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Permalink Reply by Lanier Hollingsworth Z8 TX on July 2, 2009 at 9:33pm

I've always wanted to make potpourri and have read up on it for years. A good little paperback book I found on the subject is Potpourri, Incense and Other Fragrant Concoctions by Ann Tucker Fettner. It suggests that after you dry them that you should layer the petals gently in a large, glass or earthenware container that's airtight. They should be dried till they are crisp like a cereal flake and they should be dried out of strong light.
It says the best is to try them on screens stacked on bricks so there is better air circulation and to use cheese cloth of there is too much breeze. They are to be stirred around gently occasionally.
Another method is to dry them on a cookie sheet in a 110° oven with the door open, and shook gently occasionally. I would think the food dehydrator would work well.
It recommends to pick the flowers on a dry morning (following a few clear days) when the sun is high to dry the dew and when flowers have just opened and are at the peak of bloom. It suggests you pick a few buds as well.
I would think that if you dry your petals then seal them in an airtight jar till you have enough and everything else is ready, then when you mix the dry petals with the fixative and any fragrant oils, etc. that it would then soak it up nicely.
Hope this helps. Let me know how it works. And sorry it took me so long to respond. I had to find the book again and then find the time to read up on it!

Permalink Reply by isabelle hooper on August 21, 2009 at 8:39pm

i dont dry alot but what i do i just bind together with twin and hang up side down in the garage but a friend of mine does alot of drying and she uses these crystals that come in a plastic tub at craft store and you but the whole floer in and the crystals absorb the moister she says this best prseves the color no brown

Permalink Reply by Shirley Schmuck on April 24, 2010 at 12:30pm

it's been a few years since i last dried flowers, but this year i'm planning to dry some flowers that i am growing. i chose to use dry silicone crystals that i purchased from Hobby Lobby. i used microwave safe dishes, layered the flowers or petals in with the silicone. it took only minutes to dry whole flowers, sometimes doing the process a few minutes at a time to prevent burning. i dried roses, annuals, leaves, anything that i wanted preserved. delicate flowers such as lilies or iris don't dry well, but almost anything else worked well. a layer of vinca or impatience can be dried in less than five minutes. and the silicone is reuseable until it becomes too soiled.