Drying Flowers: Simple Methods For The Bouquet Or Flowers

You don’t want to give up flowers in winter or keep a special bouquet as a souvenir? We’ll show you three easy ways to dry your favorite flowers.

Air dry flowers

Air drying flowers upside down is probably the best known and at the same time the simplest method of preserving flowers. It is suitable for many types of flowers and can be used both for individual flowers and for whole bouquets.

Prepare the flowers in bouquets. To do this, remove the leaves from the stems and sort the flowers by type. Flowers with large blossoms, such as hydrangeas or peonies, should be dried separately.
Tie the bouquets together at the stem with string or raffia. You may need to tighten the string during the drying process as the stems shrink.
Hang the bouquets upside down in a dark, warm and dry place (for example in the attic).
Now let the flowers dry for two to four weeks. You can recognize a sufficiently dried flower by the fact that its petals become brittle.
Optional: Fix the dried flowers with hair spray or a special sealing spray. This will make the flowers less likely to break and less likely to lose their petals.

Press flowers

This variant of flower drying is suitable mainly for flowers or individual flowers. Small, flat flowers such as pansies or lilac blossoms are best pressed.

• Place the flowers between absorbent paper. Corrugated cardboard, newspaper or blotting paper work well for this.
• Place a heavy object, such as a large book, on top of the flowers and store the stack in a dry, warm place.
• Change the paper after a week.
• After three to four weeks, you can take out the dried flowers. When they are paper-thin and almost transparent when you hold them up to the light, your flowers are done drying.

Drying flowers in the oven

Drying flowers in the oven is the fastest way to preserve flowers. However, if you want to dry your flowers in an environmentally friendly and energy-saving way, you should resort to one of the other two drying methods.

• Cut a piece of very fine mesh wire fence to the right size so that all your flowers will fit inside.
• Thread the stems through the holes so that the flowers hang by the bud in the mesh and the stem dangles free.
• Bake the flowers for several hours at 35 to 38 degrees Celsius convection. The exact drying time will depend on the type and number of flowers chosen.
• Remove the flowers from the oven and let them cool on a clothes rack. Do not touch them until they are completely cool.
• If necessary, seal the flowers with hairspray or a sealing spray.

Tip: Flowers with many petals, such as cornflowers and chrysanthemums, are best for this method.

Tips for drying flowers

• For drying are especially suitable all kinds of straw flowers. The composite flowers can be easily processed into dried bouquets, as they naturally have little moisture.
• Meadow flowers, roses, carnations, asters, lavender or hydrangeas can also be dried well.
• Less suitable are all “thirsty” flower varieties. These include, for example, tulips and lilies.
• It is best to start drying immediately after picking the flowers. This preserves the colors most beautifully and keeps the flowers in their best possible condition.