Drying Roses

People are drying roses for various reasons, they might want to dry their roses to keep a memento of a special moment, perhaps they were part of a wedding that you went to or  maybe they were a gift from a friend or family member. Whatever the reason, this article will show the basics of drying roses.

There are basically two ways that you can dry roses, either through the process of air drying or sand drying: 

Air Drying

This is by far the easiest and cheapest method of drying roses. It is simple - all you have to do is follow these easy instructions; Start with perfect and unflawed roses on their stems, if the roses are not in perfect condition, they will wither and the petals will fall off.

Remove any leaves that may be on the branches, bunch them up together in a manner that lets them fan out, tie the bottom with string or a rubber band, while hanging them upside down in a dark, dry place for two to three weeks to be certain that they are completely dry.

Sand Drying

Pick roses that are in perfect condition, they shouldn’t have any dew on them and the stems should be dry as well. Reinforce the stems and blossom with either white glue or florist wire (for florist wire, you will want to cut off most of the stem) and leave about one inch of stem.

The next step is to push about three inches of wire through the stem and right through the flower head. Then, you need to bend the end of the wire into a hook over each rose head and pull it down, this will help to keep the head secured to the stem. When choosing to use the glue, begin by diluting the glue in small amount of water.

Now will you nee to take a toothpick and dab a thin coat of the glue mixture at the base of each petal. Now, you need to work the glue into the base of the stems of each flower,  so that you can attach each petal to the base (wait till the glue dries completely). Slowly and carefully cover the flowers with sand in deep open boxes. Remember to make the sand in the box deep enough to hold the flowers upright.

Place each flower in the sand filled box while slowly pouring sand around the base, around the sides, over and under the petals. You should pour the sand evenly so that you can preserve the flowers natural shape. Now you need to wait for the flowers to dry while they are facing upright. Put the boxes with the roses in a dry space that is warm and brightly lit to ensure that your roses will maintain their bright color and let them dry for anything up to three weeks.

Tip: In order to obtain muted colors - you will have to dry them in a more humid area. In order to remove the sand - tip the drying container slightly so that the sand can fall off the flowers and make sure that you remove each flower one by one.

In learning how to dry these flowers, you can now use them to decorate any room in your house or office and make your house even more home!

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