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rainbozend

Drying One Rose

rainbozend
17 years ago

I am interested in knowing if I am able to dry a rose or do I have to remove each petal. It has been in a glass of water for one week, is starting to change color (yellow rose) and I would like to press it in memory of my mother who passed away last week. I have my own flower press and it has been quite a long time since I've used it and would love to start again! Need help...

Comment (1)

  • get_the_point
    17 years ago

    Well I know this is terrible late, but in case you or anyone else is interested I can tell you exactly how to dry roses to maintain roughly the same color as I did it for a friend's wedding bouquet (took forever by the way). What I did was I bought silica gel (which is actually a sand) that you can get at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. Then cut the stem off of the rose leaving about an inch or two. Then slowly and carefully bury the rose. What I do is I empty out most of the silica gel and place the rose at the bottom (you can include more than one rose when doing this but don't get carried away b/c the more you put in the slower it will dry and you don't get good results if you try to dry too many at the same time. Then pile silica on the outside of the rose to support the outer petals and then begin fill the inside petals. You'll need to microwave it (or bake) according to the instructions. It doesn't take too long though it smells awful. Then you'll need to very delicately unearth the rose. I used paintbrushes to do this, I especially liked the fan paint brushes, but all sizes are useful (though of course I used a spoon to scoop it off until I got to the rose itself and had to be more delicate. You have to be careful b/c if you pull it out without getting the silica out it will cause petals to break off as they are dry and fragile now. If you're too impatient you can try slowing pooring the silica out to unburry it but be very careful b/c you could break your flower easily which is why i don't do it. Either way you'll still have to dust off a lot of silica especially from the inside of the rose.

    You'll find that depending on the shape of the rose when you dried it and the size of it many of it's petals may be loose. At that point I took a needle and syringe (dad's a veterinarian) though you could probably do it using another small applicator. And I place beads of glue all around the loose petals and any places where I was concerned the rose might fall apart. I've used regular white glue as well as rubber cement and both work though rubber cement is a lot faster.

    Let the glue dry. Then you'll take the green wire stems for floral arrangements and floral tape (you can get it at walmart) and you'll rap the wire around the stem and then wrap the tape over the stem and wire to make them look seemeless.

    Then you're ready to go.

    As a side note you can try glueing the petals before you dry them but silica gets stuck to the glue if you don't let it fully dry and by then your flower could be wilting so I just dry it after.

    Hope that helps you in the future and anyone else who's interested in drying roses or really most other flowers. Except for flowers like daylillies - they don't work very well with this method.

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