How to Dry Flowers for Year-Round Bouquets and Wreaths
There are so many flowers to grow that make great dried flowers. What’s more, most of them are excellent in fresh bouquets, too. And most are very easy to grow!
Dried flowers make colorful flower arrangements and wreaths that last through the winter and even for years. Most of these are very easy to dry, but some require a little knowledge for the best way to work with them.
My list of the best drying flowers to include in your garden is below. On each of the flower pages listed you’ll find special instructions for drying them under “Harvesting” including special tips for how to work with them.
On this page
General instructions for drying your flowers
The best time to harvest the flowers varies with the flower. Most should be harvested when they are ready to harvest for fresh use, or when the stems are fully developed.
I only use air drying for my dried flowers; I like to keep things simple. Microwaving and even low temperature oven drying can be used if you’re in a pinch. But all the flowers, foliage, and pods I use are easily air dried. Some people like to use silica gel for flowers that don’t air dry well, but I think that there are plenty of the easy things to grow to make great dried flower arrangements… so who wants to fuss with complicated techniques?
Most drying flowers can be dried in small bunches and hung up in a dry, darkish airy place. A shed, garage, or an unused room in the house can work well. It can be a warm area to help them dry faster. (See lavender as an exception to hanging to dry.)
To put your fresh harvest into bunches you can use rubber bands. Then tie a piece of twine around the rubber band and use a knot called the noose knot. The noose knot is made the same way you make a slip knot but the long piece is the one you loop into the knot’s circle. This video explains the knots. It makes the loop around the bunch of flowers so you can tighten it. If you put the short end of the twine through the knot’s loop you make a slip knot and you need to tighten it with the short end, which is harder when it’s hanging.
The reason you may need to tighten the twine is because as the flowers dry their stems shrink. So you may need to do some adjusting on the twine. The rubber band may hold up fine, but sometimes they weaken with age and may break. A tight twine loop will keep your flowers from falling out.
Next hang the flower bunches from anything like rafters, a dowel suspended from a ceiling, etc. The bunches need to be kept separate from each other to get the best air flow around them.
How long they take to dry depends on the weather and your climate. Wait until the stems are dry enough to stay up straight when the bunch is turned upright. In my summer dry climate, many flowers are dry within about two weeks.
Once they’re very dry, a good way to store them is to layer them with tissue paper into cardboard boxes. The cardboard allows them to breathe, which means if any moisture is in any of the flowers it can dry out further rather than mold the other flowers. And it’s dark in there so the colors don’t fade and they don’t collect dust and spider webs. I leave them in bunches.
When you’re ready to work with your dried flowers they’re often too dry and brittle to work with. Don’t worry, there are a few things you can do…
How to work with dried flowers when they’re dry and brittle
Where I live the air is dry until fall rains start in September or October, or later, in our drought years. Those rains bring moisture to the air and the flowers can hydrate enough to make them supple enough to work with. If my cardboard boxes with my stash of dried flowers are in a spot that’s exposed to the outside air, they start absorbing some of that moisture. I’ll open boxes up or take the flowers out and lay them on nursery flats to help the hydration.
If you live in a more humid area a garage with the garage door open, on a porch, deck, a shed, or anywhere outdoors with cover from rain and sun would work.
Another way to get your flowers to suppleness is to fill a bathtub full of hot, steamy water and bring your flowers into the bathroom, keep the window and door shut to let the steam penetrate the plant materials. I haven’t needed to do this but it may take many, many hours.
We’re after a little hydration here, just enough to make the stems a little pliable and to keep flower parts from breaking off or shattering too easily while you’re working with them.
How to work with your flowers before they’re dry and brittle
When there is something I want to use a lot of I can sometimes harvest them and dry them for a few days to a point when the stems shrink enough but the flowers are pliable to work with, and without limp stems. I do this with lavender, statice, and German statice.
I’ll pick the flowers at a mature stage (so that the tips of the flowers don’t droop when they’re drying) and hang them or lay them out on airy nursery flats for just a few days. I’ll wait until the stems to shrink enough so that when they are bundled or wrapped into a wreath or other bouquet, the stems don’t shrink further and make the arrangement loose and things fall out.
Each flower page has special instructions on how to work with them for dried flower arrangements and wreaths.
The best flowers to grow for dried flowers
