Driftwood for Floral Arrangements

We live on the river and frequently have driftwood wash up on the rocks on the river bank. Sometimes, this is really interesting looking and sculptural.

I have offered to help my niece with some wedding stuff and I asked her about using driftwood in the centerpieces since we’re trying to keep to a tight budget. She wants a kind of California theme (where she lives now), so she was up for it. The only problem with our driftwood versus what you find on the coast, is that ours is usually packed with dirt, and dark. I looked up how to treat driftwood on the internet to ensure that it’s free of pests and germs. I found a few sources. Some recommended boiling it and some recommended treating it with bleach. Since I don’t have a pot big enough to boil it, I decided on the bleach method.

There was wide disagreement about how long to bleach; what concentration to use; and how often you need to change the bleach water. Some recommended mixing bleach and vinegar–DON’T DO THAT, it creates a creates chlorine gas. See this article https://www.healthline.com/health/bleach-and-vinegar#:~:text=Mixing%20bleach%20and%20vinegar%20creates,to%20breathe%20in%20fresh%20air.

I mixed a gallon of bleach with water in a 25 gallon tote. Do this OUTSIDE and be sure you have a lid to protect animals and children because this is a strong mixture. Totes aren’t structurally sound for this use, so the lid will also help stabilize the tote.

Here are a couple of pieces of driftwood right out of the river:

The first step is to pressure wash them to get the dirt, mud, and loose stuff off of them. Once you do that, you can put them in the bleach solution.

I will leave them in there on this side for about 12 hours, and then flip them over and let them go another 12 hours. Once you take them out of the bleach solution, rinse them thoroughly with water.

These are some that I took out of the bleach yesterday and this morning. The ones that look darker are the ones that came out today. All of these were pretty much as dark as the driftwood that I have shown above.

You can see how much they look like driftwood that you’d find along the coast.

The wedding isn’t until next October, so I should have plenty of time to get enough driftwood together for all the tables.