Interflora Articles

How to Dry Flowers

If you have received a particularly beautiful or meaningful bouquet recently, you may wish that the blooms and the memories could last forever. Flowers can be kept well past wilting, using a simple drying technique.

Dried flowers can be displayed simply in a pretty arrangement and vase, or you can become more creative with your preserved petals. For example, dried flower wreaths and other decorations can be a beautiful addition to your home.

Getting Started

Before you can start drying flowers you need to locate a few simple items and a good spot in your home. Flowers will dry best when hung in a warm, dry, and dark location. The location must be warm and dark to preserve the petals' colour, while the dry air is essential to ensure that flower dries rather than wilts.

You also need to purchase either a drying screen or some soft, but strong thread for hanging.

Selecting the Flowers

Almost any flower can be dried, but some provide better results than others. The flowers that provide the best results include baby's breath, cattails, celosias, goldenrods, heather, and pussy willows.

If you are looking for flowers that will retain their colour, understand that yellow and blue petals will dry truest to their original hue, while pink and red ones will fade. White flowers can be dried true, but this requires very particular conditions, and the non-professional drier is likely to end up with darkened or yellowed petals.

It is also important that you not wait too long before beginning the drying process. You can certainly enjoy your living blooms for a time, but be sure to start preserving them well before the end of their life span. Flowers that are starting to wilt, or have fully opened are likely to be crumbly and fragile after drying.

Process

If you have chosen to hang your flowers to dry, you have the option of tying the stems in bunches or individually. Tying them in bunches saves time and is particularly useful when space is limited. However, stems that have been dried in this manner can become entangled with each other, making them difficult to separate without damaging the flowers. Bundled flowers can also become warped as they press against each other. If you have the space and patience, you will end up with better results by tying each stem up individually.

Aftercare

A dried flower requires little additional care, but there are some things you can do to keep them looking beautiful longer. First, store your dried flowers in a place where they are unlikely to be damaged by force or faded by direct sunlight. You can also deter the collection of dust by spraying your flowers with a light coating of hairspray.

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