How to Dry Flowers for DIY Dried Floral Arrangements

I love how pampas grass and other dried flowers are slowly creeping into home decor. Even though they are dried, there is something that feels so “fresh” about them.  These aren’t your grandma’s 1980 clump of preserved,dusty pink roses. These new dried flower bouquets are artistic and interesting.  I’ve been clipping flowers and grasses around my yard to make my own DIY bouquets. I thought I would share my process with you of how to dry flowers for DIY dried floral arrangements. It’s really easy, it just takes drying the right kind of flowers and grasses such as Yarrow. I planted it in full sun in our front planting bed, and each year it rewards me with beautiful, bright cheerful blooms. I have a special love of Yarrow because  it has such great texture, comes in a bunch of colors, and the flowers last a really long time, so it dries really well! As a dried flower, it tends to hold it’s color fairly well, thought it will fade into a more muted shade of gold.

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I love the look of dried flower arrangements,  and the different new and interesting color schemes that are popping up.  To get started, pick flowers that dry well and will maintain their shape and (hopefully) color with minimal fading.

 

A tip about choosing which flowers to dry: Pick flowers and grasses that have harder stems, and are structurally firm such as: Lavender, Hydrangeas, Roses, Yarrow, Bunny tail grass,Quaking grass, Sea oats, Sedum, Billie balls, Baby’s breath, Strawflowers, Rosemary,Lunaria, Thistle, and Statice. Avoid floppy flowers, delicate flowers or flowers that easily shed their blooms such as Peonies, Lilacs, and Tulips.

You can check out this post here the paper bag technique I used for drying lavender.

When prepping your flowers, remove any leaves. These will just get crunchy,and when you wrap the stems, they might even hold too much moisture and turn moldy.

After the leaves are removed, bundle the stems of about five flower heads together and use garden twine to bind them together. I don’t recommend any more than a bundle of five flowers. If they are too squished together they can make the flower heads bend on the stem and dry in that position.

Start wrapping at the top and wrap downward. Don’t cover the entire stem so there is still some air circulation.

Tie the two ends together at the bottom to form a small loop. This is where they will get hung upside down from. Trim off any super long stem bottoms.

Once your flowers are all bundled, hang upside down for a few weeks in a cool, dry area out of direct sunlight. Check them periodically to make sure they aren’t growing any mold, and if you see it, throw them out immediately. Now that you know how to dry flowers for DIY dried floral arrangements.

 I’m excited to create some pretty DIY dried bouquets this fall!

If you liked this post, see how to press flowers with books for crafts here.