For added pleasure from your garden capture a bit of its summer fragrance in an old fashioned potpourri like Grandma used to make. The spicy scent in either a jar or sachet will brighten your home on winter days… and potpourri makes a distinctive gift.
Almost any fragrant flower, leaf, or herb which you have in your garden can be included in your potpourri. Rose petals and fragrant leaved geraniums are the most commonly used ingredients. Other favorites are mignonette, heliotrope, lavender, rosemary, pinks, and tea olive. Perhaps you will want to add a few bay leaves or a sprig of cedar.
The secret in making potpourri is to dry the plant materials quickly before the odor can escape. For this reason gather the materials early on a dry morning after several days of dry weather.
Spread the material on paper in a room that is warm and airy but preferably without sunshine. Sprinkle it lightly with salt to hasten dehydration, and stir it daily so it will dry evenly. Rose petals will dry satisfactorily in about two days. Some heavier materials may take as long as a week.
As the material dries place it in a tightly covered container. Add one ounce of powdered orris root to each quart of dried ingredients. This acts as a fixative to preserve the fragrant oils. It is inexpensive and may be obtained online or a some drug stores.
Next add a blend of your favorite spices at the rate of three teaspoons to each quart. Any combination of cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg may be used. By experimenting with plant material and spices, you will hit upon a combination that is especially pleasing to you.
Mix the ingredients thoroughly and set the potpourri aside to cure. Keep the container tightly covered, and stir or shake from time to time so the ingredients will be well blended. At the end of six weeks the mixture will be ready for use.
You can let your imagination run riot when it comes to packaging your potpourri. An apothecary jar, a candy jar, or an antique jar makes an attractive container. You may line the jar with pressed or dried flowers, or tie the mixture in a lace before placing it in the jar. One clever gardener decorated potpourri jars for gifts sticking a label to each which read “From the garden of Jane Blake.”
If you want to make sachet bags, roll the potpourri with a rolling pin to crumble it. Then tie in silk or linen bags and decorate with bits of ribbon from your scrap box.
Not only will you and your friends enjoy the fragrance of your potpourri, but a potpourri jar is always a conversation piece-and it makes an appropriate accessory for a dried flower arrangement.
by Marty McAdams
