Brighten Your Home With Flowers From Your Garden
by Dr. Robert Black, Consumer Horticultural Specialist

Flowers that decorate your Florida garden and can be cut for interior use, offer a double delight. Not only do they color your exterior environment, but they can and should be used more extensively to brighten the indoors, where we spend 80 percent of our time.

Cut flowers can be used as fresh bouquets - many lasting a week or more, or as more permanent dried arrangements.
 
Summer annuals which are excellent for use as cut flowers are marigolds, cosmos, zinnias, coreopsis and the magnificent Gloriosa daisy, the hybrid version of black-eyed Susans. Of course, many other summer blooming flowers can be used. For example, celosia, globe amaranth, tithonia and many wildflowers. During the cooler fall and spring months the selection of suitable cut flowers is much greater. Ageratum, snapdragons, calendulas, mums, dianthus species, sweet peas, nasturtiums and pansies greatly enlarge the list of available cut flowers.

Many of the flowers we have mentioned can also be used in dried arrangements. For hundreds of years, gardeners have preserved flowers by drying and used these for permanent interior decorations. The so-called "everlastings" like statice and strawflower have been most popular but many additional annuals can be used. Blossoms are usually cut when their color is at its peak. Then their leaves are removed and bound together in bunches for drying. The flowers are hung upside down in a dark, dry place for several weeks. Flowers other than "everlastings" can be dried by burying in materials such as sand and borax or corn meal and borax. These methods are successful for certain flowers but undependable for others. More recently, a drying agent called silica gel, has been used. This compound has the capacity to absorb large quantities of moisture and is used to quickly dehydrate cut flowers. Flowers minus leaves are buried in the gel in a closed container and left for about a week. Silica gel can be used over and over. When it becomes pink in color, place it in a warm oven to withdraw moisture.
 
Flowers which can be dried using the silica gel include: ageratum, calendula, china aster, daisies, dahlias, salvia, pansies and zinnias, to name just a few.

When the flowers are dry, remove and put a two to four inch section of No. 2 florist's wire through each flowers head, securing the wire by bending it into a hook at the flower-head end. This short wire can then be attached to longer wire which becomes the stem. The final step is to wrap all wire with green floral tape and then make your arrangement.

Keep arranging and trying new plant materials until you can make an arrangement you are proud enough to display in your home.