Strawflowers in a container

[jackb]

While my granddaughter and I were looking through the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog earlier this year we came across straw flowers, or as they called them Everlasting Flowers. I explained to her that you have to dry them, and they will last a long long time. She wanted to try to grow them, so I thought we would give it a try, and we planted the seeds in the middle of May. I have never grown straw flowers, so I have no idea of whether they can be grown in a container, but I guess we will find out.

JackB

 

[vfem]

Let me know how it goes. I have never tried straw flowers before at all!

 

[lesa]

I grew them in the garden last year- kind of fun... I sincerely doubt there is a plant that you cannot grow in a container, Jack! It was a little tricky knowing when to pick them for drying. If you let them go too long, the blooms look kind of dead. I decided that at full bloom and color worked the best. Looking forward to your results!

 

[digitS']

I have grown strawflowers and have them again this year.

Here's a little tip:

Go to the craft shop and get some florist wire - fine. After the flowers have hung and dried, take a wire and bend it 180. Slide the bend down into the flower. It will be easy to hide the wire. Twist the wire below the flower - it is your new "stem." The dry stem is very thin and fragile once it is dried. It will be easy for your assistant to break it. Her grandpa can wrap the wire with floral tape and it will look just about like a regular plant stem but the wire is okay by itself. Real thin wires will make the flowers almost seem to float when gathered together in a small vase.

And, "everlasting" they are.

Steve

 

[jackb]

I have grown strawflowers and have them again this year.

Here's a little tip:

Go to the craft shop and get some florist wire - fine. After the flowers have hung and dried, take a wire and bend it 180. Slide the bend down into the flower. It will be easy to hide the wire. Twist the wire below the flower - it is your new "stem." The dry stem is very thin and fragile once it is dried. It will be easy for your assistant to break it. Her grandpa can wrap the wire with floral tape and it will look just about like a regular plant stem but the wire is okay by itself. Real thin wires will make the flowers almost seem to float when gathered together in a small vase.

And, "everlasting" they are.

Steve

Thanks Steve. I have seen them in displays but never looked at one closely.
Jack

 

[jackb]

I grew them in the garden last year- kind of fun... I sincerely doubt there is a plant that you cannot grow in a container, Jack! It was a little tricky knowing when to pick them for drying. If you let them go too long, the blooms look kind of dead. I decided that at full bloom and color worked the best. Looking forward to your results!

Somewhere I read that you should pick them before the yellow center is completely open, then hang them in the dark to dry. Well, it should be interesting anyway, and keep my assistant interested in gardening.

 

[digitS']

That's it, Jack.

The flowers open more fully .

. . as they dry.

Steve

 

[Dahlia]

While my granddaughter and I were looking through the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog earlier this year we came across straw flowers, or as they called them Everlasting Flowers. I explained to her that you have to dry them, and they will last a long long time. She wanted to try to grow them, so I thought we would give it a try, and we planted the seeds in the middle of May. I have never grown straw flowers, so I have no idea of whether they can be grown in a container, but I guess we will find out.

JackB

Strawflowers are so interesting and different. I gave some to my mom when I went to visit this summer. I had never seen them before. They feel dry when they are so alive! I bet they would go well in a dried flower arrangement.

 

[SPedigrees]

OK I have a question and this seems the place for it - what could be preventing my strawflowers from blooming??? I cannot figure this out, and it is probably too late now, but I would really like to know why I cannot get my strawflowers to bloom.

Back in the mid 1970s I grew strawflowers in a little flower bed in my front yard one year. The cultivars back then were autumn colors, red, orange, and golden yellow. The strawflowers produced flowers that I harvested and dried and kept for a number of years.

Three years ago I bought strawflower seeds and grew them in a container on my front porch. I harvested disappointing pastel colored flowers that were not what I wanted at all.

So I set about finding seeds for strawflowers in traditional fall colors. I found a seller of seeds of golden yellow and red strawflowers (on Etsy if I remember correctly) and located a seller of orange strawflower seeds in Ireland. So I mixed these seeds and planted them in a container in my "orange garden" in the Spring of 2022. (photo below-container on far right).

The plants grew well all summer, but then the buds turned black and no flowers ever appeared. (Wish I'd taken a picture, but I tend not to photograph depressing sights, and later regret that I haven't.)

So I figured some insect or blight had attacked my plants, and this past Spring I planted the remainder of my seeds in a different container on the safety of my front porch.

Again there are no buds. Maybe one shriveled black one, but that is it. WHAT on earth could be preventing all my strawflowers from producing blooms???? Does anyone have any idea? Even if the seeds from the Etsy seller failed to produce flowers, wouldn't the Irish seeds have flowered?? This makes no sense to me at all, and it's especially aggravating considering the trouble it took to track down seeds for the colors I wanted.