The best and fastest way to dry flowers to retain color is using silica gel. I have no flower garden to harvest; buying an expensive substance that would be used rarely did not seem like a good idea. I tried air drying.
Some of the cockscomb was starting to brown in places. I only tried drying 3 stems by leaving them in 2 inches of water and placing the vase in a closet. Eventually, two dried. The third one collapsed into the bottom of the vase. Not too excited about the results.
The celosia did better. I put rubber bands around the stalks of 3 clumps, then I tied string around each clump and hung them upside down in the same closet as the cockscomb.
Most of the celosia lost its vibrancy but did not brown up or shrink as much as the cockscomb.
The lighter pink celosia came out best, but I only had one clump of that.
Here is some of the statice which dried on its own when spread out on newspapers. It is not as fragile as the celosia and retained color better.
The whole air-drying process in the closet took over two weeks. It was a messy process. When I read on the internet about air-drying cockscomb and celosia, it mentioned that one should try drying before the seeds showed up. Well, I do not know if it was my timing or if all the teeny seeds would have fallen out anyway.
The suitcase below the hung and vased flowers ended up with many small seeds about the size of a grain of ground pepper. So did the carpeting in the closet.
When I untied the dried flowers, I hit the flowerheads along the side of my kitchen sink to see what would fall out. Still lots of seeds in there!
Now that I have waited several weeks for drying to finish and cleaned up the mess, I do not really know how I will use these dried plants. I added them to the statice stored in a brown paper bag and put the bag back into the closet.
I have always liked dried flowers when I see them in magazine and book photos, but I am thinking the real thing is not too great. I guess I will stick with fresh flowers from the Farmers Market.
