The Best Flowers to Press in Summer

The long, warm days of Summer bring an abundance of beautiful blooms to the garden; a delightful myriad of colour and interesting botanical forms. There’s so much choice when it comes to flower pressing during the Summer months. Summer highlights for pressing include lavender (it smells divine when you open your flower press after three weeks too!), wonderful astrantia which always presses so well, vibrant crocosmia, and stunning frothy wild carrot (which has the charming name of Queen Anne’s Lace here in the UK). Achillea, fennel, scabious and sweet peas are also lovely to press. Remember that flowers with simple forms press better than thicker flowers - if you want to press thicker flowers such as roses, I’d recommend either just pressing the individual petals, or deconstructing the different elements and pressing them separately.

To achieve beautiful pressed flowers, it’s really important to use the best equipment - a quality flower press is essential, as are blotting paper and greyboard. Gather flowers from the garden around mid-morning, before the full heat of the day has set it, and make sure you leave plenty of blooms for the wildlife in the garden to enjoy!