Drying rose petals and geranium flowers from my garden

After my previous post on drying whole roses, I thought I’d go outside and collect some more flowers to dry. I picked some stripey rosa mundi rose petals, some dark pink rose buds, and various hardy geranium flowers in shades of pink and purple. I threw them into my basket in a layer about 1″ thick.

Picking rose petals for drying

The dried flowers

I placed the whole basket in the airing cupboard to dry, stirring the petals after a couple of days. I left them in there for about a week altogether and they shrunk to about a quarter of their original size. The basket weave aids air flow.

What a gorgeous petal mix! Perfect confetti for a country wedding (although I’d probably take out the whole rose buds so as not to give the bride a headache!)

The geranium flowers have dried to delicate shades of mauve and lilac.

Alternatively – the rose petals are really fragrant at the moment, so they will be lovely in a bowl as a simple potpourri.

Tip – for a more perfect petal, you could lay the flowers out neatly in a single layer on kitchen paper in the airing cupboard, and do not disturb them until fully dry. They will still wrinkle, but will not distort so much. The only way to get perfect, wrinkle-free rose petals is to buy them freeze dried – which is very expensive.