My wife and I live in Chicago but have a weekend farm in SW Michigan. We grow lavender and flowers that we dry. I do the sowing and planting; Roberta does the arranging. We both weed, pick and hang things up in the barn to dry.

We sell most of our stuff at farmer's markets in Chicago, but also a fair amount in Michigan.

Right now, we're in the middle of lavender harvest. We got a lot of lady's manle this year, and a fair amount of peonies. Roberta already made one wreath with a base of lady's mantle accented with deep maroon peonies; we sold it at our first market, last Saturday.

Hi Neil,thanks for replying.You sound like you are keeping very busy. I have a little lavender growing. I made some of those lavender wands and dry some in bunches. They look nice in arrangements. That Lady's Mantle wreath sounds really pretty. My peonies didn't bloom well this year. We had really crazy weather this past spring- maybe that was the cause. Went around the flower beds last night picking blooms to press.Going to have more yarrow to "harvest" this weekend. Hope we hear from some more people! Happy gardening:) linda

I can harvest yarrow growing wild here, which I have done and it is drying in my dining room. I jusst moved to this house last fall and had to leave my wonderful gardens behind. :-( With the rains and crazy weather we had this spring I didn't get all of the everlasting seeds planted that I had ordered from the catalogs and I think it is probably too late to be starting from seed. Now I am wondering where to find a good supplier. I don't need a large quantity, but want to buy enough to make things for my new home. Do you have any suggestions where to get good quality dried flowers?

kansasgail

Kansasgail, Hi! It sounds like you had a similar spring to us here in SW Ohio. I went ahead and tried to plant my everlasting seeds, but only a few have come up and they are pretty small. I don't expect anything to come of them, unfortunately. I went ahead and bought celosias and gomphrena and straw flower plants from the local garden center. ( Now my perenniels are doing well)I have one website you could check out for buying dried flowers- it is:www.driedflowersdirect.com. There was another one that I had ordered from about two years ago, but apparently they no longer exist.I think that I got the driedflowersdirect from someone on Gardenweb. It looks pretty good. Check out the Yarrow. Think how much you have and how much it it worth! You might want to do a search on Google, too. I'm sure there are several out there. Good luck!

Hi,

I am fascinated with drying lavender and have never done this with lady's mantle; are you saving and drying the leaves as well as the flowers? My lavender has flowers now, it's not too late to pick them, is it or should they have been in tight bud? Will they continue to push out buds? Thanks.

Vicki

I usually take the leaves off of the lady's mantle when I hang them up to dry. I use them mainly as a filler in wreaths. If your lavender is just now blooming out, you can still dry them. Don't wait until they get too old. In the past I have trimmed my lavender and it kept blooming for me.

I just made a Lavender bottle and made a post about how I did it for those of you who havent tried it. Also, I press Qu. Anne's Lace and frame it on black velvet or felt. I am wondering what to do with all the Poppy pods I harvested. Anyone?

I have made Angels out of dried protea pod for the body and poppy pod for the head ( the tops of the poppy does look like a halo). And the wings you can use some type of greenery. I've had to sand both pods down so that they could be glued together. You could attach a ribbon to the back and make an ornament. Spray them gold or white. I saw this done on the old Aleene's Creative Living show. Mine turned out really nice. I sure do miss that show! Taped it everyday and watched it when I came home from work.

We harvest entire stems of lady's mantle and dry and use the whole thing. When the flower has formed, you can usually pull the entire stem cleanly away from the plant.

For lavender that we sell as dried bunches, we try to harvest when the very first flower opens on the stem, or even before the first one opens if the flower spike is full and the color is deep, as on Hidcote or Grosso.

For fresh bunches, we let them go a little further, so there are maybe one to a half dozen flowers open on the spike, but not enough "finished" flowers to be distracting.

For lavender bottles/wands or for sachet/potpourri, you can use just about any stage from fully-formed pre-bloom to a blooming flower spike with several unattractive "finished" flowers on it.

I know this is an old post... but I was curious as to what a Lavender bottle is... anyone? I have been growing lavender for years and have made potpourri, sachets, wands, dried bunches, etc. etc. but I've never heard of a lavender bottle...

Luvherbz

Lavender bottle = wand.

Luvherbz- There is a thread on lavender bottles/wands on this forum. Scroll down the list and you will see it.

oh.... I get it.... thanx much!

Luvherbz