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Flower Drying With A Microwave” by Titia Joosten

I’ve enjoyed the beauty of flowers and their meaning since I was a child. Back in the 80s, I began playing with different fresh flower drying methods. I have a distinct memory of getting a call from my mom after she returned from the funeral service of her friend Bonnie’s mother. She said Bonnie wanted to know how I had dried my flowers so beautifully, all well-preserved in color and shape, those many years before. I offered her my tips on using silica gel since I had experimented with it on a variety of fresh flowers. I had determined that the thicker the petal, the better it preserved.

Pressed flowers
Credit: albumgambar.com

Keepsake flowers as a heartfelt memory from a memorial service or funeral has been a common practice going back to the Victorian days. Today there are a variety of options to preserve fresh flowers with the final results greatly differing. At an estate sale I had picked up this book Flower Drying With A Microwave. I had already mastered my own techniques by sealing flowers in a plastic tub of silica gel and then waiting, but I had not tried the faster microwave method. I love the results of how flowers remain in your life as a memory, symbolizing someone you loved, evoking deep emotional connotations. So here’s your options for preserving your keepsake flowers.

To dry flowers, do so immediately following a memorial service. You will want to consider which drying method you will employ below:

1 Leave the Flowers Out to Air Dry Naturally – Let nature take its course by hanging the flowers to dry, producing the natural beauty of withered and misshapened flowers stamped by time. Depending on the type of flower and how it naturally dries, this can represent both a metaphor of life and death. Roses and hydrangeas typically weather well to this easy method.

Flowers in silica gel
Credit: finegardening.com

2 Press Flowers in a Book or Flower Press – For this method, delicate flowers fare best to being properly flattened. Use a flower press or a good thick heavy book. Often the color is drained leaving a pale reminder of the true coloration. Depending on your desired results, a faded flower can be a lovely symbol of transitioning in one’s life after a loss.

3 Silica Gel Dry Flowers – This is the best method to retain most of the color and shape. It takes time and painstaking care to carefully preserve the flowers, but the results are wonderful. Place each fresh flower on a shallow layer of the silica gel. Slowly and gently pour the dry gel beads within the petals. Silica gel is a naturally occurring mineral that is purified and processed into either granular or beaded form. The microwave allows the gel to extract the water from the flowers quickly. But you need not use a microwave and can wait it out if you prefer. The slow method of sealing your keepsake flowers in a plastic tub or cardboard box and waiting for weeks, results in the most lifelike reward for your patience.

The book Flower Drying With A Microwave by Titia Joosten is a brief book giving a good hands-on step-by-step on how to dry flowers with silica gel in the microwave. It gives charts of flowers to determine microwave temperature, flower petal thickness for drying time and how to apply the silica gel. Some flowers turn brown in the microwave so this book has charts with good tips for successful results.

You can purchase silica gel from any craft store, including Michael’s. Flower Drying With A Microwave is not available on Amazon, but a quick web search finds you can purchase it for $5 to $10 on other websites. An additional suggestion is, you may want to read our article about the stages of grief or what today is termed the tasks of grief.