We were invited to have dinner with my folks last night, and my mom had made a simple yet stunning bouquet using Golden Flax, Orlaya, and a few ranunculas.
Yesterday morning I harvested flowers and greenery, and got them in buckets of cool water to hydrate. Then I spent several hours in the afternoon making arrangements. My husband has a new phone that makes it easy to add a cool or warm tone to photos, so I used that to photograph the results. There are five bouquets in this shot, with a large one in the centre and four smaller ones beside it.
One patch of Ranunculas has finished blooming and the leaves have turned yellow. You're supposed to wait for the leaves to turn brown before you lift and store the corms, but I wanted to flip the bed to pickling cucumbers and tomatoes so I removed them from the ground anyway. There was an old grocery cart basket hanging around and that became my drying rack. I placed the rack over a wheelbarrow and was able to fit quite a few clumps of corms in it; there should be lots of air circulation for drying down. We had rain after that, and the clumps stayed nice and dry in their spot close to the house.
The last few patches of ranunculas have dried down, and now that the foliage is mostly gone they are very easy to lift from the ground. I trimmed their stems, leaving about 2". Having some stems attached will make it easier to figure out which way is 'up' come spring. After trimming I tossed them on the lawn and gave them a good rinse with the hose to remove most of the dirt. The cleaned corms will sit in the shade on nursery trays to dry for a week or two, and then they'll go back into paper bags or cardboard boxes for winter storage in a cool, dark spot indoors. My ranuncula season is complete-- and it was a great ride!