Flower press: the best flower press to buy and how to press flowers

By Daisy Bowie-Sell

Published: Tuesday, 24 January 2023 at 12:00 am

Flower pressing can be one of the most wonderful ways of getting creative and extending the enjoyment of the plants in your garden, and beyond.

An age-old tradition, which was likely brought over to these shores from Japan in the 1800s, but pressed flowers can be traced way back to ancient Egypt.

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Flowers pressed by Jam Jar Flowers
© Andrew Montgomery

Different to drying flowers, pressing flowers is a way of preserving a flower or plant. Flower presses have not really changed much, and essentially work by flattening the plant between sheaths of cardboard and paper. Using a flower press is probably the easiest, least messy way of pressing flowers, but you can, of course, press them between almost anything flat and porous (books?).

How to press flowers

Read our piece from Jam Jar Flowers for more on pressing flowers. But below is a step-by-step guide.

  • Find the flowers you wish to press. This is a little more complicated than it sounds, and it is important that you have permission to take the flowers, and also that whatever you are taking is not doing damage to the plant, the surrounding eco-system, or is a rare specimen. Your choice of flower is also worth thinking of in terms of which flowers might press best: some flowers work better in presses than others. Delicate flowers, such as fennel, cosmos, poppies, geums and everlasting sweet peas are ideal.
  • Press fresh: flowers for pressing should be as fresh as possible and dry (not dewy).
  • Place and arrange on your flower press paper. Use tweezers, or something pointed to arrange them. Don’t forget that once the second piece of paper is on, it’s hard to open it up and rearrange. You want to try to arrange the bloom so it will flatten in the way you want it to look on the paper.
  • Place the second piece of paper over the top, putting pressure over it. Put the lid onto your flower press and screw down hard.
  • The less moisture the better. Leaving space around the flower helps the paper to draw out moisture.
  •  Press for weeks. The flowers should be left inside the press for four to six weeks until the paper and the flowers are perfectly dry.

 

Flower press: the best to buy

Suziko Flower Press, Flower Press Kit

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Let’s start with a full blown flower pressing kit. This Suziko flower press kit offers pretty much everything you might need to press flowers. Included in the flower press kit are all the tools such as wooden pressing plates, 30 pieces of lining paper, a pair of scissors, ziplock bags, tweezers, a craft knife, sponges and more. You can have up to six layers of flowers being pressed at the same time and the press is fairly compact, meaning you can quite easily take it outdoors. The press itself is made from hardwood and works without bolts, which can sometimes make your pressing uneven.