Flowers to last the winter

The days are drawing in and we had our first frost this week so the number of flowers in the garden has massively reduced. One of the only flowers in full bloom is our red Rudbeckia  (photographs I took early in the week can be seen in the borders of our blog atm).


I always miss having bunches of flowers in the house when autumn comes. It seems a shame to buy flowers from the supermarket that have been flown for miles and will only last a week or two. So this year we chose to grow some flowers that we could dry and have in a vase all winter long. Here is the result - a fairly rustic bunch of flowers but beautiful none the less and they will stay fresh all winter long.

We have included Helichrysums, Statice, Alliums, Cornflowers, Lavender and Dill flowers. We dried them in our airing cupboard (but any dark and dry space will do). The cornflowers seemed to bleach sometimes and weren't the most successful but the rest of the flowers seem to have kept their colour amazingly. I think for a more elegant look next year we might do extra vases with only one type of flower in - having said that I quite like the hedgerow look we have ended up with! :-)