Styling with dried floral

Okay, who doesn’t love a fresh bouquet of flowers? The colour, the textures, the LIFE!  I know, right? But we all know what happens next. Fresh flowers start dying the minute they are plucked from the ground – their own ‘biological clocks’ ticking away.

Back in September, we saw this on a grand scale here at The Grounds when our resident florist Silva created vast swathes of floral arrangements for a family member’s wedding held right here in our beautiful garden. The day itself was like floral heaven, so amazing that we left many of the white singapore garlands hanging from the centre arch through the week for our guests to enjoy. However, by the following Friday it was clear that Mother Nature and Father Time had been talking, and they needed to come down!

Welcome to the afterlife

Luckily, flowers often get a second chance at styling life. When they have finished their life cycle as a fresh visual piece, rather than be left high and dry, they can be … well … hung up high and dried!

Creating the look couldn’t be simpler. I take cut flowers, tie some string around them and hang them upside-down behind a door to dry out (they won’t get in the way there!). After a couple of weeks, knock knock, they’re ready to make a grand entrance in their new life as a great styling piece! Did I mention how simple it was? I call it my dried and tested method!

The only real variable is the type of flower. There are certain flowers that dry really well and tend to soften in colour as they dry and almost look antique in their appearance. Flowers like hydrangeas (which are a rich purple) and paper daisies (with colours of pinks and oranges) are excellent. Other good options include cornflowers, lavender and roses.

Once dried, I’ll hang them around doors and windows or bunch them in clusters, in little jars or vases. It creates a lovely cottage feel and tells a story at the same time.

I’m not sure if you did this when you were young, but as a child I would press a flower into the pages of a book just to see what happened. It could be months later, and there it would be rediscovered – no longer fresh, but with its dignity still intact. Today’s vintage styling trends lend themself to reawakening those small moments and happy memories.

It’s a softer, more delicate way to approach decoration – and so well suited to so much of what we do at The Grounds. And of course where the fresh flowers maybe only gave you a week, their new ‘afterlife’ means that they last so much longer dried – sometimes a couple of years! And if you can keep them away from direct sunlight and any blasts of heat (from air conditioning etc), you’ll be home and dry!