Flower bouquet
Fleurop Bouquet of roses (24 roses) with small-flowered Fairtrade Max Havelaar roses (incl. personal
Cut flowers
Floating plants as eye-catchers
10.1.2019
Translation: machine translated
Dried flowers are one of the decorating trends for 2019. In a bottle, they are now replacing the tried-and-tested bouquet in my home.
My flat looks a bit drab. I have enough furniture, lots of warm wood and a few knick-knacks. But something is missing: plants. I disposed of the last greenery in the green waste bin last weekend. The Christmas tree has brightened up the living room for weeks. The resulting gap needs to be filled. Tulip season has just started. I love tulips, but with cut flowers it's like gambling. I've spent a lot of money countless times, only to find the flowers with drooping heads after a few days. That's why I'm bringing them into the house less and less often. An alternative is needed.
Flowers in Japanese
And this is what I found quite by chance during a bit of internet research: the Japanese herbarium. These are dried flowers floating in a preservative liquid. They are usually draped in a glass bottle. On Etsy, it is already being touted as a 2019 trend along with other forms of preserved flowers. Colleague Natalie Hemengül proved to have a good nose and made images from pressed flowers some time ago. Today I'm taking on the three-dimensional version from Japan. You don't have to buy much for this: flowers, baby oil and a glass bottle are all you need.
When choosing plants, make sure not to choose any with too high a water content, as drying will be relatively difficult. Tulips are rather unsuitable, roses and herbs are predestined. I opted for roses, gypsophila, waxflower and St John's wort. Pure paraffin is usually used for the preservative liquid in the bottle or jar. However, as this is the main ingredient in baby oil, it should also work well.
From fresh to dry
The first step is to dry the fresh flowers. Or you can buy them dried straight away if time is of the essence. The gentlest and most beautiful way to dry the plants is in the air. Tie a bunch of your choice, hold it together with a rubber band or string and find a warm, well-ventilated and dark place. Hang the bunch upside down and leave it to hang for two to three weeks.
Because this is relatively long, I prepared something in the old cookery show style. I put some of my fresh plants in the oven on the grill. The flowers dried for a good two hours at around 50 degrees. The colours don't hold quite as well as when air-drying, but otherwise this variant works perfectly for me. As soon as the plants come out of the tube, I spray them with hairspray to make them more durable.
Buddleshipflower
Now the colourful flowers can finally go into the bottle or jar. I take individual bunches and place them more or less randomly in the jar. However, I make sure that I don't put all the different varieties in the jar one after the other so that there is a good mix afterwards. For the bottle, I use the individual rose petals as well as the bunches of herbs, as the whole head didn't want to go in, even with all my physical effort.
The last rites
Once I'm happy with the raw look, the baby oil comes into play. It is used to fill the glass container to the top. Don't do this too quickly so that the flowers spread out nicely and don't drown straight away. If you're still not happy with the look, you can turn the closed bottle a few times at the end to change the composition.
Your own Japanese herbarium is ready. Drying takes by far the longest, but the other steps are done in just a few minutes. I like this new way of bringing plants into my home. It's not commonplace and the oil makes the flowers almost glisten in the sunlight. Now I just hope that my herbarium lasts longer than my cut flowers.
Update 7 February 2019: This is what the oiled flowers look like just under a month later. They're not bad yet, but it's time to say goodbye to them. I'm particularly annoyed by the floating fruits of the St John's wort.
My life in a nutshell? On a quest to broaden my horizon. I love discovering and learning new skills and I see a chance to experience something new in everything – be it travelling, reading, cooking, movies or DIY.
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