectangular container is what I prefer to use, since it can hold more flowers. Your container should not be used for food storage after holding silica.
Make sure your flowers aren’t wet and use a paper towel to dab off any remaining moisture. I allow my flowers to fully hydrate in a vase while the dew dries from the petals. And I snip the stems and moisture right off when I’m ready to dry them.
When snipping the flowers for drying, leave a little bit of the stem behind. This will give you something to grab and hold onto besides the petals when removing the flowers from the silica.
If you’re concerned about bruising, wear gloves when working with the flowers before, during, and after drying.
Make sure flower petals aren’t wet before drying them in silica gel.
Drying Flowers With Silica Gel
Before working with the silica, make sure to wear a mask. When pouring the silica, it creates a dust that you don’t want to breathe in. Gloves can also help prevent your hands from drying out and getting irritated.
Add a base layer of silica gel to your container. You need enough to support the base of your flower stem. About ½ to 1 inch is enough.
Nestle in your flower’s face up in the silica. The flowers can be close, but they should not be overlapping.
Make sure the flowers aren’t touching.
Carefully pour in the silica (a Mason jar or pitcher can help give you more control). Flowers will dry exactly as they are buried in the silica, so you want to avoid dumping silica right into them, as they will get crushed. The goal is to bury each flower while maintaining its exact original shape.
Pour around the edges of the flowers first to support the petals.
I like to pour around the outside, shaking the silica into place until the outside is fully supported before adding silica to the center. Shaking helps to get the silica into all the grooves and crevices.
Fill in the center and all the gaps, but be careful not to dump and lose the flower’s structure.
Make sure to fully cover your flowers with silica, or you may end up with browning (see the cream hydrangea photo earlier). You can layer as many flowers as your container fits, as long as the flowers aren’t touching. Put heavier blooms on the bottom and more delicate blooms on top.
Fully cover flowers in silica.
Cover with an airtight lid, and label what flowers are inside as well as the date.
Seal with an airtight lid.
Removing the Silica Gel
Most instructions that come with your silica gel will say you only need a few days to a week for your flowers to fully dry. This is not long enough in almost any case.
I leave my flowers in silica for a minimum of three weeks, or longer if I’m working with larger flowers (such as roses), since they contain a lot of moisture. It’s impossible to leave flowers in silica for too long. Longer is better than not enough.
If there is any soft texture, your flowers aren’t ready. They should feel like paper and be extremely light.
Carefully pour out the silica rather and avoid pulling out the flowers.
To remove your flowers, gently pour your silica into another bowl or container slowly. Do not dump it all at once. Gently catch the flowers as they fall out, holding onto the stem rather than the petals.
Hold the flower upside down and gently tap to help get rid of the remaining silica. Use a soft paint brush or makeup brush to remove any stubborn silica pieces.
Grab flowers from the base and the stem to keep the petals intact.
Using Your Silica Gel Flowers
I dry flowers in silica to use for resin. They must be fully dry, or they will rot in the resin. If I don’t use them right away after removing them from the silica, I’ll place them back in the container with a thin layer of fresh silica at the bottom. The flowers don’t need to be fully covered in silica once they’re fully dry.
Other than resin, you can also use them for many other projects (they don’t have to be stored in silica once dried. That’s only for resin projects.)
Here are some project ideas for silica gel flowers!
My preserved cherry blossom in a resin globe.
Silica Gel Flowers FAQ
How long do silica gel flowers last?
While I wouldn’t say these flowers last forever, they do last for a very long time when done right. If they begin to change shape shortly after being removed from the silica, then they were not in there long enough.
Your flowers should last you a minimum of a year, and can go onwards to last for a decade. Like any dried flower, their colour will begin to fade. To prolong their life, keep them away from sunlight, heat, and moist areas.
How do I preserve a rose with silica gel?
Roses dry extremely well in silica gel. They do contain a lot of moisture, especially the center, so you need to leave them in the silica for at least 3 weeks to ensure they fully dry.
Some people will remove the center petals to prevent the flower from browning or rotting. Personally, I skip this step and just make sure to carefully fill all the nooks and crannies of the rose to ensure the silica absorbs all the moisture.
Can I reuse silica?
Yes! Fresh silica is the strongest and can be used a few times before it needs to be recharged. While each brand varies, usually the colour will change when it’s no longer able to absorb any more moisture.
To recharge your silica, it should be placed on a baking tray and left in the oven at 250°F for a minimum of five hours. However, check the instructions of your silica gel to see their recommendations.
Silica should be recharged after every use for best results.
Silica gel dried flowers.
Get creative with your flowers, experiment, and have fun! Let me know if you have any questions about using silica gel for drying flowers in the comments below.
More Tips for Drying Flowers
From Vancouver, BC, Holly is Garden Therapy’s Content Manager. She has a BFA in Writing from the University of Victoria as well as a diploma in Floristry Design from Burnaby CCE. At home, she loves to grow cut flowers and dried flowers for her business, Dirty Daisy Florals, and is an avid houseplant collector and lover of bees. You can find her at @dirtydaisyflorals and @hollyheuversocial.
Learning how to dry flowers will open up a world of possibilities! Here’s everything you need to know about drying flowers and 14 different ways to use dried flower petals.
Dried flower petals are the best way to preserve the beauty of the garden well into the cold winter months when our plants hibernate. I always have dried flower petals on hand to use for my beauty recipes, soaps, and other crafts.
To ensure I have enough, I stock up on flowers each summer. I want to have an entire rainbow at my disposal for the coming months.
As different flowers bloom each week, I am out in my garden with a basket. I collect and snip the flowers until I have more than enough blooms. Since I like to experiment and give away handmade gifts, I can never have too many!
Here’s what you need to know about dying flowers, from how to dry them to what to do with them.
Sometimes, it’s best to just dry the petals of a flower rather than the whole head.
What Flowers Can You Dry?
While I wish every flower dried as lovely as it looks on the stem, not all flowers dry perfectly. When looking to dry flowers, you want ones that hold their colour and fragrance. A lot of it comes down to testing different flowers and seeing how they dry.
For instance, saliva flowers dry well and really hold their colour. However, the flowers shrink so much and become so tiny that it is not worth the trouble unless you have hundreds. Some of my favourite flowers to dry are:
Lavender bunches smell absolutely divine while they dry.
How to Dry Flower Petals
When it comes to drying flower petals, there are a few methods that can be used. However, some will work better than others for different kinds of flowers. Once again, it’s all about experimenting!
Store your dried flowers in airtight jars so they don’t rehydrate.
Hang Upside Down
You’ve probably seen quite a few photos of this first method because of its Instagram-worthy aesthetic. This popular method is to bundle the stems together and hang upside down. To dry flowers this way, you will want to hang them in a dark and cool room such as a closet that isn’t often used.
If you aren’t going to be using the leaves, strip the stems bare before making bunches. I like to use string, twine, or wire to wrap my stems together and attach them to a hanger (see it in this photo?).
Flowers that are good for this method include lavender, roses, centuarea, echinacea, hops, and more. Some larger flowers such as roses may be better to be hung individually rather than in a bunch.
One of my favourite tricks is to cover lavender bunches with a bag. This allows you to catch lavender buds as they fall, making gathering that much easier!
Dry Flowers in Water
I primarily use this method for hydrangea flowers as it helps to retain the bright pink and blue tones. Remove all the leaves and place the flowers in a vase with an inch or two of water.
Place the flowers in a dark and cool room and simply wait for the water to slowly evaporate. This allows the flowers to dry slowly, helping to preserve the petals’ colour.
Without this technique, the hydrangea flowers get floppy and don’t retain their shape.
Air Dry Flower Heads
Air drying flowers are great for flower heads that can easily pop off their stems, such as calendula and chamomile. To do this method, pop off the heads of the flowers and discard the stems. Then, spread them out on a dish, tray, or drying rack and wait.
Once again, be sure to place these flowers out of direct sunlight while drying. For easy gathering and clean up, be sure to have a tray below that picks up any flowers that fall through a drying rack.
Drying flowers on a tray can also work if you just want individual flower petals and not the whole head. This method works great for larger flowers such as roses, centaurea, sunflower, bee balm (monarda), and peonies.
Lay peony flowers on a tray to get the dried petals.
Use a Dehydrator
If you are strapped for time, you can even use your at-home dehydrator if you have one. The process is the same as drying flower heads and petals on a tray, but instead, you are going to place them in your dehydrator for 8-10 hours.
Be sure to place like flowers in the dehydrator so they all evenly dry or place larger flowers on the top rack as they will take the longest to completely dry. If all flowers are the same size, feel free to rotate the trays so the flowers evenly dry.
Press Flowers
The last method for drying flowers is an old favourite! Pressing flowers is a great method for making personalized cards, framed flowers, and other creative artwork. To make pressed flowers, you can use a flower press or a large book (phone books are great if you still have those kicking around!).
Place your flowers how you want them to dry between two pieces of newspaper or printer paper. This will prevent your flowers from sticking to the book pages and stamping them with colour. Squish them down, and if using a book, place some extra books on top as a weight.
Wait at least three weeks before you open up and check on your flowers. For perfectly pressed flowers, you can make a handmade flower press by following these steps.
Use blotting paper with your flower press to help absorb any moisture.
Where to Buy Dried Flowers
Whether it’s due to space limitations or climate issues, some of us don’t have the capability to grow our own supply of flowers. That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to enjoy the beauty of dried flowers! There are tons of places where you can buy dried flowers. Here’s a short list:
If you’re wondering where to get started when it comes to purchasing flowers online, consider what you want dried flowers for. This resource guide on how to create your own herbal home apothecary is a great place to start.
What to do With Dried Flowers: 14 Dried Flower Projects
Now that you know how to dry flowers and what to look for when choosing your plants for drying, let’s talk about what to do with them. Once you begin experimenting, you’ll find that the possibilities are endless with these colourful creations. Here are some of my favourite ideas to try.
Beautiful Soap Toppers
Homemade soaps make a wonderful, customized gift. To make my soaps a true showstopper, dried flower petals oftentimes take center stage as the final touch. They are one of the easiest ways to decorate, add colour, and even enhance the smell of soap. For my own soaps, I used dried wildflowers. Follow my steps and create your own wildflower soap.
These petals are for decoration only; they will come off the soap not long after you begin to lather up with it.
Melt And Pour Soaps
While dried flower petals sprinkled on top are lovely, you can also incorporate them directly into your soap. Melt-and-pour soaps are the easiest method for beginners, but that won’t stop your soaps from looking absolutely amazing. Check out how to make your own botanical soaps with flowers inside.
For these soaps, choose flowers you know will hold their colour well through the soap.
Lotion Bars
Calendula has a beautiful golden hue to it and also works as an anti-inflammatory for the skin. Experiment with the garden and treat your skin by making lotion bars with calendula.
Calendula is one of the best herbs for skincare.
Bath Bombs
Bath bombs can make a bath go from simple and relaxing to fun-filled aromatherapy. Dried flowers are one of the best natural ways to make a beautiful bath bomb. You can place a full flower on top or even sprinkle them on as a final decoration. Check out my full list of DIY bath bombs you can make yourself.
Shower Steamers
If baths aren’t your thing, shower steamers are the bath bomb made for shower lovers. If you haven’t tried it before, a shower steamer enhances your shower by filling it slowly with wonderful aromatherapy scents. You can find a complete tutorial here.
Shower steamers are just like bath bombs, but for those who prefer a shower.
Wax Melts
Ditch the plug-ins and aerosols and add fragrance to your home naturally with aromatherapy wax melts. These cute herbal infused melts make a cute gift or are lovely to have on hand when your home needs some freshening up.
Adding dried flowers to wax melts is safer than adding them to candles.
Tub Tea
If you don’t care for the aesthetic of flower petals and herbs floating in the bathtub, tub teas are a great alternative. You get the aromatherapy of the flowers without the cleanup. Here’s how you can make them yourself.
Bath Salts
Perfect for beginners, bath salts are a super quick and easy way to get creative with dried flower petals. This tutorial uses peony, but the flower options are endless!
Dark pink peony flowers hold their colour very well.
After a long day, my sore and tired feet are always the first thing on my mind. I like to give them a little bit of extra loving with a herbal foot soak, complete with dried flowers.
You can customize this project and many others based on the flowers you have on hand.
Rose Water
Did you know that rose is amazing for the skin? Coupled with its amazing scent, dried roses are definitely something you want to have on hand for skincare recipes. Here’s how I use mine to make rose water.
Framed Flowers
Some pressed flowers are just so lovely they need to be framed! Pressed flowers are extremely delicate and framing them definitely takes a careful hand. Follow these tips and steps and you’ll have beautifully framed flowers.
Thinner flowers dry best in a flower press, as large flowers can rot.
Dried Flower Arrangements
A flower arrangement is one of the best ways to brighten up your living space and bring nature indoors. While fresh flowers are beautiful, they only last for so long. Preserve the beauty of your garden inside your home and make it last by creating dried flower arrangements. See all the steps on how to preserve your ornamental flower garden.
You can also combine your dried flowers with fake flowers.
Wreaths
Using dried flowers to create a wreath makes a gorgeous and long-lasting decoration perfect for spring and summer. Follow my steps on how to make a lavender wreath or give my hydrangea wreath a try.
This lavender wreath can be made fresh, and will dry wonderfully to enjoy for years to come.
Echinacea Tincture
Flowers can be so much more than beauty. This echinacea tincture helps to boost immunity and reduce symptoms during cold and flu season. Make your own and learn how to use this incredible flower here.
Tinctures are typically made by soaking the plant in an alcohol base.
FAQ About Drying Flowers
How long will dried flowers last?
Most dried flowers are good for at least 2-3 years if kept in the right conditions. Avoid any sunlight and heat, as well as humidity. Once placed in sunlight, the colour from the blooms can fade quite quickly.
How do you keep dried flowers from rotting?
Rotting dried flowers have absorbed moisture. It’s essential to keep dried flowers away from moisture and humidity. For example, you might not want to keep a dried flower arrangement in the bathroom.
If storing your dried flowers in a container, consider including some silica gel packs to help absorb humidity.
Should I spray my dried flowers with hairspray?
Hairspray can really help to prolong the life of dried flowers. If you’re using dried flowers for display and arranging, spray a light layer of hairspray to help them retain colour and hold their shape. Don’t use hairspray on dried flowers you plan on using for crafts or beauty recipes; it should only be used on display dried flowers.
And there you have it! The gorgeous colours of dried flower petals are lovely to hand for beauty recipes, DIYs, and crafts, but they also stand out on their own in glass jars. If you’re like me, once you start drying flower petals, you won’t be able to stop!
Hydrangeas are a beautiful shrub with an old-fashioned appeal, yet they fit into the modern garden seamlessly. Possibly the best thing about hydrangeas is you can enjoy your lovely blooms indefinitely. Here’s how to dry hydrangeas so they keep their colour.
With so many varieties, colors, and even bloom shapes, you’d easily be able to find a hydrangea that suits your garden (as long as you are lucky enough to have the right climate, of course!). You can enjoy them both on and off the plant too!
The problem many people have with hydrangeas is that they become limp before they can dry out. Hydrangeas have a tendency to lean towards the drama, but they’re actually quite easy to both hydrate AND dry once you know how to do it.
Hint: You’re not going to hang them upside down.
This is the simple method that I use to dry hydrangea flowers and keep their hue.
Parts of this hydrangea have already gone brown, so it’s a little late for cutting and drying.
Dried Hydrangea Colours
Of course, you won’t retain the same vivid colour that you have on the plant while it’s growing in the garden. The colour that you can achieve on a dried hydrangea is more of a muted set of greens, grays, blues, pinks, and purples that look beautiful when displayed together.
The other thing to note is that the climate and temperature at which the hydrangea shrub grows will affect how much colour is retained in the dried flower. It’s not a perfect system, but ideally, you are looking for a healthy plant grown in appropriate conditions. You can read more about that in my essential guide to hydrangeas.
Did you know you can easily change your hydrangea’s blooms from pink to blue (or vice versa)? Here’s how you can make your hydrangea change colour.
Hydrangea flowers come in many different hues, all creating antique, muted versions of themselves once dry.
When to Cut Hydrangeas for Drying
Mother nature and plant care aside, timing when you cut the blooms is the most important factor that you can control. If you leave the hydrangea heads to dry on the shrub, they can lose all of their color. If you cut the blooms too early, they can wilt (as opposed to dry with the petals retaining their shape).
In order to retain the most colour, you will need to let flowers partially dry on the shrub first. Depending on when your plant blooms, you should start checking on the flowers mid-way through the bloom time.
The colour will be fading, but they will still hold most of their shape, and they will start to take on a papery feel. Try cutting hydrangea blooms when there is still some colour remaining to get a dried flower with a colour that lasts.
These blooms have begun to dry and fade in colour and this would be the ideal time to cut them for drying.
How to Dry Hydrangea Flowers
Remove all of the leaves from the stem (or at least the part of the stem that will be submerged) and put the flowers in a vase with an inch or two of water.
Place the vase in a cool area, away from direct sunlight. The water in the vase will help to slow the drying process; the bloom will be preserved better with a slower transition. Once the water is gone, it will be completely dried and will last indefinitely.
You can touch the preserved hydrangea heads to see how dry they are. They should feel papery.
This way of drying hydrangeas takes about two weeks.
The same hydrangea dried!
What to Do With Dried Hydrangeas
Dry hydrangea flowers are very delicate, so it is often better to create your craft or dried flower arrangement before they dry. That’s precisely what I did with this hydrangea wreath. I made the wreath with partially dried blooms and allowed the drying process to finish on the front door! See how to make the wreath here.
You can also add in other dried flowers if you want more variety.
I love using dried hydrangea flowers in all kinds of crafts, including this dried flower arrangement. If you don’t have a large stem, you can add some by using a bamboo skewer and florist’s tape to extend the stem of your dried hydrangea flowers.
FAQ About How to Dry Hydrangeas
How do you hydrate hydrangeas?
Before you can dry your hydrangea flowers, they should be as hydrated as possible. After cutting them from the shrub, immediately put them in water.
Once inside, cut the stem again and, this time, place it in boiling water. Make sure the steam can escape. In this case, boiling water is extremely helpful in forcing the stems to drink water.
Hydrangeas can also drink through their petals, so people soak their flowers in a bowl of water. While this method works great for fresh hydrangeas, it doesn’t work for flowers that are already partially dry, which is what we’re going for after cutting the hydrangeas.
Should I spray dried hydrangeas with hairspray?
Once dried completely, you can spray any dried flowers with hairspray. Ensure it’s cheap and clear…don’t waste the good stuff. This will help to create a protective layer over the petals so they’re not quite as delicate.
How do you keep dried hydrangeas from crumbling?
When the hydrangeas are dried, they’re extremely delicate. I recommend making any arrangements slightly before the whole flower is dried, as it will be stronger. As above, spray with hairspray and keep away from heat and sunlight to prolong the life of your dried hydrangea flowers.
Over time, we collect quite a bit of herbs. From harvesting plenty from the garden to buying for that one recipe, you might have quite an array of herbs in your house. But how long do dried herbs last? To make sure you’re getting the most out of your stash, here’s when to toss them and when to keep them.
Herbs are wonderful, magical things. I dedicate most of my garden to herbs, allowing me to harvest fresh herbs and dry them to use in my home apothecary. Beyond cooking, I use these herbs for teas, tinctures, balms and salves, cleaning products, and beauty and self-care products.
Herbs can have such distinct and useful tastes, smells, and herbal properties. And you really don’t need much to get the full benefits of the herbs.
Because you often only need so little, you can be left with a bunch of herbs. If you’re wiping off dust from the top of bottles or reaching for a rarely used herb in the back of the cabinet, you’re probably wondering how long do dried herbs last anyway? Can I still use this?
Let’s talk about the shelf life of herbs, whether you’re using them for cooking beauty recipes or for their medicinal value.
The Shelf Life of Herbs
First things first, we’re talking about herbs rather than spices here. Herbs come from the leaves, while spices come from the rest of the plant, including the seed, stem, or root.
Dried herbs usually last one to three years if used for cooking or eating. However, that depends on factors such as how and where they’re stored and whether or not they’re whole or powdered.
Herbs last longer when in whole form. Once they’re grounded, they’re more exposed to the elements.
If you’re using herbs for cooking, feel free to give them a taste! They won’t go bad like typical food; they’ll just lose their flavour.
Can Dried Herbs Go Bad?
Herbs do not go bad in the same sense that other old food might. There will often be no signs that they have gone rancid or mouldy. There is no harm in having old herbs, but you just may not be experiencing the benefits.
The biggest tell with dried herbs is the colour and smell. Notice any signs of discolouration or a faint smell. If the smell is faint or non-existent, the herb has likely lost its potency.
If you’re dealing with a powdered herb, look for clumping. This is a sure sign that moisture has entered.
If you bought the herbs, the original container or packaging might have a date listed. This could be an expiration date or a sell-by date. The herbs will last much longer than the date listed, but it will give you an indication of their age.
Label your herbs with the name and date.
Do Medicinal Herbs Expire?
Things are a little different if you’re using herbs for medicinal purposes or for their herbal properties. Once again, you won’t be harmed by using old herbs, but you may not see the benefits.
The older herbs get, the less potent they get. If you’re using herbs for medicinal reasons or in beauty products, I recommend going with dried herbs that are less than one year old. These will have the best potency for your products.
It’s also important to remember that different herbs have different life spans. For instance, lemon balm loses much of its medicinal value soon after harvest. So, I never use dried lemon balm, only fresh lemon balm, for its herbal properties.
Ensure your herbs are fully dry before you store them. You don’t want any moisture getting trapped inside the storage containers.
How to Keep Dried Herbs Fresher for Longer
You can prolong the life of your dried herbs by using these tips.
Keep them away from light, both artificial and natural, by keeping them in a cupboard or drawer.
Have tight lids. You want to seal them as tightly as possible to keep the oxygen and moisture out.
Store your herbs in a cool place. Room temperature is quite alright, but if you live somewhere warm, you may want to store your herbs somewhere colder than the rest of your house. But not the fridge! The fridge has too much moisture and light.
Use glass storage. Plastic is more permeable to moisture and plastic.
Only open your herbs when you need to use them. You want to keep as much oxygen away from the herbs as possible.
Keep those lids tight and secure to keep your herbs as fresh as possible.
Four days after the UK announced a ban on giant rhubarb—also known as gunnera—we received an email from Tom Berington. Tom is the founder of Different Like a Zoo, a company that represents a small number of designers who “do one thing really well.” (Paola Navone’s covetable Ghost sofa and Heerenhuis’s timeless table designs have both previously featured over on Remodelista.) He wanted us to know that he recently launched a new project called House of Herbaria, a limited series of pressed and framed gunnera leaves. The timing was so serendipitous, we wanted to find out more …
Above: Tom’s Rorshach-esque gunnera prints on display in his former studio space. Photograph by Antony Crolla.
Tom grew up in a unique setting: a 15th-century Prior’s Hall that was once attached to a neighboring Benedictine monastery on the slopes of the Malvern Hills. At the bottom of his garden, in a boggy, sun-soaked patch by the lake, is a patch of Gunneramanicata that has been there “as long as I can remember.” Tom—who has a degree in Fine Art—had begun experimenting with pressed seaweed. “I wanted to do something that really made an impact,” he recalls, so he abandoned the seaweed idea and headed straight for the gunnera patch.
Above: The gunnera patch in Tom Berington’s historic family home in Worcestershire. Photograph by Tom Berington.
Gunnera dies naturally in the autumn, so Tom cuts his leaves in the summer before they rot. His craft begins at the selection process: “Sometimes the insects will have already got to them, creating massive holes. Sometimes you’ll find a leaf that has been discolored by disease, which created an interesting pattination that makes them stand out.”
Depending on how they are framed, Tom will select a pair of smaller leaves or one giant leaf for the press, a purpose-built contraption that has taken many seasons to perfect. The drying process takes around six months. “The aim is to extract as much moisture as possible so the leaves don’t go moldy or break up over time,” he explains. “It’s almost like developing a photograph,” he continues. “You place the leaf in the press and, six months later, you’re left with a surprise.”
Above: The leaves are mounted on muslin. Next season, Tom will try mounting the leaves on naturally-dyed fabric. Photograph by Antony Crolla.
Not all presses turn out as planned but, for Tom, that is part of the appeal: “They each have their own special qualities,” he says. To add depth, the leaves are cut and arranged in layers before being mounted on muslin and framed by Tom, a process that takes places between his childhood home in Worcestershire and his studio in London, where the pressings are displayed alongside the furniture he sells.
Above: Each pair of prints (price on application) is made to order, with some examples available to view at Buspace Studio in London’s W10. Photograph by Antony Crolla.
This year, giant, individual leaves have been split in two and presented as a pair. “Because you don’t see leaves of this size very often, it can be difficult to tell what you’re looking at,” Tom explains. “They can look like ancient relief maps and the veins also have a sort of drawn quality to them. There’s real beauty in their imperfection,” he says. “They are really unusual but they just seem to work in any setting.”
Alliums may well be the jewels of the summer garden, springing into flower from early in the season and then standing with their ornate seedheads for many months more. But harvest them before winter sets in, and you’ll have exquisite jewels to decorate for the holidays, too. We take a closer look at these mesmerizing forms and ways to use them.
Above: In summer at just over a foot tall, Allium christophii is short enough to nestle in amongst low-growing perennials and grasses, and they look stunning with swaying tufts of Stipa tenuissima and spires of verbascums, as seen here at Beth Chatto’s dry garden in Essex, U.K.
The most familiar allium to many gardeners will be A. hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’. The ever popular spring bulbs are often planted in swathes to produce a sea of rich color in midsummer. While these heads will dry well, they won’t have the impact of the supersize A. christophii, which produces huge heads with metallic mauve flowers.
Above: The allium’s star shaped seedheads are beautiful when left bare.
For many gardeners these seedheads provide useful structure in borders long after flowering. But ideally, to keep them in perfect form, remove them from the garden sometime in late summer and then stand or hang them to preserve their shape.
Above: In the my kitchen, heads of alliums are arranged through a framework of branches or in pots. The branches are illuminated with copper wired microlights, £4.99, Lights4Fun.
Once dried, the seedheads can be used in different ways. Create a structure using birch or hazel branches, perhaps arching around a window. Secure the main branches firmly to the wall (a hook will support the key branches) and then weave microlights around them. The featherlight allium balls can be placed carefully between branches where they won’t need any further support.
In his book The Flower Yard, Arthur Parkinson suggests cutting the stems down to a couple of inches and threading with wire, a delicate operation but one that results in giant baubles. “They can then be hung from the ceiling,” says Parkinson. “Golden stars floating in mid-air. They look especially beautiful en masse, hanging at different heights above a table.”
Above: Arthur Parkinson combines dried alliums with dried hydrangea, honesty and a colorful aviary of glass songbirds. Photograph by Arthur Parkinson. Above: A bowl of paperwhite narcissi provide a scented contrast to branches and seedheads. Above: Perfect seedheads sprayed gold can be stored and used for several years. Photograph by Arthur Parkinson.
Occasionally something stops us in our tracks on Instagram. And so it was on an icy late November evening when we spied Anna Potter’s enormous wreath of dried grasses, hydrangeas, rosehips, and iridescent lunaria seedpods. Destined for a local café in Sheffield where the floral designer’s store, Swallows & Damsons is based, the wreath was a supersize reminder of how effective grasses can be in a festive design.
For Potter, using dried materials in wreaths is an opportunity to create movement and structure. But it also reflects shifting attitudes about the winter garden, in which the dried grasses, exposed seedpods, and faded stems are celebrated rather than consigned to the compost heap. “There’s so much beauty to be found,” says Potter. “Overlooked tangled vines, weathered seed heads and grasses are so wonderful to weave with and can be combined to create unexpectedly ethereal sculptures.”
This new style of everlasting wreath is staging a challenge to traditional foliage and evergreens, replacing fir and holly with burnished golden grasses and wildflowers. Here are a few of our favorites.
Above: Potter’s wreath uses a custom-made 4.5 ft forged steel hoop, which is recycled seasonally as the design and ingredients change. Here, she has used long stems of pampas grass and bear grass to create sculptural, swirling tails and loops. Pennisetum, panicum, as well as different varieties of dried hydrangea add additional texture while hips and lunaria bring contrast. Photograph courtesy of Anna Potter.
Above: Nikki Kuwayama of California-based studio Velvet Curation Co—which sells dried foliage and flowers— uses dried grass to create similar swirls in this wreath design, adding color with branches of asparagus fern, red berries, and dried cress stems. Her asymmetric design is built onto a simple vine base. Photograph courtesy of Nikki Kuwayama.
Above: Kitten Grayson’s Christmas shop has Zingara flower baubles as well as exquisite wreaths, including the pictured Meadow Mountain design. Available in three sizes (from £120), each on a wicker base, the wreath combines delicate bracken fronds with birch twigs, wild clematis, statice, and strawflowers to echo the soft burnished colors of a winter woodland. Photograph by Hana Snow.
Above: Dried flower guru and author of Everlastings Bex Partridge has given her collection of seasonal wreaths enigmatic names, including the “Bones of Winter” and the pictured “Wild Wreath” (both from £75), which uses curling grasses along with nicandra seedheads and dried Ammobium alutum. Partridge has also authored an e-guide to a natural Christmas, downloadable from her online store, Botanical Tales. Photograph courtesy of Bex Partridge.
Above: Gather your wreath materials on a weekend walk. Studio Mim’s wild woodland wreath uses a vine base topped with bracken fronds, wild clematis seedheads, and dried beech leaves along with a contrasting, crumpled silk ribbon. Photograph courtesy of Studio Mim.
Above: Jade Schol is the Wiltshire-based designer behind Arie and Vine’s ethereal installations, including botanical clouds of light-as-feather ferns and wreaths named after Santa’s reindeer. The Comet, pictured, combines bracken with asparagus fern, pampas grass, lunaria, statice, and foraged stems and is finished with velvet and satin ribbons. Photograph courtesy of Jade Schol.
Taking a moment amongst the flowers is something that Rebecca O’Donnell mentions often when talking about the inspiration and mood of her transportive store, The Quiet Botanist in Hudson, New York. Before she and her family relocated from the city, looking for a slower-paced life, the Australian creative director’s days were a whirl of work and travel. “At the time I was struggling with Lyme disease and I needed to slow down,” she says. “The idea was to create a space where I could heal, surrounded by what I love. It was developed out of a desire to slow down and listen.”
Tucked away down an alley, her exquisite store is a hidden treasure box with wooden panelling, stained glass windows, plasterwork ceilings, and floor-to-ceiling flowers. “Others were not so convinced,” she says of the off-the-beaten-track location. “But I loved the fact that it was a store to be discovered and experienced. A hidden gem of sorts where the scent of the flowers lures you in from the street.”
Photography courtesy of The Quiet Botanist.
Above: The beautiful entrance to the store.
The scent of those blooms wafts out the door and down the street, too; interior walls are covered with bunches of everlasting wildflowers, foliage, and ethereal dried wreaths ($220) that will last for three years or more. Tables are bordered with mini dried flower bouquets or sage bundles that combine foliage and flowers with a sage smudge stick ($30).
Rebecca describes herself as a constant gardener but also works closely with local growers in Stuyvesant, including Farmstead and Damsel Garden, who supply almost all the flowers except for some specimens, like banksia, that will not grow locally. Going forward, she plans to return to growing organic crops herself, at her farm nearby along the Hudson River.
Above: Rebecca creates bespoke arrangements presented in handmade vessels such as this Signe Vase made by Brooklyn-based ceramicist, Sarah Donato; $320.
