How Long Does It Take to Press Flowers?
If you Google how long it takes to press flowers, you’ll see the same answer over and over: about two to four weeks.
That’s not necessarily wrong, but after pressing a lot of flowers, I’ve learned that the calendar is honestly only part of the answer. A tiny viola and a thick daisy are not going to dry at the same speed, and the exact same flower can take longer depending on the time of year, how much moisture was in it when you picked it, and even how humid your house is.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, so this is something I notice a lot. A batch I press during a warm, dry stretch can behave completely differently from a similar batch pressed when it’s been raining for a week.
So yes, two to four weeks is a decent starting point. But what I actually pay attention to now is the flower itself.
How do you know when a pressed flower is actually dry?
The best way I can describe a completely dry pressed flower is that it should feel papery.
Not just the edges of the petals, either. That part is important.
The outside edges are almost always going to dry first because they’re thin and exposed. The part I’m checking is whatever was thickest to begin with: the center of the flower, the base of the petals, a thicker stem, or anywhere several petals overlap.
If that area still feels cool, soft, slightly flexible, or at all like fresh plant material, I leave it in the press.
This is one of those things I learned by being impatient. I’ve definitely opened a press, decided something was “probably dry enough,” and taken it out because I wanted to use it. Sometimes it looks completely fine at first, which makes it even more tempting. Then a few days later the center starts to darken or the petals curl because there was still moisture trapped inside.
Now if I’m standing there debating whether something is dry enough, I usually take that as my answer and give it a few more days.
Some flowers are much easier than others
Thin, naturally flat flowers are by far the easiest to press. Pansies, violas, forget-me-nots, little wildflowers, ferns, Queen Anne’s lace and delicate leaves generally dry pretty quickly because there just isn’t much moisture for the press to remove.
These are also the flowers I usually recommend starting with if you’re new to flower pressing because they tend to make you feel like you know exactly what you’re doing.
Then you try to press a rose.
Thicker flowers are where the standard “two to four weeks” advice becomes less useful. Roses, peonies, dahlias, carnations and larger daisies can look dry on the outside long before the middle is actually finished.
And sometimes the answer isn’t to leave them in the press for another three weeks. Sometimes the flower was simply too thick to press whole in the first place.
That was a big lesson for me. I used to think that if I could physically get a flower into the press, I should be able to press it. That isn’t really how it works. With really dense flowers, you’ll usually get much better results by taking them apart and pressing individual petals, sections or florets instead.
It also gives you a lot more freedom later when you’re making pressed flower artwork because you can reconstruct the flower in a flatter, prettier way.
How long do different flowers take?
I don’t keep an exact countdown for every flower anymore, but there are some general patterns.
Very thin flowers may be finished somewhere around one to two weeks. Most average garden flowers are usually closer to two or three weeks. Thicker petals and blooms may need three to four weeks or even longer.
Flowers like pansies and violas tend to be on the faster side. Forget-me-nots and tiny wildflowers usually are too. Cosmos are generally pretty straightforward. Ferns and thin leaves dry well, although thicker or waxier leaves can be surprisingly slow.
Daisies are a good example of why I don’t rely only on the petals. Their petals can feel completely dry while the center is still holding moisture.
Hydrangea florets usually do well, but a big dense hydrangea cluster is a different story. Rose petals are much easier to deal with than an entire rose. Peony petals can press beautifully, while a whole peony is absolutely not where I would tell somebody to start.
There really isn’t one drying time that works for everything.
Humidity matters more than people realize
This is one of the things I rarely see mentioned enough in flower pressing instructions.
Your press isn’t sealed off from the environment around it. If the air is humid, the moisture in your flowers is going to take longer to leave. If your house is warm and dry, the exact same flower may dry faster.
I’ve had batches of similar flowers take noticeably different amounts of time, and sometimes the only real difference was the weather.
That’s another reason I don’t love telling people, “Take them out on day 14.” Day 14 in a dry house in August and day 14 during a wet Washington fall are not necessarily the same thing.
Do you need to change the blotting paper?
Sometimes.
Blotting paper helps pull moisture away from the flowers, which is why it’s such an important part of a traditional flower press.
With thin flowers, I usually prefer to leave everything alone and let the press do its job. Every time you open the press, you create another opportunity to move a petal, tear something or accidentally stick a partially dried flower to the paper.
Thicker or wetter flowers are a little different. If I open a press and the blotting paper is noticeably damp, I’ll replace it with dry paper.
The annoying part is that partially dried flowers are probably at their most fragile. They’re no longer soft and flexible like a fresh flower, but they aren’t completely dry and stable yet either. That’s when petals seem to stick to absolutely everything, so you have to be careful when moving them.
How often should you check your flower press?
Not nearly as often as you’re going to want to.
There is something about putting flowers into a press that suddenly makes three days feel like an unreasonable amount of time. Especially if it’s a flower you’re excited about.
I’ve opened presses early plenty of times just because I wanted to see what was happening. Then I’m trying to line everything back up exactly where it was and wondering why I didn’t just leave it alone.
Unless I’m pressing something especially wet and know I may need to change the paper, I try to give the flowers time to settle and start drying before I mess with them.
Once I know everything is drying normally, I mostly leave the press alone.
What happens if you take pressed flowers out too early?
Sometimes, frustratingly, nothing happens right away.
You take the flower out and it looks great. It’s flat, the color looks good, and you think you got it right.
Then it starts curling.
Or a spot in the center turns brown.
Or the flower still feels slightly soft when you pick it up a few days later.
Or, worst case, there was enough moisture left for mold to develop.
I had one batch early on that I was especially excited about, so naturally I checked it too soon. One of the flowers looked completely finished from the outside, but when I touched the base I could tell it was still a little soft.
And I took it out anyway.
A few days later, it had curled and darkened in exactly that spot.
That was probably the moment I really stopped treating the number of days in the press as permission to take something out. If the flower is still telling me it has moisture in it, I listen to the flower now.
Wedding flowers usually need a little more planning
If you’re pressing flowers from a wedding bouquet, I would give yourself extra time and expect different pieces of the bouquet to finish at different rates.
Wedding arrangements tend to include exactly the kinds of flowers that are trickier to press: roses, peonies, ranunculus, hydrangeas and other layered blooms.
You also don’t want to lose an important flower because you were trying to rush it.
For larger flowers, I usually think about how I’m eventually going to use them before I press them. If I’m creating framed art, I probably don’t need a three-dimensional rose smashed completely flat. I can press the petals separately and rebuild the general shape later.
That tends to dry more reliably and gives me a lot more control over the final arrangement.
Can you leave flowers in a press too long?
Within reason, I’m much less worried about leaving flowers in the press too long than taking them out too soon.
If something stays in there an extra week because I forgot about it, I’m not panicking.
Once everything is fully dry, I do prefer to remove the flowers and store them flat somewhere clean, dark and protected until I’m ready to use them. But an extra few days in the press is usually not the thing that’s going to ruin your flowers.
Taking them out while they’re still damp can.
The easiest way to get better at flower pressing
One thing that helped me more than any drying-time chart was simply paying attention to my own results.
You start learning your flowers after a while.
I know which flowers I can pick from my yard and press without thinking much about them. I know which ones tend to change color. I know which stems I should trim off before they ever go into the press and which blooms I’m better off taking apart.
If you’re just getting started, write down what you press and roughly when you pressed it. It doesn’t need to be a complicated flower pressing journal. Even something as simple as “purple pansy — two weeks — perfect” or “daisy — petals dry, center needed longer” is useful.
After a few batches, you’ll start seeing patterns.
That’s also the point where flower pressing gets a lot more fun, because you stop feeling like you have to follow a set of instructions perfectly and start understanding what the flowers are actually doing.
So, how long does it take to press flowers?
For most flowers, somewhere around two to four weeks is still a perfectly reasonable estimate.
Just don’t treat it like an expiration date on the press.
Check the thickest part of the flower. It should feel completely dry, lightweight and papery, with no coolness or softness left.
If you’re not sure, leave it a few more days.
I have regretted taking flowers out too early.
I have never stood over a perfectly dried flower and thought, “Damn, I really wish I had taken this out three days sooner.”
If you’re ready to try it yourself, our reusable maple flower presses use firm, even pressure with blotting layers to help pull moisture away as your flowers dry. Start with something easy like pansies, violas or a few little wildflowers, write down the date you put them in, and then do your best to forget they exist for a little while.
That last part is harder than it sounds.
