Once, while traveling through the mountains of Karachay-Cherkessia, we met an amazing flower in the forest, similar to stars that fell from the sky. The original appearance of the flower made an indelible impression on me and made me recognize its name. It turned out that the unusual plant bears the name "astrantia", which comes from the Greek word "astron", which means "star". And among the people, astrantia is often called "star". In the gardens of Britain, this flower has been grown since the 16th century.

Probably, everyone has ever paid attention to the bushes, sometimes up to 1.5 meters in height with bright, blue flowers, something similar to cornflowers. And this bush grows literally everywhere. But not everyone knows that this is the very chicory from which a tasty and healthy drink is prepared. This article will discuss the beneficial and medicinal properties of chicory, harvesting and how to use it. And, of course, about how you can make a drink “almost like coffee” from it.

Many of us grow aloe. The plant is primarily valued for medicinal properties fleshy leaves, and few people know that this succulent is able to bloom. Such an event occurs very rarely, as the popular rumor says - once every 100 years, which is why aloe was called the agave. True, with proper care in an apartment or house, aloe lives only up to 20 years, but it is quite possible to achieve flowering from this prickly handsome man. You just need to create the necessary conditions for him.

Zucchini marinated with red currants and garlic - crispy, appetizing, in a sweet and sour brine with spices. Such small zucchini for the winter will pleasantly diversify winter preparations from vegetables. Pickled zucchini will perfectly complement a complex vegetable side dish - they will go well with fried meat and barbecue! What kind of blanks are not made from zucchini, and jam is boiled, and salted, and sour, and compotes are harvested. This is really such a many-sided vegetable that you can’t list everything!

I have been a landscape designer for over ten years. When people ask - "make me a low-maintenance garden", then first of all they mean the presence of plants that do not require any care. But we must understand that the term "low-yielding" does not imply a refusal to water, fertilize, trim and other actions. There are no plants that do not require care at all. In order for the garden to be beautiful and blooming, the plants need to be looked after in one way or another.

Despite the fact that the melon is a "purebred southerner", summer residents grow it not only in the south. And all because this culture is exceptionally tasty and very healthy. And varieties “for the market” do not always have high taste qualities, not like fruits from their own garden or greenhouse. True, the melon has its own "secrets", but they are not particularly difficult. Therefore, if you have not yet grown a melon on your hundred square meters, you must definitely try it, at least once!

Boiled meat baked with potatoes is a delicious hot dish that can be prepared both for a festive table and for a regular lunch or dinner. I think everyone will like the classic combination of tender lean meat with new potatoes under a thick white sauce, especially busy housewives, as this hot dish is very easy to prepare. Separately, boil the meat, separate the potatoes, and then mix the prepared foods, pour the white sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese.

While indoor cypresses compete for the title of "most indoor" coniferous, flower growers turned their attention to a more compact, hardy and diverse cypress. A winter-hardy plant even for a garden moves into rooms no less willingly than “dream plants” that are not subject to us - cypresses. And they adapt to the conditions inside the interior much easier. It is impossible to call cypress plants easy to grow - these are species for experienced flower growers.

Salad "Red Sea" with squid, crab sticks and red caviar is a light and healthy snack that is suitable for a pescatarian menu, it can also be prepared on fasting days when fish and seafood are allowed on the menu. The salad is simply extremely tasty and it is prepared easily. Buy frozen squids. I do not advise you to cook a dish with giant squid fillet, although it looks appetizing and tempting, it has a sharp ammonia flavor that is difficult to get rid of.

Columnar trees differ from ordinary fruit trees in their compact crown, small height, and lack of lateral branching. With a slight habitus, these miracle trees are distinguished by their ability to form large crops of large, tasty and beautiful fruits. On 1-2 acres, you can place up to 20-25 columnar trees - varieties of apple trees, pears, plums, peaches, cherries, apricots and other crops of different maturity. Our article will tell about the features of creating a columnar garden.

August can be a little sad - autumn, followed by a long winter, is already on the threshold. But the flower beds are still full of multicolor, and their colors create an atmosphere of warmth and joy. The rich palette of August flower beds mainly consists of yellows, oranges, and crimson tones. And it seems as if the garden has become warmer and the color of the sun has increased. What flowers should definitely be planted in flower beds so that they brighten up the inevitable departure of summer with flowering?

Peach jam with bananas is fragrant, thick, healthy and, most importantly, it has half as much sugar as ordinary jam. This is a quick jam with pectin, and pectin powder is known to reduce the sugar content in jam, or even make it without sugar. Sugar-free jams are fashionable sweets nowadays, they are very popular among supporters healthy lifestyle life. Peaches for harvesting can be of any degree of maturity, bananas too.

Coriander is one of the most popular spices in the world, and its greens are called cilantro or cilantro. Interestingly, cilantro leaves no one indifferent. Some people adore it and are happy to use it in any salads and sandwiches, and they love Borodino bread for the special flavor of coriander seeds. Others, referring to the smell that evokes associations with forest bugs, hate coriander and flatly refuse to approach bunches of cilantro even in the market, let alone plant it in their garden.

Saintpaulias are making a comeback and redefining the cute blooming violets that love to live on any windowsill. Trends in the "market" for uzambara violets indicate a rapid increase in interest in plants with unusual leaves. More and more admiring glances are attracted not by unusual colors of flowers, but by exotic variegated colors of leaves. Variegated saintpaulias are almost no different in cultivation from all the others.

Sweet and sour pickled cherry tomatoes with red onion and basil marinated with balsamic vinegar and mustard. Such pickled vegetables will decorate any festive table, they are very tasty and fragrant. Marinade filling is a completely different story: it turns out a delicious brine, the only drawback of which is a small amount of. Onions choose sweet, red. Cherry - strong, slightly unripe, the smallest. Fresh basil is suitable for both green and purple.

Autumn always gives us a lot of natural material for the realization of a wide variety of creative ideas. Leaves of various types and colors can become the basis for creating a herbarium, panels with dried flowers or various paintings. To preserve the gifts of nature in their original form, you need to be able to properly dry the leaves. If you follow all the subtleties of this process, then they will not lose their bright colors and shape.

You can collect both fallen leaves and those that have not yet completed their growth. To do this, you need a sharp knife or scissors. The collection is made on a dry sunny day, after the dew has disappeared.

Collected wet leaves after drying may become covered with brown spots. This rule does not apply to the collection of mosses and lichens. They just need to be collected after the rain.

When collecting fallen leaves, be sure to pay attention to the following points:

• leaves should be fresh, recently fallen from the tree;
• the leaf should be flat, not twisted from old age;
• in appearance, the plant must be clean, without damage and traces of rot;
• leaf petioles should be fresh and not twisted.

After collection, you must immediately begin drying.

Methods for drying leaves for herbarium

Natural drying method

If the collected foliage will be used to make garlands and other crafts that suggest a three-dimensional view of the plant, then it can be dried on a sheet of paper. To do this, the leaves are laid out in one layer on parchment, and left in a dry, dark place. After a few days, the leaves will begin to dry out and curl into graceful shapes. With this method of drying, the color of the foliage will change. It will become dull and faded, but this situation can be easily corrected with a spray of shiny paint.

In the book

Drying the plants in the book is the easiest and most familiar way. To do this, the leaves are inserted between the pages of the book, not overlapping. The book is closed, and a load is placed on top of it. To protect the surface of the pages from moisture released by the leaves, additional sheets of perforated paper or paper napkins are placed between them.

under pressure

This method is considered professional, as it involves the use of a special device - a press for drying plants. The use of such equipment allows you to maximize the structure of the plant, its shape and texture.

A plant press is quite expensive, so you can look for alternative options for drying leaves at home. For example, a press made from books and sheets of paper will do. Plants are laid out in one layer on a sheet of parchment, and covered with another sheet on top. For these purposes, you can use ordinary old newspapers. Now you need to put a load on the workpiece, for example, books.

Plants will dry under such pressure for 2 to 3 weeks.

With an iron

It can be said to be an express method. It allows you to dry the leaves in record time, while maintaining their natural color.

The collected leaves are laid out on paper, trying to arrange them so that they do not touch each other. Cover with another layer of paper on top and begin to iron the plants at medium iron power. The drying process only takes a few minutes. It is very important to turn off the steam function before ironing!

The disadvantage of this method is that the leaves dried with an iron become thin and brittle, which does not allow them to be stored for a long time.

Galina Pchelka in her video will tell you how to dry the leaves instantly

To keep the herbarium as long as possible, the foliage can be "sealed" in wax. For this method, in addition to the iron, you will also need wax paper. In order not to stain the ironing board with wax, first put a sheet of plain paper. Then a waxed sheet is laid on it, and plants that need to be dried are already on it. From above, the sequence of layers is preserved: waxed paper is laid out on the foliage, and ordinary paper is laid on it. Instead of sheets of paper, you can use soft tissue which also conducts heat well.

You need to iron this “sandwich” at maximum power for 3 to 5 minutes. In order for the wax to stick to the plant evenly, the structure must be turned over and ironed on both sides. After the wax paper has stuck together tightly with honey, the iron can be turned off. The cooled sheets of paper are carefully cut out along the contour of the plant, leaving a few millimeters from the edge. The paper is then removed and the dried sheet is laminated in a thin layer of wax.

Marina Khvaleva in her video will talk about how to properly prepare dried flowers and dry the herbarium in different ways

How to store dried leaves

The room for storing leaves for the herbarium should be dark and dry. The storage temperature does not matter. The air in apartments during the winter is often too dry, which can adversely affect the collected material, so a glazed balcony or loggia can be an excellent place for storage.

The best storage containers are spacious cardboard boxes that do not allow the blanks to break and protect them from sunlight.

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Imagine that you are reading a magical book with photos that make your soul freeze. Page after page takes you to unknown lands, tells a story about something wonderful and how beautiful this world is. Who is the author of this work? Nature. And the name of the masterpiece is “Herbarium of leaves with flowers”. Let's read this book together to understand why it was written? To whom is it intended? And for those who have a desire to try their hand themselves and help the Author continue this grandiose work, we suggest learning how to make a herbarium with your own hands.

Let's find out together: what is the herbarium and what are its goals; small secrets of the herbalist: suitable plants, what conditions for drying a particular plant, how to distribute herbs; how to assemble a herbarium and what are the rules for its design.

About the herbarium

Interestingly, the first memories of a herbarium made by someone do not speak of the scientific purpose of the collection, but have romantic roots. The thing is that in such an unusual way, lovers kept signs of attention. They wanted to dry the presented beautiful flower in order to remember a dear person.

But in the 15th century, books about plants began to appear. Some of them were true, some were myths and legends. Yes, and then it was not possible to take pictures. Therefore, the manufacture of the herbarium was carried out using more or less accurate drawings, according to which it was sometimes difficult to determine a particular plant. But in the middle of the 16th century, works of a scientific nature suddenly began to appear with examples from glued dried parts of plants.

The appearance of the botanical collection has not changed much since then. But they began to collect it more often at home for school children, and even for kindergarten. Why? Who needs it? And what is the purpose of such a collection?

The way your herbalist will look depends directly on the goals for compiling a herbarium.

Classification:

1. Special. For example, a herbarium for an elementary school.
2. Systematic. Any system is taken as a basis. For example, by genus or family, the same colors of a dried plant, or a collection in the order of letters in the alphabet.
3. Periodic. Compiled according to the periods when the materials were collected.
4. Thematic. Medicinal, cereals, weeds or houseplants, etc.
5. Morphological. When the material of the same type with altered organs is dried.
6. floristic. All plants of a certain region.

Suitable plants

• Herbarium leaves must be healthy and undamaged by insects.
• Carefully dig them out along with the root; release the root from the ground.
• It is possible to make a herbarium of leaves of high quality and durable only if you collect them during the day in warm sunny weather.
• The specimen must have flowers in full bloom, preferably fruit as well.
• You should not be limited to one sample. It is advisable to collect with a margin so that you can choose the best option for making an herbalist.

Necessary tools and materials for collecting material to make a herbarium of flowers: a spatula, a knife, an excursion folder (they can be made from two sheets of plywood / cardboard), newspaper “shirts” for drying, a label and a pen.

What to mark on the label: the name of the plant, the name of the area and its designation (forest, field), the date, by whom it was collected (if there was a group trip, and if you yourself or with the children did the collection, you can not make such a record).

Conditions for drying a particular plant

The collected roots, so that they dry faster, are cut lengthwise with a sharp knife.

The most common is flat drying. The material dried in this way can be used for decorative applications and albums.

How to make a herbarium yourself using the flat drying method.

step by step

1. Things to consider before drying flowers:

   Plants are collected only in dry weather;
   - It is advisable to find a place away from the roadway;
   - The time to choose is when the air has warmed up;
   - Only a fresh plant is good, without any signs of wilting.

2. We choose a suitable book, such that our leaflets are freely placed on the page.
   Don't forget, if you don't want to ruin the book, the plants will dry out faster if you line them up with clean paper on both sides.
3. You need a press that will press the book. It may be other weighty print publications.

Do you want your plants to dry quickly and reliably? Then it is worth changing the paper to clean and dry every day for a week.

When the leaves dry, they release moisture, which is absorbed by the paper. If it is not changed, it will affect the quality and appearance material.

In the future, you can get the plants from the book and store them in a dark place. Of course, losses are inevitable. But they can be shortened.

How long to dry plants? A small material will be ready in 2-3 weeks. For dense and voluminous, you need a month.

In addition to the usual book, you can use a hot iron. How to dry them properly? Lay out the plant evenly on a sheet of paper and cover it with another sheet. Press with an iron, and then iron.

Interesting!

Blue/blue flowers will not lose their brightness if placed in denatured alcohol for half a minute.

The density of the plant is achieved by the fact that we let it lie down in a solution of PVA and water (4: 1).

A solution of glycerin and water (60 degrees), 3:1 will preserve the shape of the flowers. But at the same time, the solution makes the plants darker.

In order to dry the dandelion and it does not fall apart, it is plucked when the box with umbrellas is slightly opened. A wire is threaded through the stem and the dandelion head is lowered for 10 seconds. into boiling water.

The whole process takes only a couple of minutes if you use the microwave at the lowest power.

How to dry bulky material, for example, what about a flower bud? To do this, parts of trees or flowers are placed in boxes and covered with sand or silica gel. In this case, the buds should look down.

How to dry flowers for a herbarium on the street? You have to do it in the shade. The flowers are buds facing down. And the plants should not touch each other.

How to distribute herbs in an album

The design of the herbarium begins with the assimilation of the main rule: all plants are attached to the sheets of the album, and they are covered with tracing paper (there are special albums for the herbarium, which can be bought at the bookstore, in the stationery department).

To mount the material, you can use threads: white or green, paper straws and glue. But in no case plaster or tape.

How many plants should be in the collection? What size the collection will be, you decide. You can even compose many volumes.

If you don’t have a special album, then you can make it yourself using ordinary album sheets and transparent files.

But in order to arrange everything beautifully, it is desirable that there be one type of plant on one sheet. If it is larger than the page, the material may be cut in several places.

Important! Each page must be signed.

How to make a herbarium with a child so that the baby is also interested? You can creatively arrange everything by adding pictures.

See a few more ideas for creativity, perhaps such an unusual design will inspire you to something interesting and creative:

How to create and organize a meeting

But that's not all. Let's talk about how to arrange a herbarium not only for school, but also for decorative purposes.

There are 2 options:

1. The first. Glue one plant in the middle on a sheet of paper.
2. Second. Choose the size of the cardboard to which to attach the flower arrangement with glue, taking into account the color scheme and shape of the material.

If we are talking about how to make a herbarium to school, the first option is suitable.

In the second option, it is very important to take into account all the nuances. Therefore, do not rush to stick your composition until the desired option is found. First, lay out all the flowers and leaves on paper, you can even take a picture, so that it will help to stick to the plan when you glue.

The picture is ready and can be completed with a suitable frame. Now you can decorate the wall with such an original panel.

While the Indian summer and frosts have not yet caught, you can have time to make your own herbarium in memory of the summer! More precisely, pick flowers from flower beds and lawns, dry them, and when there is a mood, make a beautiful picture. If you don’t have time, it doesn’t matter, the trees are full of beautiful leaves of all colors and sizes until the snow! Now you will immediately learn 3 ways to make beautiful paintings from flowers, both dry and freshly picked! And how to make a herbarium for school or kindergarten.

How to make a herbarium with your own hands

Traditional option.

1. We dry everything that was plucked.
Important: you need to pick dry flowers, not after rain, wet ones can rot.

Dry my way personal experience best in cardboard! I had thick cardboard boxes. I didn’t like it in the newspaper, the thin flowers simply imprinted into the newspaper and it was impossible to tear them off) In a thick paper napkin it’s better. But still, I liked it more in cardboard - even thick plants dried perfectly in it.

Lay each flower so that it does not interfere with the neighbor, lay cardboard on the bottom and top and press it with a heavy press. Encyclopedias and shelves with a bag of gypsum on top worked for me. Dry for at least a week.

2. We make a background - the children themselves will be happy to paint a thick sheet of paper with watercolors or gouache.

Also, even the smallest ones can paint the frame with a brush or sponge. It is better to paint with acrylic. If you paint like mine with gouache, then it is better to varnish it.

3. On a separate sheet, I advise you to lay out in advance what your future picture will look like.

4. To stick, a regular glue stick is enough. You need to smear the background, not necessarily everywhere - so that only the flowers-leaves do not crawl.

6. After you have glued it, cover and press it with glass or plastic that was in the frame (like mine in a small IKEA) and you can enjoy - admire! Naturally, glass or plastic must be wiped in advance.

Do-it-yourself herbarium with children is ready!

You can print leaves that have not yet dried on watercolor paper with a hammer!

How to make a beautiful picture of flowers
Choose flowers of bright colors!

Lay on watercolor paper face down, cover with a napkin or paper towel on top and tap the flower with a mallet until the outline appears.

We remove the broken flower and a watercolor print remains.

And one more idea what to make from a herbarium
You can make a herbarium in a "vase" of fresh flowers and then dry it under pressure.

Good luck with your creativity!

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More interesting:

If your child is fascinated by a botanist and has a desire to learn more about flora, a herbarium is a great way for the comprehensive development of a child and broadening his horizons from an early age.

A herbarium is a collection of dried plants with signatures on labels. We offer parents and children to make a herbarium with their own hands in order to preserve the beauty of autumn leaves and flowers for a long time.

For kids, it is recommended to make an autumn herbarium, consisting of bright yellow and red leaves, creating a beautiful composition on each page of the album. When making an album with school-age children, it is better to sign each collected copy, and dry the herbs with roots for clarity.

How to collect a herbarium

It is best to start collecting herbarium from the simplest plants that are already known to the child. In this case, both tree leaves and flowers and herbs, such as chamomile, plantain, dandelion, are suitable for collecting a herbarium.

Plants for a school herbarium must be collected in those places where they grow en masse, choosing specimens of a standard type and medium size.

Extract whole plants, along with roots, which will provide important information about the ecological characteristics of herbs.

When collecting plants for a herbarium, ask the child to briefly note in his notebook where each of them was found.

How to dry herbarium leaves

Leaves for herbarium can be dried in newspapers, for this you need to carefully straighten the leaves, giving the plant a natural look, and spread the herbs between the pages. Some plant leaves can be specially bent to show the reverse side.

Fold the newspapers in a pile, laying paper napkins or newspapers between them to absorb moisture, and press down the entire structure on top of something heavy, such as a couple of heavy books.

The collected herbs and flowers will dry for about two weeks, newspapers and napkins that do not contain plants should be changed daily to dry ones so that the herbs do not rot.

Another way is to dry with an iron, for this you need to wrap the plant in napkins and newspapers, and then iron it several times with a not too hot iron. After that, you need to set aside the herbarium for several hours, and then iron it again, repeating the procedure several times until the plant is completely dry.

How to make an album for a herbarium

To arrange a herbarium, take A3 sheets and attach the dried plant, carefully gluing it with thin strips of white paper or sewing it with threads in several places. Nearby, you can place seeds in a bag and make a label where the name of the genus and species of the plant will be written in Russian and Latin, as well as the place and time of assembly.

Such a do-it-yourself herbarium is laid with parchment sheets and collected in a binder folder.

You can also glue or sew dried leaves and herbs to landscape or cardboard sheets, which can then be placed in transparent files and in a binder folder.

As an option, leaves and flowers look comfortable and beautiful in magnetic photo albums, his baby can beautifully decorate himself.

If the plant is too large, place it on the leaf in fragments using part of the stem, leaf, flower, root and seeds in sachets. Nearby, you can stick a picture or photograph of the whole plant, this is especially appropriate for a tree or shrub.

And if the dried plant is placed in a frame under glass, you get an excellent picture for decorating the interior.

Often children like to pick flowers during a walk, and then admire the collected bouquets. However, the collected flowers wither quickly, so they can be dried and a herbarium can be collected together with a young naturalist who will help the child remember the names of herbs and flowers, as well as their appearance.