Keep a piece of summer at home: a simple bouquet of real dandelions

After a fickle winter and spring, everyone is waiting for summer, warm sunshine, and delicate flowers. Unfortunately, the blooming season for wildflowers is not as long as we would like, and it often feels like there is no way to enjoy them for longer. I want to share a simple, proven hack for making a bouquet of dandelions that will last until winter and beyond. We gathered our little bouquet last spring. It is now the end of March, and it still looks as good as new))

Soon, a plant called salsify (Tragopogon) will begin to bloom in abundance.

Despite its rather unattractive name, once they finish blooming, these yellow flowers turn into huge dandelion-like seed heads, often exceeding 6 cm in size. Salsify blooms from May to the end of June, so when you go for a walk with the kids, you can gather quite a few bouquets of these flowers.

I want to warn you right away: if you are going to collect salsify, bring a knife or scissors, as the stems of this plant are quite tough and dense, making them difficult to pick by hand. So, gather a bouquet of these "false dandelions" while the buds are still closed.

Once home, trim the excess leaves from the stems (we won't need them).

Place the prepared flowers in a wide-mouthed container so that the buds do not touch each other. Important! Do not add water to the container!

After 4-5 days, the buds will open on their own and turn into these dandelion seed heads.

Now for the magic 🥰 Take an extra-strong hold hairspray and carefully coat the flower from a distance of 15-20 cm.

After that, you can optionally cover the dandelion with silver or gold spray paint. This will not only give our flower an attractive hue but also more securely fix the delicate and fragile seed umbrellas.