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How to Dry Flowers

Flowers are such a great piece of decor, but fresh flowers unfortunately only last for around a week. It can become expensive to purchase bouquets frequently. (Even if its just at Trader Joe’s.) Instead, learn how to dry flowers! It is an easy process and involves little working time. You can enjoy your dry flowers for years!

How to Dry Flowers – Lavender, Grasses, and More!

I love my garden. I tend to it nearly every day and it is plentiful. My house plants on the other hand? I found that my cat enjoys eating them. No matter how high the shelf. I love the idea of having plants in my home. At this moment in my life, indoor plants are just not working for me. So, I learned how to dry flowers.

Drying flowers is incredibly easy and fun to experiment with. I love how they extend the shelf life of flowers and can be composted once they’ve served their purpose and you no longer enjoy them in your home.

Perks of Displaying Dried Flowers

Dried plants are trending right now. Dried grasses (lookin’ at you pampas grass) are all over social media. They are gorgeous and EASY. What is not to love?

If you think about the negatives for houseplants or bouquets of flowers, they are almost all non-issues for dried plants:

  • no watering
  • no surprise fungus
  • no moldy leaves
  • lasts longer than two weeks
  • no plant babysitter for vacations

Choosing Which Flowers to Dry

My neighbors grew the most impressive lavender earlier this summer. It cascaded down over their entire front walk and it was filled with bees. They said they couldn’t bring themselves to trim it back because of how much the bees loved it. It was absolutely worth walking on their grass instead of their sidewalk to have.

My mom braved the bees while I stood a house away and she picked several stems for me. (I told her I didn’t want to risk my little toddler getting stung. I may also have some bee anxiety after a wasp flew up my shorts when I was riding my bike two summers ago.)

If you don’t have any fresh lavender to pick, that’s okay! I’ve done this technique before with some grasses I found outside and eucalyptus leaves from a flower bouquet someone gifted me.

Some other great flowers to dry are:

  • Baby’s Breath
  • Coneflower
  • Hydrangea
  • Pansies
  • Roses
  • Big Blue Sea Holly
  • Dragon’s Breath
  • Strawflowers

Avoid Leafy Foilage

Thick leaves like eucalyptus and grasses are okay to dry, but you don’t want to dry the leaves on the stems of most flowers. If the leaves get brown and droopy when they naturally die, they are not going to look good in your dried bouquet.

Pick off those leaves before moving onto the next step!

Hanging Your Flowers to Dry

You don’t need anything super fancy to dry flowers. Just some twine, string, or rubber bands.

Gather your flowers or grasses into a bundle. Dried flowers can become delicate once they are dried, so arrange your flowers how you would like them to look when they are displayed dried.

Tie your bouquet at least twice down the stems. You really want to make sure the flowers are tight and don’t fall out since you will be hanging this upside down. Take another piece of string and make a loop to hang the bouquet from.

Dry Flowers

When you dry flowers, you will want to hang them so they are upside down. This will help the stems dry straight, instead of drooping down.

Hang them in a cool dry place. I suggest drying them in a basement! Even better if it is around a dehumidifier. Not everyone has a basement, so pick your next best room. Steamy shower filled bathrooms or kitchens would not be ideal.

After about two weeks, check on your flowers. If they seem a little crisp, feel free to stick them in a vase and enjoy them! Depending on the flower they may need a bit more time to dry.

More Dried Flowers Please!

Next year when we plant flowers for landscaping, I plan on planting flowers that I can dry and enjoy year round. They will serve two purposes.

I’ve also had it on my bucket list to visit a flower truck or bar. There is a flower truck in Columbus, called Rosie the Flower Truck where you can build your own bouquet. How fun would that be?

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