Drying rose hips?

Broomstick

The rosehips in our garden are the most beautiful shades of orange-red at the moment, and the hedgerows are starting to be full of lovely berries. I've been wondering if it would be possible to dry/preserve them ready to add to this year's C*******s wreath for the front door. Is there a trick to drying berries and rosehips and preserving the colour, or do I just pick them and put them somewhere indoors so that they can dry out naturally?

Many thanks
B x

caitybabes

*Bump* I'm interested in this too!

meritaten

I am not an expert on drying flowers and berries by any means - but I remember reading about an alternative method of preserving them. Drying results in loss of colour and texture but apparently preserving with glycerine doesnt. I vaguely remember that you stand the picked flowers (and the berries should be picked on the branch) in couple of inches of glycerine, in a container.I am sure that there would be tutorials on this method online or books in the Library.

Broomstick

meritaten, thanks for this idea. I'll look into it. It also occurs to me that maybe our local florist might have some suggestions so I'll pop in and ask them in the next day or two.

Flibsey

or you could thread them on a string and heng them up somewhere, but I'm nt sure what this'd do to their colour.

they're high in vit c, why not make rosehip jelly and eat them instead?!

Need2bthrifty

A workmate of mine used to dry them and use them to make fruit teas, not sure how she did this and I didn't ask her because I wasn't in the OS at the time - shame on me!!

Sentora

How can u tell they are ready to be made into jelly or cordial?