Specialty Gardening: Botanicals...Cut and dried!, 1 by BLOSSOMBUDDY

BLOSSOMBUDDY wrote:
No, but funny you should mention silica because the horsetail has in it that very same chemical and that is what makes the plant toxic! When I was drying some of ours, I thought they were getting mold on them and when I looked closer, it was a cyrstal that was being emmited from the plant! LOL!! DO NOT EAT THIS PLANT! I so want to find a better way to make the color hold. The reptile brown is fine for fall arrangements, but that lovely green is what I am after!

I have tried drying other flowers heads in the silica sand. That works fairly well on some blossoms. Been a while since I have done any with that. I remember drying violets, columbines and daisys in that as a kid! Did some bridal bouquets too. Guess I will have to give it a whirl on the horstails!

I cut and hang field bunches of quite a few varieties and just hang them upsidedown to dry. That works well with peonies, yarrows, marigolds, carnations, roses, artemesias, gomphrenas to name a few.

So whats your pride and joy in the dryer?