Drying flower bunches by hanging up
Our workshop roof is full of bunches of flowers drying at this time of year:
In the photo you can see L-R sea lavender bunches, thistle, echinops and gypsophila flowers.
Dried flower bunches – Sea Lavender
The sea lavender (limonium) is very easy to dry as it looks much the same when dry as when fresh. We have been very successful with this and are offering it in the shop in four colours this year: white sea lavender dried flower bunches, purple, and two shades of lavender.
Dried flower bunches – Thistle
The thistle (cardoon) looks gorgeous hanging in this picture. We had never tried drying it before, and didn’t have any luck unfortunately. After a month or so, they still looked great, but the purple tufts in the middle were prone to drop (unsurprising as this is where the plant sets seed from). We only tried twenty stems as an experiment but the whole lot went in the bin!
If you are looking for something like a thistle, you could try echinops (above cardoon in pic) or eryngium which both dry well and come in lovely shades of blue, purple and silver.
Dried flower bunches – Gypsophila
Right of the picture you can see bunches of dried gypsophila. These were a great success after a shaky start! I didn’t realise to start with that different varieties can look very different dry. Consequently, the first batch of bunches we tried were rather stingy looking and went straight on sale at half price as seconds. But then I got talking to a very helpful British flower grower who advised me the best variety to try, and it worked a treat! So this weekend we are able to offer for the first time, high quality British grown and dried gypsophila flowers.
Drying bunches of flowers at home
It is very simple to dry bunches of flowers at home by hanging them somewhere warm and dry, for example in a garage. But choose a dark place to avoid fading, and somewhere with good air circulation.
My dried flower bunches L-R: white & purple sea lavender flowers dried in bulk in my workshop for daisyshop; roses, marigolds and cornflowers drying at home for small projects; successful gypsophila bunches dried in the workshop to sell.
Read more about drying flowers, and particularly where to hang bunches of flowers to dry