Pressing Flowers in the Texas Hill Country

I used to think wild flowers were a spring thing. Here in the Hill Country there are wildflowers every season even in the winter when the dried seed heads emerge from clumps of native grasses. Here are a few of the flowers blooming here in September.

 

Shortly after we had unpacked our boxes I went out walking with a basket and my secateurs. My brother-in-law and husband had made me wooden flower presses and I was eager to try pressing flowers from the land.

To load the press you lay a sheet of cardboard in the press and lay three sheets of blank newsprint above and below the flower. This absorbs any moisture on the flower and allows you to take the dried flower out of the press and lift it up off the newsprint with ease. I had a lot of extra newsprint left from packing plates and glasses when we moved.

It takes two weeks for the flowers to dry completely. Every few days I tighten the screws on the flower press to flatten the flowers.

What to do with all the flowers?!

I had admired vintage framed botanicals on the wall at Tiny Boxwood, a neighborhood restaurant in a garden in Houston. (Happy to find another nearby in Austin; more about this in another post). I wanted to create my own “vintage” framed botanicals and fill our powder room walls with framed flowers from the surrounding land. My first attempt was rushed as we had family coming over for dinner and I wanted it to look nice for them. I used a stack of frames we had packed and simply put the flower onto a piece of art paper and laid it on top of a contrasting piece of paper.

They looked all right, but as I continued to read and observe the art of pressed flowers I wanted to do more. Naturalists who preserve flowers want to include the roots whenever possible. During my morning perusal of websites I discovered jamjaredit.co.uk and learned it is important to collect wildflowers carefully so there will be new flowers in the coming season. I decided not to remove a flower and its root unless there was an abundance of the flower type. Melissa Richardson and Amy Fielding of JamJar Edit conduct workshops in the United Kingdom. I was fascinated to learn they do commission work as well, and will create a wall of pressed botanicals from the land of the person who commissions the work! This gave me the idea to create the wall of botanicals using flowers from our piece of land. As few days ago I saw Melissa Richardson and Amy Fielding had written a book together; The Modern Flower Press: Capturing the Beauty of Nature. I ordered a copy online and had it within days. I love the book. With chapters on the history of flower pressing, pressing and mounting flowers, individual flowers, and the wonderfully creative ideas they have for other projects with flowers this is quickly becoming a favorite book for me and perhaps would be for you!

I remembered the vintage botanicals I had seen had thin tape to hold the flowers in place and a label in the bottom right hand corner. I bought some thin archival tape online and searched for a sample specimen label.  I was able to find an image of one and recreate it to use again and again.

To complete the label I would need I to include the scientific and common name of the flower. You can look up the common name of a plant online and you will find the scientific name as well. However, I didn’t know the names of the flowers I was harvesting. As this was becoming a passion I decided to go online and order some identification guides. The two I’ve found most helpful so far are Wildflowers of Texas by Geyata Ajilvsgi and Wildflowers of the Texas Hill Country by Marshall Enquist.  I had such fun filling out the labels, using a fine ink pen to write Erigeron modestus, Wedelia texana, Heliotripium tenellum and more!

Here are some photos of the completed botanicals.

We would typically make a flower press out of cabinet grade plywood. If you want to use more exotic hardwood you could do so with ¾” wood, but this makes the press more costly.

If you don’t plan to leave it out as an interesting object, you can use regular plywood.

My husband made mine out of cabinet grade plywood as cabinet grade plywood is flat. He routed the edges so it would look nice and would not give me splinters.

He used carriage bolts, washers, and wing nuts to close the front and back of the press.  He drilled holes near each corner and along the edges at regular intervals. To load the press, you unscrew the wing nuts and lift up the top board and washers; lay in a sheet of cardboard, 3 sheets of newsprint, the specimen, and three additional sheets of newsprint, another sheet of cardboard, and so on until you have a stack about 2” from the top of the carriage bolts. Lower the top board and washers back onto the carriage bolts and screw the wing nuts down until they are all about the same level. I like to begin with each corner and then screw down the other bolts in a clockwise fashion, but you can do it in the way you like best.

My husband made me an extra long flower press for long stemmed wildflowers.  My brother-in-law had already made me a squarish press and a smaller rectangular press. You would be surprised at how quickly you can collect enough specimens to fully load the press!