Making Dried Flower Posies for the Home

A Slow Pleasure for a British Home

There is something quietly satisfying about a jar of dried flowers on a kitchen windowsill in the middle of February. It cost you nothing but an hour in the garden last summer, it asks for no water, and it never sulks if you forget about it for a fortnight. Dried flowers sit somewhere between a keepsake and a piece of decoration, and they suit the way many of us like to live — a little thrifty, a little homemade, and happy in the company of chipped enamel jugs and old jam jars.

The method is wonderfully simple. Cut your flowers on a dry morning, hang them upside down in the dark, then gather small bunches into jars once they are properly cured. The trick is knowing which flowers to pick, when to pick them, and how to arrange them so the result looks considered rather than merely faded.

Choosing Flowers That Dry Well

Not every flower holds its shape once the water leaves it. Some collapse to brown mush, some shed every petal at a glance. The reliable ones share a common trait: low moisture content and a papery or wiry structure.

• Lavender — the great British standby, and the easiest of all. English lavender holds its scent for a year or more if kept out of bright sun.
• Roses — pick them in bud or half-open, never fully blown, or the petals will scatter the moment you touch them. Smaller-flowered shrub roses and old-fashioned varieties dry best.
• Strawflowers — those stiff, daisy-like blooms in ochre, coral and cream. The "petals" are actually papery bracts, which is why they keep their colour so brilliantly.
• Good companions — yarrow, statice, cornflowers, nigella seed heads, honesty, sea holly, hydrangea, and the seed heads of love-in-a-mist. Grasses such as bunny tails add movement to a jar.

Picking at the Right Moment

Timing matters more than technique. Cut on a dry morning once the dew has lifted, but before the heat of the day, when plants are at their most turgid and least likely to wilt. Take a sharp pair of snips and cut stems at an angle, fairly long — you can always trim them shorter later, but you cannot add length back.

Lavender should be cut when the buds are plump and just colouring, before they open into full flower. Leave it too long and the buds will drop off in the drying. Strawflowers should be gathered when the buds are just opening and the centre is still tight. Roses want to be cut in bud or at half-open; a fully open rose is already on its way out and will shatter into a saucer of loose petals.

Strip the lower leaves as you go, leaving foliage only on the top third of each stem. Leaves hold moisture and slow the drying, and they tend to go brown and brittle anyway.

Hanging Them Upside Down

This is the whole art of it, and it is hardly an art at all. Gather eight to ten stems into a bunch, keeping the flower heads at slightly different heights so air can move between them. Secure the bunch with a rubber band rather than string — stems shrink as they dry, and string will loosen and let the whole thing slip. A band keeps its grip.

Hang the bunches upside down in a dark, dry, airy place. A loft, a spare bedroom, an unused airing cupboard with the door ajar, or a dry shed all work well. Aim for something around 15–21°C with low humidity. Kitchens and bathrooms are the two rooms to avoid; steam will undo your work and leave you with grey, limp stems. A wire coat hanger makes a convenient rack, and a length of twine strung across a beam will hold a dozen bunches.

Leave them for two to four weeks. Lavender and strawflowers are usually ready in a fortnight; roses take closer to three. The test is simple: bend a stem. If it snaps cleanly, it is dry. If it bends like a piece of leather, give it another week. Bring them down too early and they will mould in the jar — the one mistake that ruins a whole batch.

Arranging Small Bunches in Jars

Once dry, keep the bunches small. A posy of six or seven stems reads better than a great armful, and small arrangements suit the scale of a windowsill or a bedside table. Old jam jars, stoneware pots, apothecary bottles and enamel mugs all make good homes; a little crumpled chicken wire pushed into the neck will hold stems exactly where you want them.

Work in odd numbers and vary the heights — the tallest stem roughly one and a half times the height of the jar, the shortest just clearing the rim. Start with an upright centre stem, then add two or three at gentle angles, filling the gaps with a grass or a seed head. Group by colour rather than scattering everything together: a jar of all-cream strawflowers and honesty, another of lavender and dried marjoram, looks far more deliberate than a jumble.

Tuck a small bunch into a drawer with the linen, or tie one with garden twine as a gift. Dried posies cost nothing and travel well.

Keeping the Colour Alive

Dried flowers fade — that is part of their charm — but you can slow it considerably. Keep jars out of direct sunlight and away from radiators, which dry them to dust. A cool, shaded shelf is ideal. Dust gently with a soft brush or a hairdryer on its coolest, lowest setting, holding it a good 30cm away.

Lavender will drop its buds over time. Stand the jar on a small tray or a folded piece of linen, and you can gather the fallen buds for lavender bags. After a year or two, when the colours have dulled past saving, compost the lot and start again with the next summer's cutting. That is the quiet pleasure of it — the garden keeps giving, season after season.