When Crafting for the fall, leave the fresh cut sunny beauties in the field or for fresh bouquets, instead- take home these spent flowers in bunches, as many as you have space to dry them in.
How to Dry Sunflowers After Harvesting
Once you have harvested your spent sunflowers (easy to recognize because their large heads are facing down toward the ground-pictured below)
Remove all the leaves from the stem, and trim stem to about 3/4 the length of your arm.
Remove the tiny flowers from the face of the sunflower (as seen above -gloves encouraged) by gently brushing them off, you will be left with a stunning round head full of sunflower seeds. The seeds can be black, white, grey, and white with grey stripes, (surely there are countless more seed colors and you can get a send of how many types there are by checking out Sunflower Steve).
Wrap your stems in groups of two to three with bailing twine, and hang it in a cool place, protected from pests, for 4-6 weeks. Check out this video from MI Gardener about how to bundle and hang if you like a visual.
Drying your sunflowers can make for a stunning fall display in your front window, mantelpiece, staircase, or even the ceiling.
Wherever you choose to hang them, consider that these are seeds, and mice, rats, squirrels, and chipmunks adore them. Be sure to hang them from the ceiling to dry them to avoid any pest interference.
Take a look below for how I'm drying my sunflowers this year. If you found this information helpful, please subscribe to the blog, and like and follow us on social media.
I'd love to know what you think after you try this, and let me know if you have any success and or questions.
Comments