Jan 19, 2021
How Long Do Preserved Flowers Last? What You Need To Know About Eternity Roses
The gift of flowers is a beautiful way to express unending emotion, pride, and love to another. It’s only natural to want to preserve such a tender gesture for as long as we are able. And, true to this, the preservation of flowers is a beautiful and long-practiced art form that anyone can accomplish given the proper tools and instructions.
Not only do preserved flowers make for charming decor, but they also, at their best, preserve those feelings associated with the original gift and joy at the thought of the giver. If you receive an arrangement of flowers for any special occasion, you may find yourself wanting to cherish them for longer than their natural life.
Few things in this world express love and beauty like a splendid flower arrangement. For centuries, flowers have been associated with sophistication, romance, and natural beauty. Whether they are part of a wedding ceremony or featured on a prom corsage, flowers add to the beauty of the event and make it memorable.
Through various methods of preservation, all those wonderful feelings wrapped up in the gift of flowers can be held for long after their natural shelf life. This guide will walk us through a number of different ways we can keep those flowers intact and beautiful.
Popular Methods of Preserving Flowers
Here are a few unique ways that you can preserve the gift of flowers from the comfort of your own home. Some of these techniques have a more lasting effect than others, but all will give you the opportunity to cherish those lovely blooms for longer than they might survive in a vase.
Pressing
One traditional method of flower preservation, and perhaps the most commonly popular, is known as pressing. This method involves first laying down your chosen flowers or petals onto a piece of clean wax paper, placed in the way you want them arranged. You will then place another piece of wax paper atop the flowers. Place these sandwiched flowers inside of a heavy book and place a heavy object or two on top.
This process can take a week or more for best results, but after sufficient time has passed, you may carefully remove the flowers from the wax paper—the result should be a beautifully flattened and preserved representation of the flowers you started out with. At this point, you may place them in your decoration of choice.
The advantage of pressing is that it’s quite simple and time-efficient. It’s also quite fun to do and makes a perfect craft activity with friends or children. This makes pressing a very popular activity, with many tutorials out there that you can use for instruction and advice.
This method is most effective for working with smaller flowers and may not produce results as satisfactory when dealing with larger ones. For example, roses will lose their shape if they are pressed, making this a less-than-ideal way to preserve them.
Drying
Like pressing, drying flowers has long been a popular creative and decorative method for preserving precious blooms. Air drying is the most popular method of drying roses by virtue of its simplicity and short-term effectiveness.
Here are the four essential steps to achieving the perfect air-dried bouquet:
Trim the rose: Using a pair of scissors, remove any excess leaves from the stem, and clean your rose of any dead or blemished petals. If you see any petals beginning to wilt, be sure and pluck them, as they may get in the way of more vibrant petals.
Cut the string: Prepare the string you are going to use to hang your rose or roses. You want it to be just long enough to tie to the stem and hang up in your chosen space.
Tie the stem: Look for a notch in the stem or minor split so you can anchor the string to the rose. Avoid placing your knot too close to the bloom. And please be sure the knot is tight! The last thing you want is that rose to splat headfirst on the ground.
Hang them up to dry: Tack up your string in a safe place away from direct sunlight or excess heat. Hang your rose securely upside-down, and wait!
The roses should be in a dry place free from moisture to avoid any chance of growing mold. Again, it is imperative that you keep your drying roses away from direct sunlight, or else they will begin to fade in color. Within 2-3 weeks, you should be enjoying fully dried-out roses to decorate with as you please.
Now, there are plenty of other methods that speed up the drying process, but these come with the added risk of damaging the rose you’re trying to preserve. Materials like silica gel and sand will often be used to this effect, and while they can be quite effective, it can be difficult to get all those grains out of the rose’s nooks and folds without damaging the flower’s structural integrity. It may take a few weeks, but air drying is considered the most efficient and foolproof drying method.
If the shortcomings of home preservation methods seem too much of a hassle to deal with, or if you simply wish to give the gift of long-lasting roses, Venus ET Fleur® offers custom-arranged bouquets of gorgeous, long-lasting roses in a vase, hatbox, and more.
The Eternity® Rose
Everyone loves the delicate scent of roses in their home. Something about the fragrance brings back special memories for everyone who encounters them. Venus ET Fleur prides itself on our magnificent Eternity Roses, which are full of that wonderful fragrance that you love so much about roses, which, best of all, allow you to enjoy it for months on end as opposed to other rose bouquets.
Our signature Eternity Rose arrangements are made from real roses that last up to a year with proper care, allowing you to enjoy the memory of the gift of flowers long after the expiration of their natural life.
Our Methods
Our Eternity Roses are created by a more sophisticated process than pressing or air-drying, though no less natural. We use real blooms grown in the rose fields of Ecuador, with each specimen carefully cultivated until it reaches a full bloom. Our roses enjoy natural light year-round due to their close proximity to the equator. From there, they are treated with a formula made from non-toxic and non-allergenic wax, as well as natural oils to preserve their delicate fragrance.
As a result of this dynamic and innovative process, our Eternity Roses will last a year or more with proper care, allowing you to enjoy their splendid beauty month after month.
Long-Lasting Arrangements to Dazzle and Delight
We offer a stunning variety of well-preserved arrangements in a wondrous spectrum of different colors and styles, including custom arrangements for those with singular tastes.
Admire, for instance, the elegant simplicity of one of Le Clair Cinq, one of our bestselling pieces. This stunning arrangement features five of our signature Eternity Roses housed in a crystal-clear lucite case that displays their radiance in all directions. This small piece is sure to grace any space in which it’s placed and is as size-efficient as it is gorgeous.
For a more outwardly expressive bit of floral décor, consider one of our Heart Box arrangements. This beautiful collection of fragrant Eternity Roses is set snugly in one of our elegant Parisian hat-box-inspired vessels and makes for a perfect gift for your special someone.
Final Remarks
Preserving flowers is not only a fun and rewarding craft but a creative process that can leave you with ever-lasting flowers that you can use for many different purposes. We hope this look into the flower preservation process provided you with some interesting ideas to try at home.
However, it’s perfectly understandable if you don’t want to go through all the effort of pressing, drying, or otherwise seeing to the preservation of your own flowers. That is where we at Venus ET Fleur shine and excel. We are renowned for delivering real roses that last up to a year with proper care. And whether you choose from one of our special collections or choose to design your own stunning arrangement, we are sure that you’ll be mesmerized by the natural beauty of our roses.
Sources:
https://www.wikihow.com/Dry-Flowers
https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Dry-Roses-Perfectly/
