It might be time to kiss your garden goodnight for the season, but that doesn’t mean you have to do without flowers. Drying some of your favorites and creating arrangements from them is the next best thing. Some flowers practically dry themselves, and those are the ones featured here. These seven flowers can be easily dried by hanging them upside down in a dark, dry space.

Find a spot in your house that stays dry and dark. It could be an unused closet, a little-used room, or, in my case, a sauna (turned off, of course). I installed a shower rod across the space and rounded up some wire clothes hangers to hook the flowers on. Medium-sized rubber bands and paper clips round out the list of tools.

The most challenging part of drying flowers is picking them at the ideal time. Don’t pick them after a rain or morning dew. Wait for the sun to dry the flower on its stem before picking. Harvest flowers after they’ve opened; flower buds never dry well. Once you’ve picked, rubber band their stems together in small bunches and hang upside down in a dry, dark space. While some flowers have strong enough stems to dry while in a vase, most flowers benefit from hanging upside down to help keep their stems straight.

Here are seven of the easiest flowers to dry:

Gomphrena,

or globe amaranth is one of the easiest to dry, its ball of spiky bracts all but hiding its tiny flowers. The key with Gomphrena is to pick them before they have been open too long and their bracts begin to brown at the juncture between flower and stem. Find taller varieties (18” – 30”) like ‘Truffula Pink’, or ‘Ping Pong’ at your local garden center, or start plants from seed in the spring. Johnny’s Select Seeds offers a nice variety of colors.