
The possibility of preserving the most beautiful flowers of our plants for a long time, thus capturing the beauty of an otherwise ephemeral gift, is within everyone’s reach thanks to natural flower drying techniques.
If you want to know how to dry natural flowers to be able to save them and make unique decorations with them, join us in this EcologíaVerde article in which you will find 8 drying methods. You will see that it is very easy to preserve natural flowers by drying them.
Drying by pressing
This is one of the most used and also the simplest techniques when it comes to drying natural flowers, as well as the oldest. The flowers obtained in this way are ideal for all kinds of decorations and elaborations, and the only thing that the technique practically requires is time, although it works much better on small and rather flat flowers.
For press natural flowersjust put them between sheets of newspaper, which is very absorbent, followed by another outer layer of blotting paper and finally another made of cardboard, all with the purpose of absorbing the water from the plants. Then close the formed package with adhesive tape and place it inside a book large enough, preferably thick. Add weight on the book and leave it like this for a week, and then change the sheets of newspaper and absorbent paper for others. Two weeks later, your flowers will be ready.

fan drying
This technique is very useful for drying large quantities of flowers. prepare them in corsages as open as possible and stack them in a room, on a large surface. It is important that the room has a warm and low humidity environmentd. Once the table or surface to be used is ready, or the flowers are hung from threads, write down a fan on the sides of the flowers or with the current passing under them, so that the humidity is carried away, damaging them as little as possible.
air dry
if you wonder how to dry a bouquet of natural flowers, individual or several, but already formed bouquets and not loose flowers, keep in mind that this is another of the most used techniques, especially when working with delicate long-stemmed flowers. It’s a lot like the fan method, only letting ventilation occurs naturally. Thus, the process is smoother and less aggressive, better respecting the volume and shape of the flower.
Consists in hang the flowers upside down, in large bouquets tied loosely with raffia twine, which will have to be adjusted as the stems lose water and volume. It is necessary that the chosen room is warm and dark, but that it has good ventilation. The process will take between 15 and 30 days.

sun dried
A very suitable method for aromatic plants and quite fast among the naturals. It consists of placing the stems of the cut flowers on a wooden surface, wide open so that they all receive the sun in a similar way and have ventilation. The tray or wooden surface is left in the sun, in an area where it receives the maximum incidence possible and always without letting it get wet. In ideal conditions, in a week your flowers will be completely dry.
kiln dried
This method can be used for dry leaves or flowers with large, flat petalssince those with a lot of volume will not dry equally.
Spread the flowers to dry on an oven tray without stacking or touching each other so they don’t get covered and take off the heat or stick together, and put the tray in the oven at a low temperature, for below 80 ºC. Leave the oven door slightly open to let the heat escape or, if it’s gas, open it for a few seconds at 5-minute intervals.
microwave drying
The microwave is faster than the oven to dry a bouquet of flowers or several separate and it also has fewer limitations, since it applies heat in a very different way. The simplest method of microwave drying is to place the flowers on a platewell separated, and cover them with cling film. Then put them 1 minute in the microwave at full power and, if that’s not enough, add new apps for 20 seconds, checking the status each time. The older they are, logically, the more time they will need.
Dehydrator drying
The dehydrator method is very similar to the oven method, only there are fewer risks since the application of heat is softer and more gradual. Arrange the stems and flowers as spread out as possible and set the dehydrator to 45ºC or lessregularly checking how the drying process is progressing.

drying with blotter
If you have cat litter or silica, which can also be used in an advanced microwave drying method, you can dry a bunch of flowers or the flowers separately with desiccant, an ideal method to preserve colorful and many-petaled flowers without damaging them. Simply place a base of silica sand in a jar and place the flower on it, vertically. Close the container tightly and the desiccant substrate will do its job, drying it by itself in less than a week.
We also recommend reading these tips on How to dry lavender, one of the most popular plants to dry and use in crafts, decoration and the production of organic products.
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