How to Prepare and Arrange a Dried Floral Bouquet

Fall floral displays are some of the best because the plants that are blooming and those that are drying out naturally are so varied and deeply hued in color. Making a dried floral bouquet with the flowers that are growing in your yard is very easy and can be done rather quickly once you have decided what flowers you want to include. Some of the best flowers to include in your floral bouquet are grasses, black eyed susans, purple coneflowers, catalpa, milkweed pods (anything with pods is good), willow branches, grapevines, and boxwood.

To collect your flowers wait for a dry day and do not do any cutting right away in the morning when the flowers still have morning dew on them. Look for flowers and pods that have already begun to dry out naturally since the drying process for them will go by quicker. Before you begin drying the flowers you have chosen remove all the leaves and shorten the stems. For all the stemmed flowrs tie the stems off in a bunch and hang them upside down somewhere that will be warm and have a continual flow of air. Also be sure to keep the drying flowers out of direct sunlight.

Once your flowers are dried and ready for arranging you need to choose a container that is tall enough and fits the flowers you have chosen. Since most of the flowers will have long stems I recommend using globular vases with curves. To the bottom of the vase add a block of floral foam that goes all the way up to the lip of the vase. To make sure the foam block stays steady add a little bit of hot glue and press it down firmly into the vase. Start with the tallest flower or the largest bloom wise and place that one in the back of the foam block. Then add the other flower heads that are also large making sure to space them out. The larges seed pods and any cattails you may have should be added lower down on the foam block and extending out to create a spray or fan effect. Creat an idea of hight by adding larger blooms lower down towards the front of the block and pushing the stem far enough in so that the head almost touches the lip of the vase. Add larger blooms gradually backwards in the block with less and less stem in the block so that the arrangement grows upward and out. Fill in the empty spaces with smaller blooms that are more compact or leafy plants that you have dried.