{"id":1072,"date":"2006-09-10T14:42:36","date_gmt":"2006-09-10T21:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/plants_or_weeds\/"},"modified":"2006-09-10T14:42:36","modified_gmt":"2006-09-10T21:42:36","slug":"plants_or_weeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/plants_or_weeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Plants, or Weeds?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love to collect dried plants for fall decorations. I’ve been keeping my eye on several plants that are growing along the edge of the road, or the bean fields. I need to wait a bit to go harvest them.
\nThere’s a stand of milk weed <\/a>at the edge of the field to the east of us. Once the pods split open, the plant can be cut and dried. They provide wonderful interest for a dried arrangement. My mother and I have spray painted milk weed pods gold to use in Christmas arrangements and package decorations, but they are beautiful in their natural colors.
\nTeasle<\/a> is an invasive weed that gows in great clumps in our area. It has a wonderful, prickly head at the top of a tall stalk. You can make very dramatic arrangements with them. If you can harvest enough, you could bundle them together, rather the way you would make a bundle of corn stalks. (Check out the teasle in the basket at this site<\/a>.) But, you have to be sure to use heavy leather gloves when you work with them, because sharp spines cover their stems.
\nThere’s a plant that we used to call “Indian Tobacco,” when I was a child. It’s real name is “Curly Dock<\/a>.” When it dries, it has a deep brown, seedy look, that contrasts the form of the other weeds, and adds more color to the arrangement.
\nI tend to suppliment what I find along the road with dried botannicals from places like Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. One of my favorites is the dried lily pod.
\nYou can see a wreath that uses the dark brown pods at this site<\/a>.
\nIt’s almost time to harvest. I have several five gallon buckets in the garage, and as I harvest, I’ll stand the plants in the buckets to finish drying. Before Thanksgiving, I’ll create bouquets, tie them with twine, and then add raffia or a wide ribbon. Mother Nature sure gives us some lovely decorations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love to collect dried plants for fall decorations. I’ve been keeping my eye on several plants that are growing along the edge of the road, or the bean fields. I need to wait a bit to go harvest them. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redeaglespirit.com\/arrrgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}