Drying flowers

People have been drying flowers as a way to preserve them for pretty much as long as they have been using them.  Flowers are dried for medicine, cooking, art or memory.  And there are many methods for drying flowers!

I love dried flowers, I have always had this desire to dry and preserve flowers that I have received, whether I am keeping them whole or breaking them into parts.  I still have flowers I dried back in high school!

How you dry your flowers very much depends on what you want to do with them.  When I am preserving something as a memory, I tend to want to keep it whole.  If I am preserving flowers to display, keeping them whole is an option, but for me a bigger consideration is preserving the color.  And then if I am wanting to use them magically, I tend to break them apart.

One of the first ways I learned to preserve flowers was by pressing.  Pressing flowers is pretty simple, but also works best with simple flowers that don't have a lot of bulk to them.  It is much easier to press a violet than it is to press a hydrangea.  The less bulk there is, the easier it will be to press them.  I also find that it helps to have petals that lay fully flat. 

I love to press flowers in the pages of journals, though you can use any book.  But pressing a flower directly in the pages of your book will often leave an imprint of the flower on the pages, which can be a fun way to add a bit of color to a journal.  You can also press the flower between writing paper or in a card slipped into a stack of books.  It may be helpful to add a weight on top of the books to help press your flower.  You can also press leaves and other greenery.

When you are laying out your flowers to press, arrange the petals in the way you would like them to be pressed. You may need to close your book carefully to keep the flower arranged the way you wanted.

Once you have gotten familiar with pressing single flowers, you can also press multiple flowers into a single arrangement.  This can be great for using in artwork or even for spellwork.  If you leave a stem on your pressed flowers, it makes them easy to hold if you want to burn them for ritual reasons.

If you want to dry flowers whole, you can always just leave them in a vase without water, but I find they wilt and droop when you do this (which can be an interesting look, if you want some thematic Samhain decorations!).  My favorite way to dry whole flowers is by hanging, and I like to hang them individually.  If I want to keep long stems (either for burning or to put them back in a vase later), I will dry them with the stems on, but if I just want the flower part, I'll trim the stem close to the flower. 

Then, I will take a needle and sturdy thread and string them through the stem (if they have very thin stems you can string them right through the base of the flower itself, which should be thicker).  You can  string a whole lot of flowers this way, and hang them from a rack or curtain rod to dry.  Drying whole flowers like this takes a bit of time, so be prepared to let them hang until they are fully dry before storing them (or you risk them growing moldy).

You can also tie up bundles of flowers to dry, much like you would a sage bundle.  With flowers, you would arrange them in a pleasing manner, then wrap your cord tightly around the stems (remember, wind tightly, they will loose bulk as they dry). 

There is a really pretty way of making flower crowns, that can be worn fresh or dried, that I learned while in Hawaii.  You start with a braid of raffia or cording of some sort (you can use ribbon if you like!).  Then, you will want a selection of flowers, with at least about a half inch of stem left on them.  Taking your cord, place one flower where you want your crown to start and wrap it a time or two with the cord.  Then pick another flower, adding it in and continuing to wrap.  You can make your crown as full or sparse as you like, placing each flower along the way with intention (you can make these tuned to a particular purpose as well, the process of making them is very focusing).

This actually reminds me of another way to string and dry flowers...the way they are often strung for leis.  You will run your needle right through the center of the flower (it's easiest to pierce the middle of the flower itself, and then guide your needle right through the stem on it's way out).  These leis can be worn fresh or hung to dry (and once dry you can easily snip the string to pull off the individual flowers).

I also like drying just the petals of flowers, and I did this with a bunch of roses from my mother-in-law's garden, when I was keeping an eye on it for her.  She wanted me to snip the roses when they started wilting, so that they would keep blooming, and I just couldn't toss out all those roses!  So I brought bags of them home with me.

Of course there were many petals that were chewed on by bugs or that might have spider webs on them...and there were quite a few insect hitchhikers that came along with the roses, so I took the bag outside, and dumped it out on my back porch.  One by one, I pulled the roses apart, saving the nice looking petals, and collecting them in a big bowl. 

I placed the bowl on my kitchen table, and left it until the petals were completely dry, giving them a gentle toss (with my hands, I just mixed them around a little so the same ones weren't always on the bottom) a few times a day.  I used the anti-splatter cover we have in our microwave to keep our kitties from scattering them everywhere while they dried!

Once you have your plant parts dried, you will want to store them in clean, dry containers.  You will also want to keep them out of the light, so they don't loose their color.  One nice trick is to save those silica gel packets you get in things and tuck them in your storage containers.  I have a few in the tub I keep my rose petals in.  They help absorb any moisture that might find it's way in.

Drying flowers is easy, and there are so many ways to go about it, and so many things to do with your flowers once they are dry.  I highly recommend giving it a try, and you may find that you love it just as much as I do!