Do you love the perfume of lily-of-the-valley? Do you wish you could wear it? Well, you can! I just made a lily-of-the-valley hat to wear to the Woman to Woman garden party at the Toronto Botanical Garden. It was easy and fun and I didn’t need to wear perfume, believe me!  My hat and I just wafted around in the late May sunshine.

In case you’re so inclined,  this is how I did it:

Step 1 – Have a garden in which hordes of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) have run roughshod over all their neighbours. (Don’t worry – in the spring-season fresh-floral hat business, this is a very good thing, not a dastardly invasion by a… well, never mind. It’s called “inventory”).

My front garden used to have patches of bare soil between the emerging perennials. Now it’s gorgeous and green by the time the late cottage tulips bloom. That’s the good news. The bad news is I cannot possibly get rid of this invader, since each little lily-of-the-valley ‘pip’ missed in a cleanup sends up shoots and begins merrily again.

Despite trying to be artful with this little European invader….there will always be millions left over.

And DO keep in mind that lily-of-the-valley is highly poisonous, so keep it away from any animals or kids for whom it might look like salad.

Step 2 – Go into your garden just as the lily-of-the-valley (LOTV from now on) has reached its peak, i.e. when flowers are still pure white. Do this in early morning before the day heats up to keep the flowers fresher.

Pick as many stems (they pull out easily) as you can manage, placing them with some of the leaves into cold water in a small vase or large jam jar.

Step 3 – Place the jam jars in the fridge. We have an old beer fridge in the basement (which was actually old when we moved in 33 years ago) and I found room for the jars beside the beer. Now leave your LOTV to stay cool and hydrate until you wish to make your hat or flowery crown (in the floral design world, this is called conditioning). Mine were refrigerated for about one week, but I’ve kept them as long as 2 weeks budded up for a wedding that was happening after their normal flowering time. In that case, I removed them from the fridge to open at room temperature two days before the wedding.

Step 4 – If making a hat rather than a crown, find a likely candidate. Mine was an Ecuadorian-made straw hat in a good colour, creamy-white (from my closet hatboxes of barely-worn straw hats from past decades).  You will also need a circular form for making the garland. I cut a flexible but strong whip from one of the many ash seedlings that remain as devil spawn reminders of the white ash we lost to emerald ash borer a few years ago. After removing the small shoots and leaves, I shaped the branch into a circle that fit loosely over the hat crown, wiring it together at the ends when I’d determined the right circumference length.  I could have fastened the flowers to the ash branch as it was, but I decided to cover it with tape to make sure it stayed firm. Since I had no green florist’s tape, I used white fabric tape that was left over from some kid’s fracture dressing. The point is: it worked.
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Step 5 – Remove the LOTV from the jars — you should have a very big bouquet….

….and shake them a little to dry them off. Then place them on a work surface on top of newspaper or paper towel. Separate the flowers from the leaves.

Step 6 – Make little bouquets using mostly flowers and a few leaves for greenery. I needed 8 to circle my form. Holding them tightly, cut the stems to about 6 inches (15 cm). Then wrap your tape around the stems fairly close to where the flowers start, before trimming the stems off below the tape.

Step 7 – Now it’s time to fasten the bouquets to the form, using the tape.  Arrange them so they overlap and the taped stems are not visible. Don’t worry if some show, because you’re going to be covering them with ribboning later.

Step 8 – Wind a length of gauzy ribbon (or any kind of wide ribbon, e.g. grosgrain) through the little bouquets on the garland, covering up the taped ends as best you can. Tie a bow at the end or tuck under the bouquets.

Step 9 – Place your garland on your hat! Isn’t that gorgeous?  And oh so fragrant!

Step 10 – The weight of the garland will probably be enough to keep it down, but I used one hat pin to secure it in place.

Step 11 – Shower, dress, add pearls and head out to your garden party. And when people say, “Oh…. are those real?”, just bend your head and ask them to sniff.