Florist Series: How To Dry Flowers
Drying flowers is a great way to preserve your favourite blooms and enjoy them in a vase for even longer!
Dried flowers have been back in fashion for a few years now and are a great way to have British flowers in your house even out of the growing season. To buy dried flowers online it can be quite expensive, so why not make the most of the blooms in your garden or from your Bloom Sheffield bunch and have a go at drying some yourself!
Different drying techniques
1 - Flower Pressing
2 - Hang & Dry
3 - Leave to Seed
Flower Pressing
The Flower Pressing technique is great for drying smaller flower heads or petals. This technique is great for: making confetti, handmade greetings cards, decorating cakes and photo frames. You can use fresh or dried flowers.
You’ll need:
Baking Parchment
A thick/ heavy book
Scissors
Method:
Trim down your flower head to an appropriate size or remove petals from the flower head.
Trim down 2 sheets of baking parchment to be placed on each side of an open book.
Place the flower heads/ petals evenly across the right-hand page. Make sure no flower heads are touching (as this can make them go mouldy)
Fill as many pages as necessary and then place the closed book underneath another heavy book or object and leave for 1 week.
Flowers not so good for pressing:
Dahlia
Cornflower
Sweet William
Snapdragons
Flowers good for pressing:
Lavender
Roses
Viola
Sweet pea
Feverfew
Hang and Dry
This technique is super easy and requires just a little bit of grooming. There are lots of flower varieties that will dry successfully with this method, which is a bonus!
You can use fresh or older flowers. Flowers may alter in colour slightly or become more brittle.
You’ll Need:
Scissors
Twine
Gloves (optional)
Method:
Place the flowers you’re wanting to dry in front of you and start to remove any foliage from the stem all the way up to around the flower head (leave the petals on!) You may need gloves if the flowers have gotten a bit slimy from sitting in a vase.
When all stems are nicely groomed hold them together in your hand tie them together leaving trails of twine to use when hanging.
Hang up somewhere cool and dark so the flowers don’t go mouldy or get scorched by too much direct sunlight.
Flowers not so good:
Cerinthe
Sweet William
Zinnia
Dahlia
Feverfew
Flowers good for hanging and drying:
Achilliea
Statice
Larkspur
Grasses
Alchemilla Mollis
Roses
Leave to Seed
Some flowers can be hard to resist whilst they’re in full Bloom however leaving them to go to seed can give interesting textures/ colour and give you materials to use out of the British flower season.
The technique is in the name but basically leave the flowers in the ground and on the plant until it goes to seed and then cut and use the hanging and drying method to ensure it doesn’t go mouldy.
Seed head flowers:
Honesty
Crocosmia
Scabiosa (ping pong)
Poppy
Nigella
Give it a go and enjoy!