I love dried flowers because they make my house super stylish, require so little care, are cheap (if DIY) and are so much more ecofriendly than fresh flowers!
If you want to create colourful, gorgeous and Instagram-worthy dried bouquets, you need to follow easy but important steps that I will share with you below.
1. Choose the right flowers
Select flowers which have low moisture for example statice hydrangea, celosia, chrysanthemum, roses, gomphrena, and sunflowers. In Australia native flowers are usually pretty dry which makes them an excellent choice.
Low moisture flowers are usually less fragile and less likely to break apart once dry. Most importantly, they usually keep more vibrant colours when dried.
2. Cut at the right time
Choose and cut flowers which are not fully open as they will continue opening when they start drying. Do not cut them after it’s been raining or if water has been condensating in the morning.
3. Do not wait
Start the drying process just after you cut them. If you want to dry a fresh bouquet, do not put it in a vase with water first. Gather the flowers into small bunches before you start drying them.
4. Choose the right drying technique
There are different methods to dry flowers. For a bouquet I find that drying them upside down is the best method. Other methods include dying them in rice or silica, microwave drying and pressing.
Upside down Air-dry
Attach a string, cord, ruban (whatever you have to the stem) and hang the bunch of flowers upside down in a cool, dark, dry, indoor spot. To be honest if it’s not super cool and dark, it will still work fine but it’s important that air circulates well around each bundle.
Do regularly check that they are drying well and no mold is forming.
Depending on the type of flowers and level of moisture, you will need to hang them from a week to a month.
When they are dry, carefully remove the string to avoid petals falling.
5. Style your bouquet
When forming your bouquet, choose flowers of different sizes and colours that go well together. Start creating your bouquet with the larger flowers, then choose the smaller flowers and foliage to complement them.
You can attach them with a natural cord or an elastic and arrange them into a vase.
6. Care for the flowers
This is optional as dried flowers don’t require much care at all.
I would advise to not display them in direct sunlight if you want to keep them colourful for longer.
You can use a fixative to make sure they stay in place but this isn’t super eco friendly.
If they get really dusty which can make them look dull, you can use a duster to gently remove the dust.
If you do not display them at all time, make sure to keep them in a box that contains moisture absorbent such as rice or silica so they don’t go moldy.