Here it is...after Valentine's Day and it has been SO LONG since I posted. I promised some folks on Facebook awhile back that I would post a recipe for a Streusal Coffee Cake, and I haven't done that yet. I also need to post my February menu for the second half of the month. I don't know where time has gone. I will get those posted, but first I wanted to talk about Valentine's Day.
5 years ago on Valentine's Day, I had my first date with my wonderful husband. He showed up with chocolates and cards and roses. The chocolates were great. The cards were sweet. The roses were absolutely beautiful. And so a few days later, when they started to wilt, I couldn't part with them. I carefully dried them, and so began the tradition that would led to me saving every flower my wonderful husband ever bought me.
Saving flowers is easy. Once the flowers start to wilt, you have to start preserving them fairly quickly. If you let them go long enough that they're limp and the petals are starting to fall off, you may be past the point of saving them. In these cases, you can remove the petals and dry them individually. To save the whole bouquet, pull them out of the water and dry the stems so they're not dripping everywhere. Turn the bouquet upside down, and use a rubber band to hold all of the stems together, making it tight enough that they can't escape. Then simply hang them upside down on a hook or nail in a dry room (no basements or damp areas), and walk away.
You must be sure that they dry long enough that the interior of the flower is dry, all the way to the center. With flowers that have dense, overlapping petals (such as roses), this takes awhile. I have been known to leave them hanging for weeks, and even months, to ensure that they are thoroughly dry. They can add a bit of decoration to the room they're drying in as well, so don't feel bad about leaving them.
I just hung my Valentine's Day roses today. They will be drying for awhile.
I haven't figured out what to do with all my dried flowers yet, but someday, when I have my own house, I will use them to decorate something. Until then, they are stored in plastic containers to keep the dust and moisture away from them. I love going back to look through them, and remember all of the beautiful memories associated with each flower.
For the hopeless romantic, this is a great way to keep all of those memories alive.
