Creating a Dried Flower Wall

Dried flowers have increased in popularity over the last several several years and the next few years promise to be no different.

Recognizing the growing trend of dried flowers across the globe, in 2022, we grew several flower varieties simply to set aside to dry in order to create several new dried floral installations on the farm, including a stunning dried flower wall in our new event barn.

The dried flower wall was an instant hit with guests visiting the farm. Guests would use the dried flower wall to take photos for a selfie opportunity, simply were inspired and enjoyed the beauty of it, and often asked and were inspired to attempt to dry flowers on their own. The wall was a conversation starter that grabbed the attention with anyone visiting!

So what flowers did we dry to create this beautiful installation? There are many different types of flowers that we LOVE for drying, which we’ll cover in a different post, but our most favorite flower for drying is Gomphrena (Globe Amaranth). These beautiful flowers are true to name and have little globe blooms on top of long, tall stems. Not only is their color extremely vivid, fresh or dried, but their unique shape and texture makes them a fun, tactile flower to dry. People cannot help themselves from reaching out to touch these beautiful blooms and often remark that they cannot believe they’re real. Fresh or dried, they look the same color either way. Just incredible!

The variety of Gomphrena we chose for our dried flower wall is called Audray Bicolor Rose. This unique shade of pink has a muted tone that isn’t too bright and bold for our muted space. The color looks perfect against our white board and batten wall in our event space. The perfect pop of color!

Growing, Bundling & Drying Gomphrena

In the garden

Growing Gomphrena is pretty easy to grow, starting from seed. It’s one of the easier annuals we grow each year at the farm.

To start, we plant 10 trays of 72 cells of plants, then we plant them out in a 100’ row. We planted this amount to really make the huge visual impact we were looking for with our dried flower wall.

Planting in rows is an efficient way to help plant, manage, maintain, and harvest these flowers for our production purposes.

Harvest

Gomphrena is harvested out of the cut flower garden at the peak of the bloom, meaning that we wait until the bloom has reached a mature stage in the bloom cycle, but not too far gone where it would begin to drop their seed.

Once the Gomphrena is harvested from the garden, we remove all of the foliage from the blooms and make bundles of about 40 stems of these flowers, keeping all of the blooms at the same length. Once they are in the bundle together, we use a stem chopper to cut the bottom of the stems to make them the same length for a clean look. From there, we take a rubber band and put it around the bundle to keep them in place and use a paperclip to hang the bundle from the waxed jute on the wall.

The bundles of Gomphrena take about 2 weeks to dry, but this will be dependent on the temperature of the space you have them drying. It’s important to have good airflow (we ran a fan in front of them), and to keep your flowers out of direct sunlight. The direct sun can fade the color on your flowers quite quickly. Typically the warmer and drier your space is, the quicker your flowers will dry. Cool and moist conditions will take a bit longer to dry your flowers.

How to Make a Dried Flower Wall

The flower wall was started initially with thin metal chain link, but after we finished out two of the rows we were planning on, we ran out, and it was pretty expensive to buy more material. Adam found a great substitute and changed to a nice, light weight jute rope that ended up looking great and worked perfectly. You can find the jute roping here.

We hung the jute rope from screws that we put on either end, the length of the flower wall. The jute was knotted on each screw, pulled taut. As you start hanging the Gomphrena bundles, they will dip down in the middle due to the weight. Pulling taut will make sure that each row doesn’t bow too much.

The flower wall started first with just 3 rows of roping with 40 bundles on each row. Once we started adding the bundles, we ended up adding a 4th row, because of the sheer volume of dried flower bundles we had to work with and because the wall ended up looking a even better with another row of Gomphrena.

From there, we hung the bundles off of the jute with the paperclips, which was a cost effective and easy way to manage the process. For the most part, the paperclip blended into the whole scene and you really couldn’t see it, because of the impact of the entire scene.

We hope we’ve inspired you to try something new next season at your home. Whether that’s simply trying to grow Gomphrena as a new flower in your garden, trying to dry a few flowers to keep and enjoy, or creating your own dried flower wall installation for a little bit larger project!

XX Jenn and Adam

Rainbow Wreath Making

Our signature rainbow wreaths have been increasingly popular year over year.

Dried flowers in every color of the rainbow laid upon a nest of fresh evergreens, it really makes those beautiful rainbow colors pop and it smells sooo good! Where did the idea for the rainbow wreath come from? The original idea came from a guest at a wreath making workshop three years ago. She started using dried flowers in various, more random colors in her wreath. They were clustered together, which made the colors pop even more. I took one look at it and it instantly dawned on me that I could use my dried flowers to make an extraordinary rainbow colored wreath. A day or two after the class, I raced to the shop to try and see if I could make my own creation. Sure enough, the rainbow wreath idea turned out perfectly and looked absolutely stunning!

Jenn holds a rainbow wreath in the lavender field with her dog chewy

How do we make the rainbow wreaths? Well, the process starts in the summer when we set aside time to cut fresh flowers for drying, specifically to make the rainbow wreaths. We take an hour each week, usually at the end of the day to go out and cut flowers in bunches of 10 to bring back to hang in our shop.

The flowers usually take around 10 days to dry in our shop area, but they’re stored in there for a few months before we end up using them in the wreaths. Any extra dried flowers are sold at farmer’s market, at specialty shops or in our own farm store.

As you can see, we use the colors of the rainbow. The flowers and citrus included in the wreath are as follows: yellow statice, yellow marigolds, yellow yarrow, orange slices, orange marigolds, red gomphrena, winterberry, dark purple/wine celosia, burgundy Chester Copperpot celosia, purple statice, dark blue larkspur, blue saliva, ruscus, and seeded eucalyptus.

Sometimes these ingredients vary and I’ll use other things to sub in for color, or I’ll only use 1 red item for example, so you can be flexible with what you use for your recipe and how you do your bunches. There’s lots of creative liberties you can take when putting one together.

Rainbow Wreath

What do you think about the rainbow wreath? Worth the hype? Are you encouraged to try to make one of your own? They’re sure to add a modern, cheery touch to the holiday season!

XX Jenn

2022 PepperHarrow Holiday Style Guide

Home for the Holidays

a Guide to Easy Hosting and Decorating Tips

We love decorating for the holidays at the farm and love hosting family and friends this time of year. It’s our time of year to slow down, after a busy season of growing flowers. We have extra time to relax and hold our loved ones a little closer to us. Today, we want to give you some ideas for decorating your place for the holidays and some fun ideas for how to set your holiday table for hosting this year.

Simplicity

Simplicity is a word we love to use around the flower farm. Keeping everything simple helps with our sanity and helps remind us of what’s most important. Simplicity is best to forgo stress during this time of year when hosting family and friends. There’s no need to prepare gourmet meals for your loved ones. The main focus on this time of year is about getting together, celebrating thankfulness and spending quality time with those you hold most dear.

Adam’s most favorite easy dish we like to prepare for guests is a nod to his upbringing in Louisiana. Gumbo! It’s a favorite with our family and friends, who love this easy going, southern comfort food dish. Pair it with a little homemade cornbread and it’s hosting made easy! Scroll below for our gumbo recipe.

In a recent interview with NPR, Ina Garten also mirrored the concept of simplicity with cooking for the holidays, saying, "Make a simple meal and make it absolutely delicious. Your friends won't have any fun if you've spent the entire day baking. In fact, they'll have more fun if you're relaxed and happy."

Setting the Holiday Table

The flowers have gone around this time of year, so instead of using flowers to decorate our tablescape, we gather any remaining herbs, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, and include beautiful fruits we have around, like apples and dried oranges. Sprinkle in seasonal nuts in gold decorative dish to add an edible element.

My aunt told me, when I asked her for holiday decorating advice long ago, that adding candles always adds sparkle to holiday decorating no matter what. I definitely agreed, and candles have become my most favorite fall back to make our home or event space inviting and ready to receive guests. With candles, you can mix the colors of candles you use and you can also mix up the candlesticks you use to match the overall vibe you’re looking for with your decorating. I like to use brass or gold oftentimes with natural wood accents with dinnerware or serving bowls. The mix of organic elements with the elevated look of the gold/brass is striking.

Decorating Outside

Adding greenery garland, wreaths, bows, bells, twinkle lights, and other seasonal accents outdoors to celebrate the holidays is a great way to add a more festive vibe to the season. We love to decorate our front porch, Flower Cottage, and the barn event space where we host guests for holiday workshops here at the flower farm.

Holiday trends to be on the lookout for this year-

Using greenery and other organic elements, such as twigs, pinecones, and grasses! This is us every season, but it seems to be catching on in popularity. Grab a greenery swag or two and use them to frame out your doors, or a fresh greenery wreath for your front door. These natural elements add a lot to the holidays and often last an extremely long time, well beyond Valentine’s Day.

We also are totally in love with gold this year. Simple and stunning like what we said above, mixing the natural elements of the beautiful organic looking verdant greenery with the elevated shine of gold accents makes for a striking combination.

Color wise, we also love the look of burgundy, beige, gold, and other rust colored accents. We think this is a trend that is on point this year. You can even add a little pink to this beautiful color mix for a visually pleasing setup.

Another trend to be aware of this year is: everything houndstooth! It’s everywhere, out in force. We couldn’t find anything last year when we did our decorating and ended up using fabric to make our ribbons (shown below), but this year is very different. You can find houndstooth patterned ribbon, accent pillows, and other decorations with the pattern everywhere.

You can see some houndstooth examples and snag ribbon for bows here.

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Flowers

Winter blooming flowers add a lot of cheer to the season. A favorite here are paper whites and amaryllis

Neutrals

Neutral, natural looking details add an extra hygge vibe to the holidays.

Simple satin ribbon and dried flowers is elegant and easy to add to any room for the holidays.

Ready for the Holidays!

We hope we’ve given you some quick, easy ideas for hosting and decorating your space for the 2022 holiday season. Whether you’re hosting a few, many, or visiting others, we hope that your holiday season is a wonderful one. Cherish each and every day and the ones around you!

XX Jenn and Adam

Adam’s Southern Comfort Gumbo Recipe

Ingredients:

3⁄4 cup olive oil
1 1⁄2 cups flour
1 cup onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 cups cut up andouille sausages
2 -3  lbs chicken, cut into small size parts, including gizzards

2 cans of crushed tomatoes
2 1⁄2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1⁄2 teaspoons louisiana hot sauce
2 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
4 cups water
4 cups sauterne white wine

1 tsp file powder

2 bay leaves

Directions:

In a stock pot, combine oil and flour on medium heat to make a roux. Stir the mixture constantly and slowly until it browns.

When the mixture reaches a nice golden brown color, add the onion and cook ‘til clear.

Add garlic and whisk in 4 cups of water.

Stir in the Worcestershire, crushed tomatoes, hot sauce, and sausage.

Add chicken.

Add 4 cups of Sauterne wine, salt, and file.

Add bay leaves to top.

Simmer for 1 1/2 hour, let cool, and place in fridge overnight.

Next day, bring to a boil and turn down heat and simmer for 1 hour. (It’s better served the next day)

Serve over warm rice with a side of cornbread.

Inspired by Adam’s cooking hero, Justin Wilson!