If you think the bloom is off the rose, think again.  Think of rosehips, dried roses, pressed rose petals… and other garden-variety mementoes.

Bringing the Garden Indoors

It's late fall, and the last rose of summer-not to mention the last aster, the last zinnia, and yes, even the last sprig of goutweed-has come and gone. You've got the garden cleanup pretty well done, the spring bulbs tucked in for a cool winter's nap, the mulch applied. The seed and plant catalogues are starting to trickle in. Everything is falling into its seasonal rhythm…

Only you're in gardening withdrawal. You're missing the profusion of flowers and foliage throughout spring, summer and early fall. It's still a long time until the bulbs of spring wake up your sense of colour. What to do, what to do, to keep happy all winter long?

Let's bring the garden indoors. Not  literally; I'm not talking about digging up your plants and taking them inside. No, let's bring in memories and mementoes; dried flowers, leaves and seed pods captured in journals, gift items or arrangements, celebrating all that the garden was and all it will be again.

The art of drying plants

How many of us have picked a four-leaf clover, a pansy or a fall leaf and pressed it between the pages of a book to preserve for all time? Dried plants are a wonderful way of catching glimpses of our gardens and holding them in a souvenir mode to comfort and encourage over winter.

I got into drying plants as a student years ago now at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, in Truro, NS, first creating a collection of wild plants as a botany project, then working one summer gathering specimens for the college's herbarium. We used a plant press that took some weeks to dry our specimens, but today you can use a common kitchen appliance-the microwave-and a special microwave press to quickly and beautifully preserve all kinds of plant material.

Anna Spooner has always loved preserving plants. "As a gardener, I love the idea that in the middle of winter, I'll look into a book I've stuck something into and find a part of my garden, still blooming," she says. But she's taken the art of drying to a whole new level. As owner of StoneLeaf Lamps, in Grand Pré, NS, Anna dries flowers, seed heads, leaves and even various seaweeds, using them to craft unique botanical lampshades that she mounts on equally unique stone bases. As her lamps and shades light up rooms across our region and beyond, Anna is quick to share helpful tips on drying plants for people who want to create unique, if less complex, crafts.

"Not every flower or leaf presses well," she says as we wander through her garden, collecting material. "It's a real disappointment to me that lupines don't press well; they turn a muddy colour, which would be all right if they kept their shape-sometimes it's the structure and the two dimensional exploration of a flower or part of a flower that becomes exciting." Other flowers that don't dry well include geraniums, impatiens and petunias, "probably because they have such moist, thick and sticky blooms," Anna says.

Techniques and Supplies for Drying Flowers

Flowers that press well, keep their shape but don't hold their colour include some of the cranesbills. Plants that do press well include ferns, members of the viola family (pansies, violets, Johnny-jump-ups), lunaria or silver dollar plant, honeysuckle, cornflowers, clematis, carnations, Queen Anne's lace, single roses (as opposed to double hybrids), Acidanthera gladiolas, nigella, potentilla, alstroemeria, most seaweeds, seed heads of trees such as maple, and most types of leaves. If you're interested in pressing fresh leaves and flowers-which might prove challenging this time of year, but there's always spring, or you can use store-bought material-for best results pick plants early in the morning, preferably the first day they bloom and after the dew is off them.

There are two types of presses commonly used for drying flowers. The traditional flower press uses two pieces of plywood or MDF (pressed) board, held together either with a strap or with bolts and wing nuts at the corners. You place your plant material on sheets of blotting paper, with layers of newspaper in between each sheet, up to 10 layers thick, then tighten the wing nuts or strap and leave the press in a warm place for about six weeks for material to dry.

A quicker way to dry flowers is to use a microwave flower press-there are several models available. Microwave presses use the heat of the microwave to dry flowers quickly, in seconds, rather than in weeks. Anna uses microwave presses for a lot of her plant material, with the exception of some of the large items she dries. "You have to experiment with both your microwave and your press," she says. "Different power outputs will mean your plants dry more quickly or more slowly." She suggests trying 10 to 15 second intervals to see what results you achieve. "Little pieces obviously dry faster, and the thickness of the plant material also affects your drying time." She reminds people that the press will get hot, so use oven mitts when handling it.

Some people love to make floral pictures out of dried material, mounting specimens in an arrangement and matting and framing the results. Other items to make include bookmarks, stationery, gift boxes, candles, flowerpots, vases and bottles. Anna lightly glues plant material onto an item using a clear-drying craft glue, then sprays the item repeatedly with a gloss varnish, letting the varnish dry thoroughly between applications. Look for Japanese-style mulberry paper, available at craft shops-it becomes translucent when sprayed with varnish, offering a delightful effect. Or for a more durable result, you can finish a project with clear Mactac plastic.

Arranging Your Garden's Bounty

Of course, not everyone is into pressing leaves and flowers, mounting them in albums or on gift items. Sometimes, we just want to casually arrange a handful of evergreen boughs, a few fresh cut flowers or even some everlasting annuals-now dried-from the garden. In Neville MacKay, we have the man with all the answers to our floral design questions. Neville is the talented and entertaining proprietor of two floral shops in Halifax, My Mother's Bloomers and Neville Florals & Vessels. A well-known instructor and designer, he's my kind of floral enthusiast: a no-holds-barred, do-what-makes-you-happy arranger who encourages people to make designs that please them.

"So often we look at floral design as a rigid, commercial thing, yet the trend in gardening is to go with a natural, comfortable feeling," he says. "It's lovely to be able to bring that natural feeling into our homes. Take the time to see how things grow in nature, and you'll understand more about floral arranging and design.

"I don't think we enjoy the natural beauty of things as much as we could. Like if you gather a whole bunch of stuff and throw it into a bowl…you can see the whole summer in a bunch of rosehips-memories of the summer, to get you through winter."

Neville favours seasonal influences in design, using whatever is handy and available: autumn seeds, fruit, branches, evergreens and cones, rocks with moss on them. "I decorate for a season, rather than for a particular occasion, because you get longer effect from your work," he says. "You can embellish decorations seasonally to highlight an event like Christmas or Valentine's Day-you just add a few features to push your design into another season or occasion."

When I went to visit him at My Mother's Bloomers I brought several bags containing fresh fruit and vegetables, and a variety of plant material-evergreen boughs, vines, sumac seed heads, alder branches, even cattail leaves-plus a motley collection of containers, ranging from a terra-cotta pot to a hand-painted milk can and a big basket, to carry all these items.

Use what's at hand

"People often tell me they have nothing to use for a container for arrangements," Neville says. "Well, you can use anything for a container, from a punch bowl, wine glass or coffee cup to a shoe or hat or box, depending on whether the arrangement needs water. Who says there has to be a formal container? Create a criss-cross arrangement of twigs or driftwood for a base. Use a hollowed out squash, pumpkin or gourd-or even cabbage." He points out that many winter materials don't need to be put in water. And if they do, you can discretely use a glass or a plastic container.

We should use more rocks in our arrangements, Neville says, warming to his theme of using what's at hand. "We can always find interesting stones to add to a design. And in the dead of winter I've dug up bulbs and used them, cut forsythia, dogwood and willow branches…why prune in spring when you can prune in winter and use those prunings in displays?"

Bundles of birch or red dogwood twigs tied together are simple and effective, especially if paired with fresh fruit. Neville loves to use cedar in arrangements and in fragrance bowls because it has a lovely scent, keeps its colour, dries well-and has no balsam or pitch to make hands sticky. It's a terrific filler for the base of a design, or equally stunning in a bowl by itself.

You can also create a stunning effect with just a single bloom or branch. "When you have a beautiful flower, it doesn't need to be muddied up with a bunch of stuff," Neville says. "The same with a simple evergreen branch. And dried flowers like teasels or Queen Anne's lace can be as beautiful as fresh ones…

"There's always something from outdoors-either fresh or dried-to brighten your home."

Springing the season

We've heard about how you can force bulbs-potting them up, exposing them to a period of cold in fall and then bringing them into the warmth and light to flower indoors over winter. You can achieve a similar result with branches of spring-flowering shrubs, with just a couple of tricks needed to fool them into flowering.

Flower and leaf buds are formed during late summer and early autumn,  and they need a minimum of six weeks of cold weather before you can bring them into flower. This usually means waiting until late January or early February before cutting branches for forcing.

The technique is simple: go outside on a relatively mild day and cut a few twigs of forsythia, witch hazel, spirea, redbud, flowering fruit trees, pieris or willow, for example, using sharp pruners or a knife to ensure a clean cut. Look at the overall shape of your shrub, and consider that you're in part pruning it, lessening your task after it finishes flowering in spring. Choose branches with plump, healthy-looking buds.

Place your cuttings in a container with cold water (to prevent excessive shock to the twigs and buds) in a heated room, making sure the container is tall enough to support the branches. Some people submerge their cuttings in a bathtub filled with tepid water to help acclimatize them to the warmer temperatures inside and start breaking the dormancy, but that's not necessary. Change the water in your forcing vase every couple of days. It will be a few weeks before you see signs of flowers emerging, but it's worth the wait.

Some people stagger their trimmings, bringing in a few branches every week throughout January and February to ensure a steady supply of blooming beauty to carry them through to spring. The later you bring branches in, the closer it is to their natural blooming time outdoors, and the less time it takes for them to bloom indoors.

Artful arrangements

Looking for a little natural inspiration? Here are a few suggestions to provide form, colour-and vibrancy-to your indoor landscape over winter. Include cinnamon sticks, ginger, bay leaves, oranges (as well as fresh pine and cedar) and you'll have scent as well.

• Alder cones
• Apples on branches (wild apples are especially fun)
• Birch twigs
• Bittersweet vine; berries and twigs
• Canada holly 
• Dogwood branches
• Evergreens; broadleaf (holly, vinca, pieris, wild cranberry vines)
• Evergreens; regular (including cones)
• Lilac twigs
• Mosses and lichens
• Rugosa rosehips 
• Seaweeds
• Shells
• Stones
• Sumac heads
• Willow branches, especially curly willow