Dried flowers for everlasting funeral mementoes
Lisa Holt, Gate House Florals, Bridgnorth, Shropshire
A treasured handbag, decorated with dried flowers, makes an unusual personalised funeral tribute.
I’d like to give a shout out to dried flowers as a beautiful, graceful and sustainable option for a floral farewell tribute. Dried flowers are not the faded, brown and dusty flowers of the past. They are not ‘dead flowers’ but uniquely special. Flowers cut from a summer garden and dried naturally in a way that captures that moment in time, that garden; the colour, the petals, holding it in dried form. Imagine having flowers much loved like dahlias, delphiniums, roses and larkspur preserved as a memory of a person and a place. They are everlastings; colourful, characterful, providing a timeless delicate beauty in a long lasting arrangement.
If you would like a keepsake from the funeral, dried flowers are just perfect. Alternatively, you could ask your florist to include flowers in your arrangements which are well suited to drying. You could then simply remove them afterwards. There are lots of flowers which are easy to dry by hanging them upside down in a warm (and preferably dark) place. Once dried, the flowers will need to be kept in a damp-free environment and you’ll then be able to treasure them either in a vase or in a creative display of your own making.
Lisa runs Gate House Florals in Bridgnorth, Shropshire and loves making sustainable arrangements with both fresh and dried flowers.