How to Achieve the Perfect Dried Bouquet
It can be heartbreaking to watch your beautiful, fresh cut flower arrangement run through its life sitting in the vase on your counter or table. We’ve all been there and felt the despair, especially with the wilting of a particularly special combination. But, what’s really special about a good amount of the varieties of flowers we carry at Amelia’s, is the versatility in their beauty both alive, and dried. And with a little additional care and attention, you can also keep some of these pieces, to admire them long after they’ve served their living purpose!
Dried flowers are just one of the few ways that you can preserve flowers in their most natural looking state. They are considered a sustainable piece of decor, providing a simple, eclectic, and somewhat timeless touch to a space, while also paying homage to a special moment or occassion from which the pieces came from.
If you simply stopped by one of our shops or our trucks and asked for a bouquet that would dry well, we might concoct something involving a few of these stems:
-Aster (AKA Goldenrod)
-Limonium
-Statice
-Eucalyptus (Silver Dollar, Baby, Seeded, Gunni)
-Billy Balls
-Yarrow
-Roses
-Carnations
-Eryngo
-Safari Sunset
-Strawflower
-Lavender*
-Pampas grass*
-Bunnytail*
-Feverfew*
*Only available in the brick and mortar Amelia’s locations.
Side note, we have a good variety of some of these flowers already dried in our shops, so if you were wanting to take the guesswork out of trying to dry them yourself, we are more than happy to help you put something like that together! Also, if you don’t see one of your favorite stems included on the list above, it doesn’t particularly mean that it doesn’t dry well. This is just a brief list of some of our staple pieces that we know work well for us!
There are various different options to preserve your flowers including resin/epoxy pours, pressing, dried bouquets, etc. One particular method we find least complicated and that works best for us is that of simply allowing them to dry.
To do this from a living bouquet involving the bits indicated above, follow the steps outlined here to make your bouquet live as long as possible. Once the stems start to look like they’re no longer taking up water, remove them from the vase so they don’t develop mold. For the stems with blooms or possibility of drooping due to being top-heavy (Roses, Carnations, etc.), feel free to tie them upside down in a closet or cool, dim area so that gravity can help them remain upright while they completely dry out. Otherwise, lighter-weight pieces such as Aster, Limonium, Eucalyptus, Statice, etc. can be removed from the original bouquet, and placed directly in a new vase without water.
Once you have your dried stems, you can place single stems in a bud vase for a simple statement. Or, maybe instead, you prefer the look of re-uniting the pieces together into a dried arrangement. The possibilities are endless and the art is up to you to decide how you would like to display them. Keep in mind that once dried, these pieces will be brittle, fragile and more likely to break with greater amounts of handling.
Drying flowers is something that at first glance might appear mystifying, but really is achievable for most anyone with some trial and error, and a little extra care and attention. If you do have any questions, or would like further guidance, you can feel free to visit us at one of our shops or trucks, and we would be more than happy to point you in the right direction. Hopefully with this new insight, you’ll be able to enjoy your fresh cut flowers to their fullest extent, knowing you’re investing in the best quality of flowers we can offer!
We hope to see you soon!
xx,
Amelia’s