Dried flowers are always in style, and at Norton’s Florist in Birmingham, we love coming up with creative ways to keep them looking fresh when you use them to decorate your home. Take a look at this complete guide to drying flowers, caring for them, and decorating with them.
Dried Pink Roses
The Best Technique for Drying Flowers
The best technique for drying flower is also the simplest, air drying. This flower drying method works well for all kinds of flowers, even lush roses and delicate alstroemeria blooms, like those included in our Tranquil Bouquet. Air drying produces the most attractive results of all the flower drying techniques, yielding lifelike flowers that retain their vibrant colors.
Tranquil Bouquet
To air dry your flowers, you’ll want to begin when they are still fresh and the blooms have not yet opened completely. First, remove the leaves from your flowers and arrange them, as you like. Tie their stems together with string and use the tail end of the string to hang the flowers upside down. It’s best to dry flowers in a warm, dark location to prevent sunlight from fading them. We also recommend hanging them in a location where they won’t be laying against a wall. Either a ceiling beam or a simple laundry rack will do the trick.
Once your flowers are hung, you’ll need to leave them to dry for anywhere from several days to a few weeks, depending on the type of flowers and the weather. Although drying your flowers this way requires patience, your beautifully preserved flowers will be well worth the wait.
Hanging Dried Flowers
How to Keep Your Dried Flowers Looking New
In order to keep your floral decorations attractive, it’s important to care for your dried flowers. First, it’s essential that your flowers be completely dry before you display them. Any remaining moisture will cause them to rot. Once dry, we recommend giving your blooms a few coats of unscented hairspray. This will strengthen them and protect them from sunlight and humidity.
Prevent your dried flowers from gathering dust or cobwebs by air-dusting them from time to time. You can do this with a regular hairdryer set to its lowest speed and coolest, no-heat setting.
Pressing Flowers
Our Favorite Ways to Decorate with Dried Flowers
Dried flowers look lovely in the home when displayed in a pretty vase or pitcher. You can also get creative and use them to make other decorations for your home. One of our favorites are floral wreaths. To make a wreath from a dried bouquet, start with a wicker wreath base in any size and color you prefer. Trim your flower stems and glue them to the wreath with, using a hot glue gun. A single bouquet probably won’t have enough flowers to cover a full wreath. You can either create an asymmetrical wreath featuring an offset cluster of flowers or you can dry additional flowers to fill the entire wreath.
Bouquet of Dried Flowers in Glass Vase
Some of our favorite types of flowers for drying include statice, strawflower, and celosia, which all maintain their vibrant colors and lively shapes when dried. For more information about the best flowers for drying, we welcome you to stop by Norton’s Florist.
