Things You'll Need:
- Scissors
- Plastic or rubber wastebasket
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Step 1
Make certain that you have a pair of scissors with you as you drive about looking for your autumn wildflowers. The flowers will mostly be easily visible along the roadsides, but be careful as you pull the car over to pick them. Have a rubber or plastic wastebasket with you with about 3 inches of water in it to place the flowers in and keep them fresh until you get home.
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Step 2
Look for asters. Asters are beautiful autumn wildflowers that grow on wooded hillsides and along roadsides that border forests. They are easy to recognize by their close resemblance to daisies, but asters come in an assortment of colors and the flowers are smaller. If possible, get more than one species of asters for your bouquet. Cut them close to the ground, unless they are some of the longer stemmed variety. Most asters are whitish with other tints of color mixed in.
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Step 3
Don’t come home without butter and eggs. No, not from the grocery store, but from the waste areas along the side of the road and in drier fields. Butter and eggs is a flower that blooms through the end of summer and right into fall, looking like its name with a bloom that is yellow with an orange spot inside. They grow 1 to 3 feet in height and must be cut very close to the ground. Butter and eggs does not have a sturdy stem, so they must be handled with care.
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Step 4
Seek the yellow evening primrose. It grows to a height of 3 to 5 feet, and has numerous flowers that are bright yellow and feature four petals. Evening primrose gets its name because the flowers close partly during the day but open wide at night. The stem is very strong, but you may want to trim off the many leaves after you cut it for your autumn wildflower bouquet.
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Step 5
Grab some goldenrod. There are many species of this beautiful flowering plant, but perhaps the most attractive is known as Canada Goldenrod. It has a much thicker cluster of deep yellow flower heads and a strong stem that can be cut to any length. Once you have your goldenrod, you will have more than enough yellow for your wildflower bouquet.
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Step 6
Add some wild carrot. This is perhaps the most beautiful of the autumn flowers, although technically it is a weed. Also called Queen Anne’s Lace, the wild carrot is 3 to 5 feet high, grows together along roadsides and in dry places in great numbers, and has an intricately delicate white flower head that often has one purple spot in the middle. They turn upwards when they dry out, forming into the shape of a bird’s nest.
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Step 7
Return home with your flowers. Get a good-sized vase and fill it with water. Take your flowers and trim down the stems so they are mostly all the same length and correspond to the depth of the vase. The butter and eggs will probably be shorter in length, but they are lighter than the other flowers and can be placed into the vase after all the others are in. Put the evening primrose in first and then mix in some goldenrod. The asters go in next, after which you will intersperse some of the white wild carrot. Lastly, add the butter and eggs. The autumn wildflower bouquet can be spiced up with some fern fronds.
