Hi Eric, My museum puts up a large tree within the main museum building each year that is covered in dried flowers. For years it was located in areas near collections – primarily furniture, metals and ceramics. They moved the tree in recent years to our Conservatory, which also typically has live flowers and plants in it. However, when we had it near objects several batches of the flowers were put through our CO2 chamber with cycles ending near the install dates. The flowers are dried in-house, so we have some control over where they are stored as well.
We have not observed any adverse effects on our collection due to the trees. Our collection types nearby wouldn’t be appealing to pests who generally enjoy to munch on flowers, dried collections or seeds. To Joel’s point, rodents certainly were a concern, but again, we never had an issue. The duration of the trees display (only during Yuletide season) certainly is a help to us as well, being generally only about a month and a half at most. I’d have to say that the biggest problem was the mess they made when installed and deinstalled! Best, Matt Matthew A. Mickletz Manager Preventive Conservation Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library Direct 302.888.4752 5105 Kennett Pike Winterthur, DE 19735 winterthur.org (he/him) From: pestlist@googlegroups.com <pestlist@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Breitung, Eric Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2021 1:32 PM To: 'pestlist@googlegroups.com' <pestlist@googlegroups.com> Subject: [PestList] Dried flowers a potential insect issue? Hello Pest-listers – My Design department is interested in using bundles of dried/preserved flowers in an upcoming exhibition. Does anyone know or have experience with these being food or attractants for pests? They’re obviously potential harborage, but I’m less concerned about that. https://www.afloral.com/collections/dried-flowers-preserved-flowers Thank you in advance for thoughts and comments. Eric -- Eric Breitung Research Scientist Department of Scientific Research 212 396 5390 The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10028 @metmuseum<https://www.instagram.com/metmuseum> metmuseum.org<http://www.metmuseum.org/> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<mailto:pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/BL0PR05MB517105256AF7B4A0C6DD3FB0E3019%40BL0PR05MB5171.namprd05.prod.outlook.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/BL0PR05MB517105256AF7B4A0C6DD3FB0E3019%40BL0PR05MB5171.namprd05.prod.outlook.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. This message came from outside of Winterthur and has been scanned for viruses. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/DM5PR17MB140220D6939BA182006ACEC6AB019%40DM5PR17MB1402.namprd17.prod.outlook.com.
