Interior design: Why dried flowers are trending this season

In full bloom: Fake flowers in buds and undressed shaggy blossoms are seeing an incredible renaissance

A few discreet silk carnations sit with in a highly modern arrangement that blends in with a neutral setting. The Bauhaus stands and vases are deliver a tall sculptural eye-catcher Picture: iStock

Dried flowers are bristling up into an unexpected trend that’s reaching into this winter, and if all that comes to mind is the perpetually, moulting pampas grass waving from the back of the G-plan sofa in the 80s, it’s time to take another look at the decorative power of preservation.

Fake flowers in buds and undressed shaggy blossoms have already seen an incredible renaissance, pushing aside those cheap, funereal plug-on plastics phonies, in a popular growth spurt of hand-assembled latex, paper and silk blossoms, berries, branches and greenery.

Poked into garden cuttings, they offer a perennial repeat-flowering that lends itself to creative home arrangements. The shadings, translucency, fragile veining, stamens, pistons and delicate surface detail are a complete departure from the course open weave of mid-century nylon pretenders. Most of us have invited in a convincing asymmetric fake succulent in the past year to juice up a dull corner with impossibly dim lighting. So why go dry?

Preserved, dyed hydrangea mopheads in an unexpected rich ruby red. This low single blossom punch of colour is all you need. Picture: Dowsing & Reynolds

Fresh cut flowers die back in days, dried flowers as biodegradable, natural materials (unless trapped in resin or chemically altered) will desiccate and turn to dust. Roughed about, their taut, arid elements can easily snap and shatter. Still, properly produced and handled, they have a life span of months and potentially a year or more and star in repeat performances in new arrangements. Bunny tails, pampas and oat grass can be dyed or carry the muted, bleached out tones and sculptural characteristics that are perfect for our lean, clean, calming 2022 interiors.

Some flowers and plants lend themselves better to drying than others, xeranthemum, hydrangeas, some pom-pom headed dailies, cornflowers, salvias and grasses for example. Some species dry out naturally at the end of their flowering and fruiting season, and it’s generally the less juicy varieties that give up the ghost most easily, their petals creasing discreetly, the colours taking on a watercolour wash that hints at their summer splendour.

Freeze drying flowers was presented to the Royal Society by physicist and chemist William Hyde Wollaston in 1813.

The Victorians adored the out of season mystery of roses, teasels, ferns and they used dried flowers for everything from cheering up their Gothic parlours to frothing up their hats and gowns. It also suited their rather down-beat romantic bent towards the transient nature of life, celebrated in art and literature of the time. Pressing flowers was regarded as a very ladylike activity and botany a noble pursuit of the educated classes.

Preserved, dyed hydrangea mopheads in an unexpected rich ruby red. This low single blossom punch of colour is all you need.

More recently, air, silica and freeze-drying flowers provided hard-pressed florists and producers across Britain and Europe with an alternative during the Covid pandemic as events including most crucially weddings, were kiboshed by the dreaded virus.

With products well priced and creatively staged, a trend sprung into life, signalled heavily on Etsy and Instagram, where mail order offered homemakers a crafting moment. Reported searches for dry flowers both in arrangements and single sprays on Etsy during 2020 to 2021 have increased in the area of 90%-110%.

Most florists and many home and garden outlets offer a good range of dried flowers, grasses and dramatic seed-heads. Some are delivered in unlikely screaming loud colour dyes, just a matter of taste.

There are extremely high-end possibilities for gifting in this forever garden that explode memories of that crispy fly-spotted blooms in your auntie’s down-stairs guest cloakroom. Take a look at Anthropologie’s Fox Flower Fruit Salad with fake and dried flowers and twisted branches in a lush Dutch masterpiece. €350, anthropologie.com.

For something less extravagant, expect to pay in the same area as you would for fresh flowers from the florist. For example, a large composition tied in a bow and boxed, created in Ireland in a choice of peacock feather, pink avena, star grass, preserved white gypsophila, pink phalaris, white banksia, grey bunny tails, pink miscanthus, white ruscus, limonium, lavender, astilbe, and amaranthus — would price in the area of €40-€75 including delivery. thegarden.ie at Powerscourt Townhouse. Vases, if not included, are often offered at a reasonably costed extra.

New Moon Blooms, the firm of designer Sharon Griffin (described as Ireland’s leading floral story-teller), work with Irish growers to produce unique dried imaginings in species including aniseed, miscanthus, wheat stems, chrysanthemum grass, bleached thistle and angel’s hair suited to interiors and weddings. The arrangements will last at least a year, with prices from €35, newmoonblooms.ie

Mixing up a synthetic colour with the curious geometry of a large thistle head can prove fascinating. Keep in mind that once on display, UV light will start fading your flowers’ natural or synthetic colour, so keep them out of direct day-long light if at all possible. Windowsills are less than ideal. If you want to have a go at drying botanicals yourself and the hydrangea is still bowed in bruised blue mopheads; air-drying is the easiest way in. Flowers and foliage are hung upside-down in bunches secured by tight elastics (the stems will shrink as they dehydrate) in a cool, dry, dark environment for up to three weeks.

Drying flowers is something of an art, so take the primers online to ensure you don’t simply rot plants out and attract winged insects. The smell will be a dead giveaway. Small flower heads like daisies and violets and sprigs of woody foliage can be dried out in a bath of silica granules in about five days, before being reattached to wires and wooden stems for height. It’s even possible to speed up the pressing and silica preservation of flowers using a microwave; cut plenty of fresh pieces and be prepared to experiment. Pressed flowers set over tables and then finished in a brushed or poured coat of resin are heavily trending on Etsy.

It’s a good idea to think about the vessel you’re using before you start any arrangement, just as you would with fresh flowers. The more skeletal nature of dried flowers, like eucalyptus, can show off a lovely piece of glass or ceramic, and with a regressive, sepia set of shades and upward thrust, won’t over-shadow its outline or colour. No water means transparent pieces and the stems inside them are magnified and celebrated more fully. Trawl Instagram for the latest dried flower table-centres and large scale arrangements by fashionistas worldwide.

Whether you buy the dry pieces in, or mix them with your own creations, they must remain dry, so avoid bathroom and kitchen settings for all but the most robust twiggy species. Cleaning stems and petals is tricky as they so easily break off and drop their detail. Blowing off dust with the low, cold setting on your hairdryer is often better than swatting the pieces. Dried flowers are dead and very slowly decaying, so expect some shedding as standard.