What’s hanging?
Seriously, what is hanging? It has been a minute…or months. But life gets away sometimes. For me flowers are still hanging. In fact, in my home flowers are always hanging. They have been hanging for as long as I can remember - years before I decided to make them into art. No matter what other drying methods I use, this is preferred for a host of reasons.
This simplest reason is that you can do it anywhere with almost no materials. Ask any of the friends I visited this last year. They all witnessed bundles of drying plants hanging all about. With a rubber band or a piece of string you can dry botanicals where ever you go. Of course there is a bit of a science to hang drying for optimal results, but in a pinch, it can be accomplished anywhere.
Beyond ease and materials considerations, there are other reasons to hang dry. Straight stems top this list. With a few exceptions, fresh flowers come on straight stems. Many flowers are top heavy, and as they begin to wilt the stem is the first thing to droop as the weight of the flower head pulls it down. Although bent stems do have their place and beauty, in general a straight stem is easier to work with once dried. And a flower head on a straight stem dries better and more evenly. When you hang a flower upside down, gravity and the weight of the blossom pulls the stem straight.
It is always best to dry flowers immediately. As in cut them and hang them to dry. If you purchase your flowers hang them as soon as you get home. You can cheat a bit and keep your fresh flowers in a vase for a day or two depending on the type of flower. This is especially true for flowers that are not yet fully open, or those that have a long vase life. This comes with the warning that any time in a vase can mean a less beautiful dried flower. So its really a question of priority. Is it more valuable to you fresh or dry? For fully open or fragile flowers, its best to dry as soon as you can. Once a stem has begun to droop, or a flower fades or browns, drying cannot disguise this change.
Most flowers do well when hung to dry. There are of course exceptions - most multi petaled flowers like zinnias or dahlias, or very succulent flowers like lilies or tulips do not hang well. But many flowers dry beautifully this way. The best hangers include: roses, peonies, larkspur, strawflower, statice, gomphrena, celosia, amaranth, lavender, sage, thistles, teasel, grasses and seed pods. Think about what time and gravity will do to a certain botanical. How will it look if its petals are pulled down and in toward one another? If the answer is good or that nothing will change, then you have a great hanger! Experiment and learn, and know that even when a flower does not dry as you hoped, you can often find a use for it still.
For optimal results there is some technique. As I said, botanicals can be bundled and hung anywhere, but for best results some (most) plants really do best when hung on their own. Individual hanging allows for maximum room and air flow around a flower. It ensures that the flower head dries evenly and all the stems dry straight. It is also best to remove most leaves and to keep any part of the plant from touching a surface that will alter the dried shape. All that said, if you need to dry in a bundle against a wall because of space or life, do it. Just know that it might take your flowers a bit longer to dry, and there might be some kinks and bends in the final result.
Happy hanging. x