As for our own dried-floral designs, we do some of the floral preservation ourselves. Our lemon leaf is air-dried and color preserved, the oak leaves, privet and plumosa, for instance, are glycerin preserved, and most of our roses are freeze-dried roses imported from overseas.

The simplest and most cost-effective way to preserve your flowers is to remove the leaves from the stems - unless these leaves have proven to dry well -  tie six to ten stems tightly together with string, and hang them upside down in a dark, dry space like a closet, near a working furnace or in the attic. Allow plenty of room for air circulation between the bunches, as this will aid the drying process and prevent mould from forming. A word of caution: Pick your flowers on a dry day - never after a shower, as moisture can be trapped between leaves and petals and can cause mould to develop.

When the flowers are dry to the touch and the stem-ends snap easily, the bouquet is completely dried which might be three to four weeks from hanging. You may leave them natural or spray them with a preservative spray (i.e. clear acrylic spray or old-fashioned shellac hair spray) to help them hold their form. The final success will depend on what type of flowers are in the bouquet and how well they dry while maintaining their original shape and color.

Some tips for specific flowers: Chinese lanterns, baby's breath, poppy seed-heads and globe thistles dry better right-side up. Simply place the plants in a wide-mouth jar or coffee can to dry.

When drying ageratums, hydrangeas, yarrows, alliums, bells-of-Ireland and heather, place them right-side up in a container with about 1/2-inch of water in the bottom. As the plants dry the water will evaporate. Hydrangeas also can be hung upside down, left on the plant but you have to make sure that they are picked at the right time (early September for New England)

Because they are top-heavy, it's best to dry fennel, dill, Queen-Anne's-lace and edelweiss by placing the stems through the holes in 1/4-inch hardware cloth. The hardware cloth will support the heavy heads, while the stems hang loosely below.

Globe Amaranth, strawflowers and immortelle have weak stems. These stems should be removed and replaced with florist's wire before the flower is dried. Cut the plant stem off 1/2-inch below the flower and insert floral wire up through the remaining stem and out through the center of the flower. Make a hook at the top of the wire, and pull it back down into (but not all the way through) the flower. The stem will shrink and dry tightly around the wire. Once the flower is dry, wrap floral tape around the stem and wire.

Flat, delicate flowers and foliage such as pansies, violas, tree leaves and ferns do especially well when pressed. Pick your flowers early in the day after the morning dew has evaporated. Flowers picked in the heat of the sun will not fare well. It is not necessary to have special equipment to press your flowers. You will need blotter paper which can be recycled newspaper, tissue paper or whatever you have on hand. As a flower press. you can use old encyclopedias, phone books or any other book of substantial weight. One other piece of equipment comes in handy is a tweezer to use when handling your very delicate flowers.

Lay down a piece of blotter paper and arrange the flowers, and/or leaves on the sheet so that they are aligned to your satisfaction. Do not allow leaves or petals to touch each other, and make sure they are not moist. If they are, you can blot them gently with a tissue. Otherwise the moisture can cause mildew and ruin the specimens. Next place another piece of blotter paper on top and enclose between the pages of the book.

Wait for a week to a fortnight (seven days for foliage and fourteen days for flowers), open the book and carefully remove the now paper-thin blooms. A very effective way of displaying your press-drieds is to place them between two small clear glass panes tied together tightly with ribbon or mount them on decorative paper to be displayed in a picture frame or sent as very special greeting cards.

Silica gel can be found in most craft and floral supply stores. It's actually not a gel at all, but a grainy substance that efficiently absorbs the moisture from flowers. Silica gel is popular because it preserves the flowers' original colors quite beautifully. You may try to preserve the entire bouquet or trim the flower stems, leaving only about an inch to preserve just the flower heads. Fill the bottom of an airtight container with a few inches of silica gel, and very carefully place the blooms upright in the silica; cover the flowers with more silica gel until the flower or bouquet is completely covered. Parts that are left uncovered tend to dry not as thoroughly. Then let them sit for five to seven days. But be patient.

When dry, you may again spray with the preservative spray. Keep in mind that a rose head which has not been completely dried will maintain residual moisture at its center and begin to rot and drop its petals whether it has been sprayed or not. Silica gel may be oven-dried (at 300 ° F) and reused. It is blue when dry and light pink when it has absorbed water.

As a great way for preserving foliage you can also treat it with glycerin. Glycerin will darken the natural color of most plants, but will keep the stems and leaves soft and retain the fragrance.

A mixture of one part glycerin to two parts very hot water is recommended for this drying procedure. Mix the two thoroughly together, then bring just to the boiling point. Pour enough of this hot glycerin mixture into a container which will cover the bottom 3 inches of the stems of the herbs you are drying. The plants you are drying should have the bottom of their stems crushed. This will ensure adequate absorption of the hot glycerin mixture. Leave the plants in the container.

It normally takes two to three weeks for this drying process to be completed. You will probably need to add more glycerin solution the first few days to keep 3 inches of stem covered. If you want to vary the naturally dark brown color that results from the glycerin process, add one fluid ounce of food coloring, florist dye (made of vegetables) or fabric dye per three cups of glycerin solution. The color resulting depends on how long you leave the foliage in the mixture. The preservation process has been completed when the foliage has turned either golden-brown (uncolorized solution) or obtained the color of your dye completely.

Addendum. One way of increasing the uptake of the glycerin solution by the stems is  place the plant material in a salt solution (1 tablespoon table salt/ gallon water) for 24 hours before placing them in the glycerin solution. Glycerin can be obtained from your local pharmacist. Unfortunately, it is not cheap. Request the technical grade of glycerin; it is less expensive than the laboratory grade.

Freeze-drying is the latest state-of-the-art technology for floral preservation and the preferable one if you wish to preserve the bouquet as close as possible with a fresh-floral-like look. In this process, flowers are dried with extreme cold within a vacuum chamber that extracts the moisture without greatly diminishing the flowers' quality (read more). Your arrangement will be reminiscent of their fresh counterparts retaining their natural beauty and elegance. You might find a freeze-dry service locally or on the internet (search engine key word: "freeze-dry"). Commonly, prices range from $50.00 to $150.00 depending on the size of the arrangement

The Nitty-Gritty Details OF Freeze-Drying

Freeze-drying is the process of removing water (moisture) from objects while maintaining their shape and biological structure.

Secondly, a vacuum lower than the pressure of outer space is created. One of the principals of chemistry is that you can lower the boiling point of water (moisture contained in a plant) by lowering the atmospheric pressure around it. By creating such a vacuum, it is even possible to lower the boiling (!) point of water until it is below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Now the beauty of this process is that at these low pressures it is not possible for water to assume liquid form and so it skips from its frozen state directly to vapor. The water vapor, in turn, is trapped onto a metal plate which has been brought to below minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. and is cold enough to refreeze the vapor on its surface. Eventually, the vacuum chamber is returned to room temperature and, with no more vapors collecting on the freeze-plate, the roses are absolutely dry.

Freeze-dried roses do have a life-span albeit a longer and more vibrant one than air-dried roses which tend to obtain more pastel colors. Also remember that a freeze-dried rose will re-absorb moisture if it exposed to it just like an air-dried rose.

The only way to keep a freeze-dried bouquet from reabsorbing moisture - which would decrease its life span - is by placing it in an airtight display case (shadow box) or permanently seal it in a block of clear acrylic or in a glass cube. These display options are commonly provided by most freeze-dry companies (search engine key word: "freeze-dry").