If dried flowers make you think of withered Miss Havisham and her decaying wedding dress, then it’s time to raise your expectations. Today’s dried flowers are nothing like the faded flowers worn by the jilted bride of Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations.” They’re boldly combined, lushly textured and even colorful.</p> So, what’s changed? The floral industry has embraced dried plants as it’s pivoted to become more sustainable. When locally sourced and kept natural (not bleached or dyed), dried flowers have a smaller carbon footprint than fresh flowers that are flown in from overseas, refrigerated and displayed in non-biodegradable floral foam.</p> This has led to a surge in creativity. Floral artists are pushing the boundaries of display – adding dried flowers to fresh and wiring dried plant material to everything from hair combs to chandeliers. They’re also preserving flowers that were rarely dried before, from peony blooms to Smoke Bush plumes, and combining them in ways that take them beyond ordinary.</p> Consider the brown fronds of dried leatherleaf fern. Alone they may look ho-hum, but when spiraling around the edge of a wreath filled with Honesty seed heads and Chinese Lantern pods, they create energy. Or the fluffy heads of Pampas grass. By themselves, they could pass as feather dusters, but when wired with dried roses and allium seed heads onto chandeliers, they’re positively ethereal. </p>
Did you know that Chatfield Farms</a> has two herb gardens? For years we had a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) herb garden and a Denver Botanic Gardens Guild</a> production garden. After years of working their herb garden, the CSA relinquished its prime spot in front of the Hildebrand house in 2024. The horticulture team took over management of this space and the Guild took over maintenance. </p> In the fall of 2024, I started developing some concepts for a new herb garden. This new garden needed to serve multiple purposes, including producing herbs for the Guild, creating a learning space for our Education Department, and enriching the guest experience. We wanted it to retain a kitchen garden feel, befitting its location right outside the historical homestead.</p> I met with the Guild at the end of 2024, and they generously donated funds for this new project. Earlier this year, we finalized the design and got bids for construction. By April, we were demolishing the old, tired row herbs in favor of raised beds and accessible pathways. We partnered with a company called Earth Love Gardens</a> to install our new raised beds. They specialize in permaculture and edible gardens. </p> On May 28, members of the Guild, Aaron Michael (owner of Earth Love Gardens) and some of Denver Botanic Gardens’ staff came together to install all the plant material. We planted more than 1,500 plants! With another generous donation of planter pots and a beautiful bench from one of our volunteers, we were able to create a destination garden where anyone can browse our herbs, take a rest and enjoy Hildebrand Ranch gardens. </p>
Seeds are quite amazing little capsules of information; it is mind-boggling that something that fits in the palm of your hand (or on the tip of your finger) can hold the information needed to grow something as large as a tree! Not only do seeds act as a container of genetic information but they also contain mechanisms to make sure that the embryo will start growing exactly when conditions are just right for it to thrive, even if that means waiting for years to get it right.</p> While seeds “wait” to germinate at the right time in the right place, they will go into types of dormancies to help preserve the information it contains inside. As gardeners, we strive to manipulate environments so they’ll grow when we want.</p> </p> Here are a few simple tricks I have learned over the years:</h3> Cold stratification</h4> Seed dormancy can be regulated by the environment or by the seed itself. In Colorado where we experience a temperate climate (which generally have wider temperature ranges throughout the year with distinct seasonal changes), many plants are used to a cycle of blustery, winter temperatures followed by the fluctuations that spring, summer, and fall bring about.</p> We can mimic this through a period of moist, cold stratification. At the Gardens, we sow flats of seeds, water and cover them up and either place in a cooler or outside in cold frames in winter. At home, you can do the same by either placing seed in wet sand or vermiculite in a baggy and storing in your fridge or freezer until you are ready to sow. Alternatively, you can take advantage of our spring snowstorms and broadcast seed directly into your garden just before an expected snow to let seeds get a taste of real winter. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Sophora secundiflora</em> (Texas Mountain Laurel) having germinated after scarifying the seed and a short cold stratification. </p> Scarifying</h4> Many seeds (think tree seeds and legumes) have a thick, tough seed coat protecting the seed until prime conditions occur. Scarifying, or mechanically breaking down the seed coat, can also give you a higher percentage of germination in a quicker process than mother nature does. The goal is to expose the tender tissues hiding inside; this can be done several ways and you can get creative in the process. In our greenhouse workspace we have several tools to scarify, including sandpaper, nail files and clippers, and even needles to poke and nick. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Cacti seed with the seed coat being chipped off with a needle to expose the tender tissues inside. </p> Water baths</h4> Soaking your seeds in water is another simple trick to germination. Soaking in water can either help soften the seed coat to wake up the hiding embryo or can leach out chemicals in the seed coat that are preventing germination until conditions are right. A technique I have fallen to recently is an aerated bath, where seeds soak in a bath of water being turned by an aquarium air pump which provides required oxygen to the seeds as their coats soften. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Seeds in an aerated soak having germinated in the bath, before sowing. </p> </p> Breaking seed dormancies can take a little expertise (and time) but it’s so rewarding once the deed is done! </p> This article first appeared in the February edition of Life on Capitol Hill. All images: Brooke Palmer. </em></p>
