Craftspeople Bex Partridge dries home-grown flowers to make incredible everlasting art and arrangements.

Bex Partridge in her former Surrey studio, crafting wreaths and wall hangings from homegrown dried fl owers.

Secrets of Eternal Life

Jacky Hobbs talks to Bex Partridge, who has developed a range of special techniques for drying her home-grown flowers to make incredible everlasting art and arrangements

Bex Partridge’s summer allotment billowed with pretty flowers: it was a tightly knit patchwork of colours and textures, dancing with butterflies and abuzz with bees. A gardener and floral artist, Bex is passionate about growing, mostly from seed, the flowers and seedheads that she uses to create her long-lasting floral arrangements, decorative wreaths and larger installations. She’s inspired by nature, working with the seasons to capture their ephemeral beauty and preserve and prolong precious moments in time by desiccating and drying flowers, fronds, seedheads and leaves.

Above Many of Bex’s dried flowers are annuals grown from seed and include love-in-a-mist and cosmos. She happened across the art of preserving flowers by chance. A neglected vase of formerly fresh blooms, inadvertently left to desiccate, changed into a pleasing, seemingly immortal, gentler form. Intrigued, Bex began to experiment, growing and drying a host of different flowers and seedheads way beyond the remit of traditional dried flowers like statice. “Initially I grew allotment annuals – anything and everything,” she recalls. “Now I grow what I’ve learned works and add a sprinkling of newness.” Stalwarts include love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) and cornflowers, (Centaurea cyanus), brilliant for both flowers and their seedheads; bold and colourful zinnias; the trailing chenille tassels of love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus) in greens and pinks; sphere-headed giant garlic, Allium ampeloprasum ‘Elephant’; spires of larkspur; star-bright linen flowers, Linum grandiflorum ‘Bright Eyes’; and drums of rattling poppy seedheads. Bex and her family have recently moved to a more spacious location in Devon, but every inch of her previous plot, a five-minute stroll from her former home in Surrey, was cultivated. And a third of the family allotment, once entirely dedicated to growing edibles, was given over to flower production – “following hard negotiations with my husband,” notes Bex with a smile. Her husband grew squash, courgettes, beans, onions and beet leaves alongside herbs including dill and borage, with rhubarb tucked in at the foot of a productive infant pear tree. Set at right angles to the crops, five metres long and two metres wide, was a tightly packed tranche of flowers, row upon row, for cutting and drying. “Growing space was always maximised. I’d uproot the nigella as soon as I had its seedheads, making space for the second sowing of flowers. Later, rudbeckias and dahlias would creep into the gaps left when we’d picked the crops,” Bex explains.

Everything on the allotment was grown from seed. “Many plants were sown in situ, but a few got a head start in our greenhouse,” says Bex. “I inherited a love of gardening from my mother and grandmother. Like me, my children heaved buckets of rainwater, collected from water butts beneath the allotment’s shed roof to spill over the plantings.” The resultant plethora of summer blooms brought pollinators,

butterflies and bees to the patch, increasing the biodiversity of the pretty and productive idyll. “My boys loved to visit, picking strawberries, bug hunting and butterfly counting,” she adds.

Bex founded her dried-flower venture, Botanical Tales, five years ago, believing she could grow and supply enough annuals from her sole dedicated patch. Fuelled by early success, she then planted her garden with fuller, fatter-flowered herbaceous perennials and shrubs for drying: roses, peonies, ranunculus, echinacea, rudbeckias, astrantia, hellebores, pansies, violas and even tulips. “Summer time is bumper-harvest time,” she notes, “and you need to pick flowers in their prime, unless you’re growing for seedheads, which develop later.”

Outside the summer window, there are lots of opportunities to gather additional natural materials for drying. Foraging, especially in woodland areas, brings irresistibly rich pickings: “Think plump red rosehips, browning leaves of bracken, fir cones and twisted, gnarly branches found lying on the ground,” says Bex. These ‘wild’ materials are all always gathered considerately, legally and with sustainability in mind.

Bex works using various drying techniques, but simply suspending flowers upside-down is her go-to method for drying the majority of what she picks, since it is both effective and highly decorative. Her previous studio, a neat, tidy and organised work area in a coveted corner of the family’s living space, was a brilliant trove of upended blooms. Artfully

Top left Picking statice and love-in-a-mist, ready to hang to dry. Top right Bex perfects an arrangement of seedheads and flowers. Left As its common name of strawflower suggests, Helichrysum bracteatum is a perfect bloom for drying.

strung from branches of foraged birch, drying bunches of colourful flowerheads – echinops, larkspur, achillea, amaranthus, cornflowers and helichrysum – looked more like an art installation than a drying rack. With all her materials directly to hand, Bex could simply reach up and pluck specimens to be tied into decorative floral crescents for wreaths, wall hangings and arrangements.

That bijoux nook was lined with shelves spilling with experimental desiccations, jars of deepening pink blossom, ‘antiqued’ tulips and ruffled

Above, from left peonies. “In lockdown Beautifully preserved I experimented with garden flowers; layers of petals in a dried rose flowerhead; any fallen upright air-drying of my garden peonies, petals are saved to make ranunculus and tulips, a mixed pot-pourri. forgoing the more Left Heavier flowers are slotted into an upturned crate so their petals are complicated traditional silica-drying method,” supported as they dry. she says. The studio’s conditions, warm, dry and away from direct sunlight, helped to create charming dried flowers. To showcase them, Bex crafted a rudimentary flower-frog-style base from a packet of clay, to hold the preserved flowers and keep their natural character intact. “The striped, faded tulips are preciously fragile and really delicate to work with,” warns Bex. When accidents occur, fallen petals are salvaged and added to a mixed petal pot-pourri – nothing is wasted.

Exploring these techniques, Bex has found that roses and other open and heavier-headed flowers, such as echinacea, zinnias, dahlias and umbellifers, dry better facing upwards, their heads supported, slotted and held between the slats of an upturned bulb crate. The flowers dry attractively, in a more ‘open’ fashion, a method that has inspired artworks of collated flowerheads framed in garden sieves.

Pressing flowers is another age-old way of preserving smaller, flatter, more delicate blooms like pansies and violas. Small treasures are placed,

How to dry flowers

The drying technique Bex selects depends on the type of plant material she is using. “Certain blooms respond better to specific methods: some are simple, others are more complicated,” she explains. However, all material is largely prepared for drying following the same basic principles:

l Stems should be harvested in their absolute seasonal prime when they’re in full bloom. l Choose the best flowers for drying, which are free from damage, tears, insect nibblings and unsightly blemishes. Imperfections will become increasingly obvious once dried. l Pick when conditions are dry to minimise moisture content and drying time. Damp or dew-laden pickings are prone to mould and rot. Reduce initial moisture content by laying flowers out to dry on tissue or newspaper before ‘processing’. l Strip stems of all unwanted foliage, leaving a few decorative fronds around the flowerheads to “add a bit of texture and give a more natural appearance” before drying.

Air-drying is a simple and effective method of desiccating cut-stems. Bex has perfected her ‘giving-living, leave-everlasting’ method by creating loose arrangements of fresh flowers, with plenty of room for air to circulate. These arrangements then ‘wither’ in the vase to create an everlasting bouquet.

Flowers with larger, flatter heads and petals that fall open with downward gravity, like echinacea and rudbeckia, will benefit from an ‘upright’ drying method, as do classic dried flowers such as statice and helichrysum. The appearance of grasses and seedheads, meanwhile, remains little altered whichever way up they are dried.

flattened and dried using a traditional flower press. “In a few weeks you have wafer-thin, delicate flowerheads perfect for creating an everlasting floral montage behind glass,” she explains. She would also press larger, more slender material, such as foliage and ferns, placing them between sheaves of paper and pressing them flat beneath the living room rug!

Bex and her family are now getting established in a rural location in Devon, leaving her fruitful allotment and town garden behind. Her dried flower arrangements, larger bookings and workshops have recently resumed and she’s even found time to write her first book, Everlastings: How to grow, harvest and create with dried flowers. Bex has succeeded in growing and preserving a much wider collection of natural plant material for her craft than is usual. She has mastered the art of drying decoratively, bringing the beauty of the outdoors indoors. n

Top Bex finds that hanging loose bunches upside down to dry is the best method for most flowers. Above right A wall hanging featuring helichrysum and the seedheads of grasses. Above left A display of delicate dried peony and tulip flowers. Sign up to Bex’s monthly newsletter and follow her on Instagram @botanical_tales. For more information, visit botanicaltales.com

ON SALE 10 MAY Next issue

Glorious early-summer gardens

• Dreamy borders at Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire • Rockcliffe, a quintessential English country garden in the Cotswolds • Roses galore in the private garden of David Austin Junior • A florist’s cutting garden in West Sussex • Cottage garden charm in a small Derbyshire village

PLUS A preview of what’s to come at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show; choosing the perfect piece of garden sculpture; and the very best achillea to grow

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The Reviewer

A selection of the best writing on the shelves this month

A Greener Life

by Jack Wallington Orion, £19.99

Jack Wallington’s easy, approachable style won him plaudits for his 2019 book, Wild About Weeds: Garden Design with Rebel Plants. He brings this same character to A Greener Life as he presents environmentally friendly approaches to gardening with an intimacy borne of personal experience. Describing himself as an ecological gardener, Wallington has created over 70 gardens with regenerative, wildlife-friendly planting at their heart. He wasn’t always a designer, however. He discovered his vocation while looking after his own 5m x 6m patio garden, which became the springboard for his decision to retrain in horticulture with the RHS and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. His environmental concerns grew in tandem. “Coming home each time to our garden, I soon realised that the only difference between it and a wild space was me,” he writes.

This is a clearly presented work, with accessible topic headings and plenty of good advice sprinkled with engaging personal anecdotes. The message at the book’s heart is to adopt a greener way of being and to see oneself as part of nature, not removed from it. On this point it is exceptional, distinguishing itself from many of the green gardening books written in recent years. Most notable is the chapter on encouraging ecosystems, in which Jack suggests plants for weed suppression along with the showstoppers; further thoughts on plants he’s tried himself are useful.

Containers in the Garden

by Claus Dalby Cool Springs Press, £22

The best potted displays are neither closely matched nor disparate but balance subtle cohesion with enough interest to hold the eye and thus earn their place in the garden. They need near-constant watering and feeding, and for these reasons only the most adept of arrangers can pull them off at scale. Popular Danish designer Claus Dalby certainly falls into this category, and Containers in the Garden provides a masterclass on growing in pots. Dalby’s seasonal schemes are a triumph of exuberant colour and form, and this work offers pages of transporting seasonal inspiration for anyone who has wondered where to start on container growing. He draws from decades of growing experience, and consequently the book is packed with hard-won advice on such topics as using the colour green effectively, staging pots and extending the growing season. The Vegetable Grower’s Handbook

by Huw Richards DK, £16.99

When conditions are right, crops from a vegetable garden can be abundant to the point of a gardener seldom needing to buy produce from the supermarket. Huw Richards has optimised the process and here guides the reader through productive gardening with the efficiency of a personal trainer.

Driven by his mission ‘to escape from a busy world and relish every harvest’, Richards covers the breadth of vegetable growing, from setting goals to developing skills for efficiency and fine-tuning productivity techniques. A chapter entitled ‘Eliminating Issues’ considers year-round weed control, disease prevention and frost protection. This focus on goals points to the fact that good garden practice will bring reward. This book is concisely written and clearly illustrated, making it easy to pick up new techniques and perfect existing ones.

A Passion For Snowdrops: A Personal Perspective

by George G. Brownlee Whittles Publishing, £15.99

George G. Brownlee specialises in tiny things. A Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and the Royal Society, the pathologist has made his career in researching nucleic acids in RNA and DNA. Perhaps, then, it is little surprise to learn that he is also a passionate galanthophile, training his eye on the minute differences between the many varieties and species that comprise the compelling Galanthus genus.

Here Brownlee presents his own experience of growing these beautiful winter flowers. The foreword by Dr Chris Thorogood and Professor Simon Hiscock, both of the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, meanwhile, hints at the discipline with which Brownlee approaches his topic.

This work gathers together the knowledge Brownlee has gained over 30 or so years of growing snowdrops. In this respect, it is an excellent introduction to the topic and would make a superb handbook if you are considering starting a collection or wish to expand what you have. There are notes on growing techniques that include division and disease prevention, as well as suggestions of good bedding companions. Galanthophiles will be interested in descriptions of his favourite snowdrops, as well as a selection of 15 snowdrops that could form the basis of a collection. Later chapters outline subspecies and notable collectors, while a useful directory of specialist snowdrop breeders around the world is also provided.

The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments

by Nigel Palmer Chelsea Green, £20

As spring takes hold and hoeing, sowing and planting gather pace, it can be heartening to think that our labours will result in abundant harvests. It is also tempting to raid a garden centre for products that might assist with this: fertilisers, particular additives and even pesticides and herbicides. Author Nigel Palmer points out, however, that most of what we need is actually already in the garden, and in this book he outlines many other natural ways to boost the fertility of our outdoor space.

Some of these include familiar routes – making our own compost or comfrey tea for example – but Nigel’s focus is on viewing the garden as a complete ecosystem. Amendments are intended to influence all-round health through such aspects as mineral availability, pest-resistance and nutrient density. Some material here will be too specific for the average gardener – although capturing micro-organisms for a garden ferment is surely no different from making a sourdough starter – but as sustainable and regenerative growing gain relevance, this book is a valuable reference. Skills For Growing

by Charles Dowding No Dig Garden, £22.50

With both the RHS and RBG Kew having adopted the no-dig method of vegetable growing in certain gardens, Charles Dowding’s success at promoting this seemingly easier, gentler way to garden is in little doubt.

Charles enjoys a large online following, particularly on YouTube, and to support his online courses, he now presents Skills For Growing, a detailed look at holistic ways to achieve more on the vegetable patch. While he does outline the principles of starting a no-dig bed, many techniques here are for more experienced growers. There are schedules for intercropping, raising half-season vegetables on the shoulders of the main growing period, as well as multi-sowing and spacing. Those who record precisely when they sow, measuring results year on year, will appreciate that Dowding does the same here: he is honest about failures and what can be improved upon. Notable chapters advise on perennial crops and seed collection. The book could be structured more rigorously, but Charles is skilled at explaining topics clearly and this is a minor issue.

Q&A

Garden designer and landscape architect Marian Boswall specialises in sustainable, regenerative gardens, and her book, Sustainable Garden, brings this expertise to the public

What does sustainability mean for home gardeners? What sort of thinking does it involve?

It’s important to understand what will make you happy. Think about what you enjoy and have more of that and less of what you don’t enjoy. Think about the rhythms of the year and what energy you have when, so you can make sure the garden works in that way. Work with what the land wants to be. Look after the soil, by not poisoning it and by not poisoning yourself with petrol fumes and glyphosate. Have things that will do you good. You could have a herb garden, or you could just have an apple tree and really inhale the tree as you pass by.

Who have been your influences in terms of your own thinking on sustainability?

I’m very interested in regenerative farmers and I’ve been talking to William Watson of Riverford about putting in wetlands and bringing back beavers: that’s what I find exciting. There’s a lot of crossover between regenerative farming and gardening sustainably. Martin Crawford is a forest gardener who I find interesting. The philosopher Charles Eisenstein, who wrote The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, has fascinating ideas.

Describe some straightforward ways we can all be more sustainable in our gardens.

Recycle your own stuff and, if you can, create your own compost. That might seem like a big deal in a town garden, but you can have a wormery or a bokashi bin that will take any kitchen scraps. This works on many levels, one of which is to show you how much you throw away. Of course, peat, plastic and poison are no-brainers. Reduce the amount of machinery like leaf blowers and lawn mowers you use. Buy for the long term and choose furniture you can fix that’s not mass produced and not made of plastic. Every little action builds up to make a difference and every one of us is powerful.

What sustainable elements do you try to include in the gardens you design?

Having water changes the whole nature of the garden but it also changes the ecosystem by creating a microclimate. I try to protect the soil with layered planting and mulching, and by not using poisons. Try not to use things that have been processed. Ceramics are beautiful, but there is a lot of heat intensity in their manufacture so we use them sparingly. We also use a lot of wood.

In terms of buying once and buying well, which garden tools are worth investing in?

I like to visit reclamation yards and garden fairs to buy old tools that are made of wood and metals and feel fantastic in the hand. If I was buying new, I’d go for a brand like Niwaki, whose tools are beautifully made. Find companies that show you how to repair their tools and always consider materials: a steel watering can will last longer than a plastic one.

What garden products can we do without?

You can do without buying in compost because if you have leaves and kitchen waste you can make your own. If you must buy it, buy it in a dumpy bag, not plastic bags. We can also do without peat, plastic pots and garden-centre impulse buys. n

Sustainable Garden by Marian Boswall