Form of Nature

To appreciate the importance of dry floristry, it is worth taking a brief look into history. Homo sapiens has been treating and preserving plants or parts of them since time immemorial-primarily in order to be able to live from them through the winter. It not infrequently happened that such preserved foodstuffs also decorated peasant homes, for instance in the form of fruit or onions hanging from the ceiling. Dried plants and fruits also soon appeared as religious decorations. The Egyptians and Romans paid worship to their gods with preserved plants, as did the Incas on the South American continent. In our more northern climes, the desire to keep the flowers of summer through into the winter was probably the strongest motive for drying plants. When the variety and colorfulness offered by industrial production were not yet generally available, people used dried flowers to carry the colors of the bright season forward into the dark time of the year. Today, it is especially the natural colors which bring delight to contemporary aesthetes. Also the fact that many dried flowers fade-especially after the first winter-is no argument against them, but rather one in their favour. This is perhaps a slightly morbid charm, but it is one which dried flowers possess, and it is not artificial but absolutely genuine. They cannot exude brilliance and freshness, like their fresh-cut counterparts, and nor do they seek to. And their porosity and fragility-making advocates of silk flowers disparagingly refer to them as "nature's scrap"-also mean that people take care of them, handle them with care, seek the right places for them, and generally make sure that their precious beauty is not destroyed.