Drying flowers this summer

Experiments with drying flowers

Looking back on a colourful summer:

Very pleased with these dry flowers from my garden – passionflowers

Shatsa daisies dry well laid flat on kitchen roll in an airy place

Air dried fuchsias

Marguerite daisies flower prolifically

Geranium ‘Heavenly Blue’ dries to a pretty shade of lilac

Rosa mutabilis is a vigorous species rose from my garden

Rambling rose flowers fade slightly after drying. This was Paul’s Himalayan Musk I think

Peony petals, ivory with a hint of pale pink, make fab wedding confetti

Rosa mundi is a favourite rose from our garden which sometimes makes its way into daisyshop potpourri

White cistus blooms dry to a soft cream but they do sometimes brown a little round the edge if damp when picked

Bunches of eryngium flowers bought from a florist were hung up to dry in the workshop for a few weeks

I grew a patch of achilleas in mixed shades of pink this summer to see how they dried

Ammobiums from the garden ready to hang up to dry – these daisy flowers have nice sturdy stems for dried flower arrangements

All these flowers were dried using one of two methods:

Air-dried flat: just cut the flower heads off and lay the flowers face down on kitchen roll in a warm, dark, dry place for a week or so until crisp.
Hanging bunches: to dry the whole flower on its stem, bunch a few stems together with an elastic band, then hang upside down in a warm, dry, dark place for a week or more.

Some of these dried flowers have made it onto sale in our shop, or will soon:

Watch out for the marguerite daisies in an exclusive limited availability confetti mix coming soon!
Small roses, dried rose petals and peony petals make it into our own British confetti from time to time.
Larger roses such as the Rosa mundi are often used to decorate our English Rose potpourri.
We sold all the eryngium bunches I dried this year, but look out for more next summer.
The pink achillea bunches were a little faded looking once dry, but the yellow ones we buy in for the shop are great!
Watch out for dried ammobium bunches coming soon!

Looking forward to more experiments in drying flowers next year.