Use of dried flowers in ornamentation

Dried flowers are a beautiful way to decorate your home and enjoy the natural beauty of flowers year-round.

Decorating with dried flowers, popular in the Victorian era, is a great way to re-connect with nature and a beautiful substitute for fresh flowers.

While there's no denying the energizing effect of a bouquet of fresh flowers, it's important to remember that their time in your home will be brief. While fresh flowers need to be replaced every so often, dried flowers can be enjoyed for months at a time, making them a much more environmentally friendly option for home decor.

Putting dried flowers on display can add a touch of beauty to any room. As a means of sparking your imagination, we have compiled a list of some of our favorite creative ideas, as well as some helpful hints on how to implement them.

How to Begin Decorating with Dried Flowers

There are dried flowers available for purchase if you're interested in decorating with them, but there's something extra special about picking the components for your arrangement from your own garden.

Drying flowers is an age-old art that can be done at home and is a great way to preserve those you've picked from the garden. A wedding bouquet could be preserved as a priceless memento.  

According to Melanie Griffiths, editor of Period Living magazine, "drying flowers is a lovely way to make treasured flowers last for years and will keep happy memories of summer alive throughout the seasons."  

Flowers can also be preserved for later use as decorations by pressing them. Learning to press flowers will allow you to make stunning works of art that can be displayed anywhere in your house.

First, you should stuff a jam jar.

(Future used as an image source)

Low-key but lovely holders for hand-tied posies can be found in jam jars, produce pots, and even charity shop glass oddities.  

Flower types such as daisies, bunny tails, eucalyptus, flax, gypsophila, oats, broom, and phalaris were used to add dimension and variety.  

Add flower stems to one hand, starting in the middle with the longest ones. Repeat with two or three additional stems of the same type, twisting the posy as needed to ensure that the flowers are evenly spaced.  

Floral tape or florist wire can be used to secure the bouquet, and the stems can be trimmed to fit the jar.

Construct a lovely centerpiece for the table.

Featured image by Dan Duchars.

This dried flower garland is an excellent alternative to cut flowers for your Thanksgiving table.

Here are some of the flowers and foliage that we used: rose buds, mimosa, flax, matricaria, daisies, helichrysum, broom, delphiniums, poppy heads, phalaris, bunny tails, eucalyptus, gypsophila, oat stems, and statice  

Trim each stem to 10 centimeters and use florist wire to join together clusters of the same flower. Wrap some eucalyptus stems in floral wire and string them along a garland. Florist wire should be used to hold a cluster of flowers in place as you work your way from one end of the garland to the other. Add flowers one at a time, blending them together for volume.  

To conclude, push three clusters of flowers in the opposite direction to cover the electrical components.

Set the mood with a wreath

(Photo by Dan Duchars for Future)

This dried wreath would be beautiful as an Easter decoration or to brighten up any drab wall.

Start with a store-bought grapevine wreath for this project. Group the stems and flowers together; we used mimosa, eucalyptus, oats, bunny tails, delphinium, gypsophila, and helichrysum.  

Spread the first batch of blossoms along the front of the wreath's base, stems facing down. Floral tape or coated wire can be used to keep things in place. Always make sure the flower heads are covering the wire before moving on to the next set of flowers. Keep going until you reach the middle, and then do it again going the other direction.  

Fill in any gaps with more flower heads of helichrysum.

Make a bouquet of flowers to put in a vase.

(Photo courtesy of the Future/Dan Duchars)

This colorful bouquet of dried flowers would look lovely in a plain vase and would also make a thoughtful and long-lasting present.

We used oats, bunny tails, delphinium, gypsophila, grasses, daisies, statice, rosebuds, and helichrysum; separate the stems accordingly.  

Arrange the flowers by holding the longer, flatter stems in one hand and positioning them at the back of the vase. Next, add the shorter, neater stems, making sure they are all straight and pointing downward.  

As time passes, more and more round flowers will fill in, hiding the stalks. Florist's wire them together, leaving the stems long but trimmed. Ribbons should be wrapped around the stems, and a bow should be tied.

5 Create a napkin ring with flowers.

(Photo courtesy of Dan Duchars / The Future)

Adding a touch of natural beauty to your table settings couldn't be easier than with this dried flower napkin ring.

We made use of gypsophila, daisies, bunny tails, and mimosa. To create the ring's base, wind a length of covered florist wire around itself several times before gluing the ends together.  

Gather a few blooms together and pinch their stems together.  

Set along the wire's rim, and wrap and fasten with additional covered wire. Trim the wire ends for a clean look.

Six, embellish a fireplace mantel

(Photo by Dan Duchars of the Future; floral design by Star The Rose)

Create a focal point above your fireplace with a dried flower arrangement on the mantel.  

With its focus on muted tones and sculptural shapes rather than summer brights, Star The Rose's original arrangement of sculptural twigs, honesty, ruscus, and ferns is a beautiful option for autumn mantel decoration.  

7 - Decorate a mirror

Photo by Layla Robinson.

Adding a dried flower arrangement as a crown to a mirror is a lovely way to add a feminine touch to a bathroom or guest bedroom. The floral designer Layla Robinson says that she aimed to "combine a vibrant, textural wild feel of nature and flowers, with a faded classic style of glamour and opulence" when making this arrangement.  

"It has peach, apricot, and cream colored strawflowers, lady's mantle, and honesty," explains Layla. "It also has foraged birch and bracken and traveler's joy." She also incorporated decorative grasses like bunny tails, quaking grass, and miscanthus sinensis, and she added acid yellow billies buttons and purple xeranthemum annuum for a splash of color. '

Eight Displays Under a Domed Ornament

(Photo by Dan Duchars / Future)

Putting dried flower arrangements under glass domes is a beautiful way to preserve their beauty.

We used poppy heads, bunny tails, daisies, and mimosa, and we measured the flowers against the size of the dome to ensure that there would be enough space between the flower heads and the glass.  

To fill the bottom, cut a piece of dry oasis to size. Wrap raffia around the perimeter, and secure it with double-sided tape to the dome's base. Starting in the middle, using the tallest flowers as a shield, advance into the oasis.  

Plant flowers and grasses around them, varying in height to make a gradual ring. Shorter mimosa flower and leaf stems should be used to cover the rest of the oasis block.

9, Put dried flowers in old jars and display them

(Image by Flicky Wallace / Dot & Dandelion)

Display a dried flower arrangement in an old jug if you're a fan of antique decor. Making a unique arrangement out of vintage items is a fantastic idea, and the result would be adorable on a mantelpiece or as a table centerpiece in a country kitchen.  

Delicate honesty, bright strawflowers, and sculptural grasses fill this arrangement by Dot & Dandelion. (link opens in new window) stands out dramatically against a black background  

If you're using dried flowers as decor, make sure to keep them out of the sun. Flicky Wallace, owner of Dot & Dandelion Floral Studio, says, "The colors of the flowers will fade if exposed to too much light."

Ten. Showcase aromatic plants and dry them for later use

(Photo by: The Futuristic)

If you want to dry some of your own herbs and flowers, you can create a lovely wreath while you're at it by tying together some bundles and hanging them.  

Prepare bundles of herbs and flowers by cutting them. Wrap each bundle in twine, and then hang it from the wreath at an even distance. Using plaited twine or rope tied at each of the four corners, suspend the entire wreath.  

As a final touch, tie ribbons to the bundles and weave flowers into the wreath form.

Flicky Wallace, owner of floral shop Dot & Dandelion, says, "To dry flowers and get the best results you want to dry them in bunches of stems around 5-10."  

11 - Deck out the hearth

To Simon Bevan for the use of his photograph:

Dried flowers are a great way to decorate a fireplace as a focal point in a dining room or living room for when guests come to visit. If you want to make an impression, pair a wreath with a mantel garland.  

If your living room is neutral, you can add a splash of color with a simple ribbon and some dried flower arrangements featuring a single flower, like these sculptural dried teasels. Teasels are wonderfully sculptural and will cast lovely shadows in candlelight; however, care must be taken to ensure that the candles are not placed in a position where they could potentially start a fire among the centerpieces.  

12-Showcase individual stems

Photograph by Little Greene.

One does not need a large bouquet of dried flowers to adorn a room; a single stem will do.  

One large, sculptural stem of dried hog weed can be used, or you can "try individual stems in a collection of collected or salvaged pots, bottles, and jars along a mantle or in the center of a table," as floral designer Layla Robinson recommends.

How do you use dried flowers for decoration?

Dried flowers can be used in a variety of decor applications. You can use posies of dried flowers to spruce up a coffee table or bookcase, or you can use individual stems to fill a collection of vases or vintage bottles.  

A garland made of dried flowers is an attractive way to adorn a mantel, a table, or a mirror.

Floral designer Layla Robinson recommends suspending a twisty horizontal branch from the ceiling and hanging small bunches from it for a stunning focal point.  

Layla Robinson says that dried flowers are appealing because "they have a beautiful texture and architectural structure, and they last remarkably well."

(Photo taken by Mark Bolton)

The question is, how do you showcase dried flowers that have been pressed?

Flowered pressed paper makes lovely botanical wall art. A grid of identically framed and mounted pressed flowers would be a lovely addition to a bedroom, bringing some of nature's peace and beauty inside.  

Helen Armon-Jones, founder of The Art Buyer, suggests laying out the frames on the floor to plan the gallery wall layout before putting anything on the wall. (link opens in a new tab) This way, you won't have to drill as many holes in the wall to experiment with different configurations before settling on one that works. The goal should be to make people feel comfortable, so make sure there's plenty of breathing room around all of your artwork and furniture.

Another option is to use framed pressed flowers as a standalone decoration for the mantel or bookcase.  

Picture by Paul Raeside.