Decorate With Dried Flowers

Spring and summer flowers are inarguably pleasing to the eye, especially in bright bouquets created from fresh-cut blooms. However, several days after cutting your flowers, they may end up wilted and brown. How can you prolong the life of your decorative arrangements?

Dried flowers can enable you to enjoy color from your garden, long after the typical expiration date of cut blooms. By themselves, a bunch adds a decorative flair to your home. Combine them to make flower arrangements, wreaths, ornaments, or anything else you desire.

You don’t need a meadow of flowers to have enough for drying. Three or four plants of each flower type will provide enough blooms for several dried arrangements. Take flowers from your garden or yard, or pick wildflowers from the side of the road or a local forest.

When selecting flowers, choose ones which look "perfect" since defects will be emphasized during drying. The best time to cut is midmorning, after dew has dried but before flowers wilt from heat. (Dampness slows drying and causes mold.) Take as much stem as possible when cutting. It’s best to harvest more flowers than you need, though. Since dried flowers are fragile, you may break some while they are drying.

The easiest and most popular way to preserve flowers is air drying. Do it in a room with cool, dry air with good air circulation. Try a spare bedroom or large closet, avoiding humid rooms like kitchens or bathrooms. Light should be low since direct light can drain the flowers’ color. Hang bunches upside down in bunches no thicker than 12 inches at the stem.

Tie with a tight rubber band about 2 inches from stem ends (about six to 10 stems) and space out bunches to provide enough air circulation. As the flowers dry, the rubber band will shrink with the stems and help keep them together. To hang the bunches, suspend a 12 inch diamond horizontal pole, pipe or wall hook from the ceiling. (Support the pole on tripods or high-backed chairs if you can’t fasten hooks into ceilings or walls.)

Depending on the weather and conditions in your drying room, you’ll have dried flowers in seven to 20 days, which will add beauty to your home all year long. To ensure they are fully dried, the stems should snap easily.