Hello! Before summer slowly fades away in to those beautiful autumnal shades I thought I would share a few tips and tricks for drying the beautiful Dahlia. I think Dahlias make a stunning addition to any garden with their perfect structure and beautiful tones. People can shy away from planting Dahlias due to their winter maintenance. Unfortunately if you live in area that gets very cold over the winter months you may have to lift the tubers up to store until spring. But if you live in Norfolk, like me, you will probably find you can leave your tubers in the ground and just cover with extra soil and mark them with a cane so you know where they are in the garden, which makes the process at little less intimidating.
Below are a few of the varieties that are in my garden that all dry beautifully. A little tip when drying Dahlias is to wait to cut them until they are almost turning, right at the end of being at their peak, they seem to dry so much better. Plus it also means you get to enjoy the beauty of them smiling at you in the garden for as long as possible. The length of the stem depends on what you would like to use the Dahlia for, we cut ours fairly short at around 10 cm as we don't need a long stem for wreath making. If you are using them to display in a vessel, I would recommend drying them with a longer stem.
The lovely pom pom style Dahlias (photo one) are a really simple one to dry and look gorgeous because of their stunning colour. This type can simply be hung upside down to dry in a ventilated area and away from direct sunlight. Make sure if you hang more than one on a piece of string or near each other that the flower heads are not touching, this will mean a better end result and no squashed heads.
The Dahlia in photo two ideally needs to be dried flat, if you hang these ones up the petals will close in on themselves. We have an old sieve we use, its ideal as you can pop the stalks through the holes and the head can lay flat. Again pop this in a well ventilated area and away from direct sunlight. If you don't have an old sieve to hand, try making some holes in an egg box for the stalks to go through and the heads will then sit flat in the egg box. Or an even simpler way is to use a kitchen roll cardboard tube which works really well as the flower head sits nicely on the top of the tube.
The Dahlias with the beautiful spidery petals (photo three) can be dried in a similar way to the above, or alternatively this type will happily dry in a vase of water. Just make sure, once again, that they are dried in the right conditions, you do not want to dry them on a windowsill in direct sunlight as this could effect the colour of the dried bloom. Once the heads have dried simply remove from the water and let the stalks dry out for a day or so.
Dahlias definitely make a gorgeous showstopper fresh or dried. Snip those Dahlias in the garden and preserve a little piece of summer now. If you haven't got any Dahlias in the garden, I would definitely recommend them for a new addition in the garden next year, you won't be disappointed. I hope you have enjoyed this little read and found it useful.
Emma x
Comments