29 CommentsShare: |
Subscribe
Queen Anne’s Lace, also called wild carrot, came to America from Europe, and what we know as carrots today were cultivated from it.
Growing four feet tall, its tiny, white flower clusters bloom from May to October. I think Queen Anne’s Lace represents Summer’s envy of Winter’s snowflakes. Summer and Winter have never gotten along very well and they’re always saying bad things about each other.
But a lot of people have trouble getting along with Winter, so I wouldn’t put too much blame on Summer.
Caterpillars eats Queen Anne’s Lace leaves, bees sip its nectar, and predatory bugs lurk around it to chomp down on other bugs.
People like to pick it and turn it pretty colors. With a few drops of food coloring, you can have Queen Anne’s Lace in any color you want!
To dye Queen Anne’s Lace, place several drops of food coloring in the vase water.
Put the flowers back in the vase….
….and wait six to eight hours.
And then add some more food coloring and wait 24 hours.
Okay, try 48 hours…..
WHAT?! I have defective Queen Anne’s Lace.
One more try…..
Maybe my stems were too long. I picked some fresh Queen Anne’s Lace (my kids LOVE it when I’m driving them home from practice and I stop the car to pick flowers or take pictures or clamber over a gate to look at an outhouse–they LOVE IT–or not…..sometimes they honk the horn or try to take the wheel). I cut the stems about 4 inches long and, since I was running low on food coloring, just added water to the food coloring container and placed the flowers in there. Twelve hours later…..
Victory! Okay, not a big one, not a lot of color, but there is a little bit of red color on that one flower. I think I needed more food coloring than what I had left. Cutting the stems short definitely made a difference. So have you ever tried this? Want to try it now? There’s still plenty of Queen Anne’s Lace on the roadsides! (Good luck!)
