Carolyn Dunster

As florists we demand perfect performance from our blooms. They are the tools of our trade and when it comes to creating floral displays we demand the very best. Our aims and intentions are to showcase nature at its most glorious - albeit in stylized form. We want to design show-stopping bouquets, bunches and arrangements that garner temporary admiration. Any ingredients not at their peak will be discarded without a thought – a faded petal or a curling leaf will end up as nothing more than refuse or compost with no chance to shine. In contemporary culture flowers seem to have lost their value unless they are seen at the height of their beauty. 

Like many other floral obsessives, I have always been a fickle flower lover. I cannot ever lay claim to a favourite – my preferences change from week to week and even from day to day depending on what happens to be in season. My tendency is to develop a crush on one particular variety whilst it is in its prime. I will then swiftly turn my attention to another – it’s the florist’s gaze and I cannot deny that the constant change is one of the reasons why I enjoy working with flowers. They mark out my year and, like extended family members, I look forward with anticipation to greeting them at the appropriate moment only to wave goodbye quite happily once their visit is over. Recently, however, I have started to question these transient infatuations on blooms in their first flush. How do I develop longer lasting attachments and let go of the idea that their beauty is disposable and fleeting - worth only a few days of my attention? 

In researching and writing a book about dried flowers I have come up with some answers. 

For the last few years I have been experimenting with drying and preserving flowering plants in order to give them a second chance. This involves techniques that have been practised for millennia as a means of extending their natural lifespan. It is a way of seeing beyond the flush of youth and to look closely at what comes afterwards. Historically, plants were revered both for their medicinal properties and religious purposes. They were considered precious at every stage of their cycle and were not viewed as a constantly changeable lifestyle commodity. They had a purpose that went beyond the pretty. To dry and preserve flowers successfully requires time and patience along with very gentle handling. Learning how to do this provides an opportunity to see and touch them in a different way and to think again about what constitutes perfection.

Trial and error are also involved but these days it is a lovely respite to be able to do something that requires no technology or complicated equipment. There is delayed gratification in producing something for the longer term. Dried flowers are, of course, the answer to seasonal flower arranging and they represent a sustainable option when it comes to decorating for parties and events as they can be recycled and reused many times over. They bridge the gap when there is a lull and deficit in fresh materials and give us the chance to see the beauty in decay. Looking closely as brightly coloured petals mottle and mellow, grasses begin to bleach, and foliage turns crispy on the branch, we gain a greater appreciation for the rhythms of the natural world.

It is possible to dry or preserve any kind of plant material. Seed pods, grasses, foliage, ferns and mosses are visually stunning as they lose their moisture content. They provide the perfect components for creating vignettes of plants captured in time or real life ‘nature mortes’. Those flowers best known for their drying qualities, such as strawflowers (Helichrysum), statice (Limonium) and mop-head hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) provide pops of colour but it is also exciting to experiment with the unexpected. A glut of self-seeded early flowering spurges (Euphorbia) threatened to take over my growing space and needed thinning out. Instead of throwing them on the compost heap I hung them up to dry and the results were fantastic - their acid green bracts remained intact and zingy for many months. I discovered that dome-shaped umbellifers and spiked flower heads retain their original shape when dried suspended on their stems whilst flowers from the daisy or Asteraceae family tend to close up if they are hung upside down but will stay open when laid out flat on some kind of support grid. Over a period of time everything will start to change its appearance - stems, petals and leaves become desiccated and brittle. Colours deepen taking on new hues and seed heads shrink to their skeletal forms. The ageing process takes place before our eyes and invites us to see beyond the youthful surface.

Because there are no water requirements when it comes to arranging dried flowers it is possible to find new ways of displaying them, allowing us to explore our creativity and show case them in different ways to their live counterparts. Their stems are often rigid and inflexible – they won’t be coaxed to flex and bend like a fresh flower but will position themselves naturally and all we have to do is follow their lead and allow them to do the talking. If their undersides are on show revealing them, for once, feels liberating.  We can treat them as semi-permanent natural artworks. By playing around with scale we can create unexpected arrangements choosing vessels and containers that do not have to be watertight or we can suspend them as clouds in mid-air to create a talking point that floats above our heads. 

The ancient Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi is the key to learning how to fall in love with dried plant materials. In Japanese culture everything has its own intrinsic value – no single object whether new or old is worth more than another. For example, the withering faded blossoms of the cherry trees or sakura are revered just as much as the fresh young buds. The main principles of wabi-sabi are impermanence, simplicity, imperfection, melancholy and asymmetry. These are all elements that come into play during the process of drying and styling dried flowers. If we take inspiration from embracing the perfectly imperfect results we have the answer to letting go. It applies not just to flowers but to life itself.

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Carolyn Dunster is a botanical stylist, planting designer and garden writer. She trained at the Inchbald School of Garden Design and creates planting schemes for small urban plots. She grows as many flowers as possible in her own tiny garden in north London to use in her cut flower work. “Urban Flowers,” published by Frances Lincoln in 2017, shows readers how to do this themselves.

Carolyn works regularly with the RHS. In 2016 she staged a small cutting garden at Hampton Court Flower Show that won a silver medal and the RHS People’s Choice award. At this year’s show, now postponed until September, she will be talking about how to grow flowers for cutting and drying.

Carolyn writes about flowers, plants and productive gardens for various UK gardening and lifestyle magazines.