Fall Preserves Author offers gardeners methods for drying flowers for vivid visual reminders of summer’s harvest

The season of leaf and petal is fading fast, but there’s still time to preserve the remaining blooms to serve as reminders of gardens past and gardens to come. Dahlias, marigolds, zinnias, hydrangea, yarrow and even a few roses are still in bloom. All are likely candidates for drying.

The process, according to Cathy Miller, author of “Dried Flowers: Harvesting, Preserving & Arranging” (Artisan, New York, 2003), is as easy as hanging the flowers to dry or pressing the buttons on the microwave oven.

To hang-dry flowers, she writes, pick perfect blooms and make sure they are free of moisture. They should not be picked too early in the day to give the dew a chance to evaporate.

The faster flowers dry the more they will retain their colors. Attics, barns, spare rooms or garages are good places to dry flowers – provided the space has some air movement and is dry and warm. Bunches of flower stalks should be fastened with rubber bands and hung upside down to dry, which may take as long as three weeks.

Good candidates for drying by hanging include artemesia, baby’s breath, hydrangea, lamb’s ear, statice and tansy.

Flowers may be dried more quickly in a microwave oven using silica gel. Miller suggests using small flowers such as feverfew, hollyhock, mock orange, cosmos, violet and columbine. The flowers are sprinkled with silica gel then processed for several minutes in the microwave.

Another method of drying flowers is glycerinization, in which ferns, peony leaves, ivy and other foliage is allowed to stand 10 days to eight weeks in jars filled with a glycerine solution.

And after the house is filled with all those lovely dried blooms, Miller has plenty of ideas about what to do with them – everything from wreaths to sprays to swags for the mantelpiece. Her design aesthetic leans toward the Victorian and country style, which mix well with a decor that is relaxed, or even cozy. The containers she favors include vintage bird cages, pottery, vases, baskets, bandboxes, watering cans and china pitchers.

Miller, who has no formal training in flower design, has created dried flower arrangements for the White House during the administrations of Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. She has won many awards for her gardening and floral designs. She travels around the United States giving lectures about her craft, works on her farm in upstate New York and lives in Hawthorne, N.J.