Dried flower

Dried flowers (roses)

Wreath of dried roses

As dried flowers in the narrow sense flowers are called, which are stable in the dry state for a long time. The term can also be used as a collective term for everything that comes from living nature and can be kept longer than fresh cut flowers; this includes flowers, twigs, fruits, leaves, roots, bark, mosses, cones and even mushrooms.

history

Dried flowers can be stored for years, even centuries. In the past, dried and pressed plants or parts of plants were collected in herbaria in large numbers for scientific purposes . At the same time, the fascination of owning flowers outside of their season or geographical distribution developed, which was made possible by drying. The aesthetic of dried plants is very different from that of fresher.

Important and interesting were the advances in drying soft flowers such as roses , mallow , carnation , asters and violets , which began in the mid-19th century. The most beautiful of the dried flowers, also known as immortelles, came from France , the Cape and Australia around 1890 .

procedure

Bouquet of dried roses

In general, dried flowers are cut before they have fully bloomed. There are different methods of drying the flowers; The most common is air drying, in which suitable flowers are hung in bunches in well-ventilated places. Then you can still color them or take additional measures to ensure better durability. In the past, when necessary, they were treated with acids to maintain and improve their color . Flowers, which easily lose their shape, were dried in sand that was hot coated with whale rat and stearin ; Nowadays, desiccants such as silica gel take on this task.

literature

• Bell, Alice: The Great Book of Dried Flowers . - Munich: Augustus Verl., 2000. - ISBN 3-8043-0605-5
• Braunsdorf, Wilhelm: The drying, bleaching and dyeing of flowers, grasses, mosses and other plant parts  : a manual for practical commercial gardening, for the binding and plastering trade and for home art. - Vienna: Hartleben, 1921
• Burke, Hilde L .: Arranging dried flowers  : imaginative & decorative. - Niedernhausen: Falken, 2001. - ISBN 3-8068-7628-2
• Hein, Heinrich: The drying and coloring of natural flowers and grasses as well as the preparation of all natural bouquet material . - Weimar: Voigt, 1895

Web links

Commons : Dried Flowers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: dried flower  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Dried flower - Gardora.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Toon Leemans: Knauer's book of dried flowers . Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knauer Nachf., Munich / Zurich 1979, p. 21.