Drying plants for groundwork

Nothing represents a plant on a figure base like a real plant. Unfortunately, most real plants have the tendency to dry-up and crumble after a few days, if not weeks, when glued to a base. In the past, I had a pretty good collection of dried plants in my groundwork stash, but time and several moves have taken their toll. I now find myself completely out of dried plants and I’m too cheap to order them online. So, what’s a cheap-ass like me to do? Dry my own plants! I live in Northern Illinois (western suburbs of Chicago to be precise) and the small plants that can be picked and dried for the sake of groundwork are minimal. But, by a stroke-of-luck, I found these funky little fern-like things growing in by backyard between my garage and storage shed.

My first adventure in plant drying/preserving was with glycerin. Picked up a bottle at CVS (and damn if it wasn’t expensive, something like $9.00).

Picked a bunch of plants, filled the container with a mix of water and glycerin and then dumped the plants in. I let it sit for a few days and then pulled the plants out of the mixture.

Nothing.

The glycerin turned the plants into a bunch of curled-up rubbery blobs. Back-to-the-drawing-board. I went online a Googled “drying plants.” It amazes me on how many articles there are on drying reefer. After skipping past the drying your own dope sites, I found one that suggested using sand to dry the plants.

Viola!

I had plenty of sand; in fact, I had some sand that was drier than the floor of Death Valley. This was sand that I’ve has since the mid 70’s. It’s very important to use sand that is totally dry. If not, you end up with a mess similar to the water and glycerin experiment. Over my many years of modeling, I’ve collected various sand samples to use for groundwork. I had an empty water full of sand from a beach in California while visiting my brother seven years ago. You’d think it would have dried out by now.

Nope.

Ruined another batch of plants on that one. Then, I had a bag of “decorative sand” and I thought that this was dry too. No such luck. It must have some chemical in it that attracts moisture-when I removed the plants from the sand, I ended up with something that looked earthworms coated with sand.

So, after destroying numerous leaves, I went with the extremely dry sand and the results were much better. Here’s what I ended up doing:

Pick plants

Leave a bit of sand on the bottom and then add a layer of plants and then cover with sand. If there’s plants and sand left, add another layer of plants and cover with remaining sand. Remember, plants must completely covered so all the moisture is wicked out.

Make sure the container has a secure lid (especially if you have nosy pets) and set it to the side for at least 10 days. I put a Post-It with the date on the lid so I can remember when I put the plants in the sand. After the 10 days or so, pour off some of the sand and using a pair of tweezers, gently remove the plants from the sand. 

After that pulling the plants out of the sand, a light misting of medium green paint and you’re good to go. The paint gives them a bit more strength and adds some depth in appearance. I have a couple of cans of Testors spray paint in various shades of green that are perfect for this. There is no need to bust out the airbrush (unless you’re just like that), the paint from the rattle can will do the job.

So far this is the only type of plant I've dried in the sand. Everything else in my backyard looks too big. This spring/summer I'm going to explore some of the nearby nature preserves/parks and see in I can find anything of interest. 

RJH

2.21.13