Flowers are beautiful while they are fresh but they don’t last forever in a vase. There is a way however to keep your flowers looking beautiful much longer than usual and that’s by drying them out. This works by extracting the moisture and preserving the shape and the colour of the petals. It’s easy to dry your flowers and doing this can allow you to put your preserved posies to a lot of different uses such as potpourri, confetti or simply as they were in life, a colourful decoration either on your table or even pressed into picture frames.
Dry Your Flowers with Air
This is one of the more traditional methods that people use and also one of the easier ways to dry your flowers. First take the flowers in a bunch and then tie the end of the stems tightly together with some string. After that all you need to do is find an airy location in your home out of direct sunlight and hang the flowers upside down. After that let nature take its course until the flowers have shrunk down and dried completely. The added bonus of this method is that the flowers also work as natural air fresheners into the bargain.
Dry Your Flowers in The Microwave
This is a quick and easy way to dry your flowers fast. All you need are your flowers, a microwave and some cat litter. Bury the flowers in the litter granules and then put them in the microwave on a high heat for about 2-3 minutes. Once the mixture has cooled then all you need to do is give the flowers a quick brush and they’re ready to go. This is one of the best ways to quickly and effectively make flower petal wedding confetti, a natural, biodegradable and more fragrant way to shower a bride and groom on their special day.
Dry Them Using Silica Gel
This is quite an easy although slightly slow way to preserve your flowers. Silica Gel of course is used to keep moisture out of packages and with flowers it’s perfect for sucking out the water in their petals and stems. The trick here is to buy a large amount of the gel pellets and then simply to carefully bury the flowers you want to keep in the jar full of the Silica. All you need to do next is wait and in up to one week (or longer if needed) you’ll have perfectly preserved roses or lilies. This is one of the best ways if you want to keep the integrity of the plant’s shape intact.
Dry Them By Pressing Them
This is probably the most recognisable way of drying flowers around and it’s really easy to do yourself. To do this all you need is some wax paper or tissue paper (to absorb the water in the plants) and a heavy book. With thicker plants like roses or carnations you should first split them in half so that they dry more evenly and fit into the book properly, but with thinner more flat flowers like gerberas they can just go in as they are. Place the flowers between the absorbent paper and then set them into the middle of the heavy book and then close it and add a little extra weight to the book if necessary. After that simply leave the flowers for up to 10 days. It’s a good idea to check and change the absorbent paper every couple of days too to get the best results.
As you can tell drying your own flowers is easy and there are lots of different ways to make it happen and enjoy your flowers for longer. Try it out for yourself and see which way works best for you!
At FloraQueen we deliver fresh flowers to over 100 countries worldwide for special birthdays, anniversaries and more. With our network of expert florists around the globe you can be sure that your flowers will stay fresh for up to seven days.
