Here is a quick potpourri recipe to bring a warm spicy rose fragrance to your home.

(makes about a litre of potpourri)

Cloves 2 to 3 handfuls
Rose buds and petals (dried) about 10 handfuls

Rose fragrance oil 6 drops

Plastic bag or tupperware container
Bowl to display

Method
1. Mix up the cloves and rose buds and petals in the plastic bag. The roses I chose were a mixture of small air dried petals and buds, with half a dozen larger dark red rose buds.

2. At this stage, you can already smell the cloves, and this fragrance needs to be balanced by adding a little extra rose fragrance oil. Hassett Green’s Just Rose (formerly Claremont and May’s Rose Otto) is my favourite oil for this purpose. Add about 6 drops of oil to the bag.
3. Tie the bag shut and shake gently to distribute the oil. Leave for an hour or two for the fragrance to permeate.

4. Display the beautiful potpourri. I chose a vintage glass tankard for mine – the dried flowers are pretty through the tinted glass.

Tip – refresh this potpourri by disturbing the petals from time to time. When this no longer works, repeat steps 2 and 3 above.

[As usual, try not to get the oil on your skin, and avoid contact of the oil & finished potpourri with polished, painted and synthetic surfaces. Test first if using with textiles, and keep out of reach of children and animals.]

Whole dried cloves      |      Just Rose fragrance oil

The rose petals and buds suitable for this potpourri recipe are:

Medium red dried rose petals    and    small red rose buds

Or try inexpensive small burgundy rose petals