Instructions

1. Cut flowers in the middle of a dry morning, once the dew has lifted. A petal that goes in wet browns at its edges and the brown never lifts out again.
2. Pick blooms that are fully open but not yet dropping. A bud will not open in the machine, and a flower past its best sheds its petals across the tray.
3. Strip the leaves and cut the stem back to a stub. Leaves and stems hold water long after a petal is finished and they will hold the whole load back.
4. Shake each head downwards rather than rinsing it. Water pools in the throat of a bloom and there is no getting it back out, while a shake is enough to move any insects on.
5. Lay them face up and not touching, and push a rolled strip of paper under any head that wants to flop. A petal that dries folded sets in that fold permanently.
6. Dehydrate at 57 °C for 8 hours, and expect a daisy to be finished in a fraction of the time a rose needs. Sort the trays by size so one can come out without disturbing the rest.
7. A flower is ready when the thickest part — the base of the head, where the petals meet the stem — rustles rather than gives. The petals are papery long before that and are not the part to test.
8. Colour will fade by roughly a shade and reds go furthest. That is unavoidable and is not a sign the run went too long.
9. Keep them boxed away from light with a silica sachet if you have one, and handle them as little as you can. Dried petals take moisture back out of a humid room and go limp within a day.