Wildflowers to Dry in June

Wow, June has come around so, so quickly. I feel like I hardly had to time to breathe in May and now spring has gone and summer is here.

It’s about this time of year when my mind begins to shift away from dried flowers to drying flowers.

This past week, with most of my installation work behind me for a few weeks, I spent a day working through all my dried flowers. Pulling out stems that are past their best (yellowing, faded or simply too brittle to work with) to make space for all the new material that will soon be hanging in the studio as the season gathers pace.

As I walk through the garden and along the verges around our home, I find myself noticing more and more plants that can be dried. As we move away from the delicacy of spring blooms, the door opens to the sturdier stems of summer, flowers, grasses and seedheads that dry beautifully and provide an incredible palette of texture to work with during the darker months

.The weather is also perfect for drying right now. As ever, we are looking for a space that is free from moisture, away from direct sunlight and maintained at a relatively consistent room temperature. My studio was designed with exactly this purpose in mind.

As flowers dry, they release moisture into the air, so I have my dehumidifier running most days and it fills up surprisingly quickly. I know the ideal drying environment so well now that I can walk through the studio door and immediately sense when there is too much moisture in the air. That feeling is usually my cue to switch the dehumidifier on.

Right now there is an abundance of flowers, grasses and seedheads to be gathered and dried. In this article, I’m sharing some of my favourite wild plants to dry at this point in the season.

If this article inspires you to go out searching for materials to forage then I thought it worth sharing a few of my tips for how to forage with care.

As with all foraging, please ensure that you collect plant material responsibly and ethically. If you are ever in doubt about whether a plant can be picked, take the time to do your research before reaching for the secateurs.