To press flowers, to be arranged on paper like a painting, you must
take some plain white wrapping paper (in Paris you can obtain paper
prepared by a chemical process to preserve the colors), and place your
flowers or leaves carefully between two sheets of the paper. Then
press them by placing a heavy weight over them (letter presses are
excellent), and leave them a day or two, then change the paper; thus
the juices of the flowers are absorbed. It takes a week or two to press
perfectly, and in summer often longer. When dry, place them in a book
or some air-tight box, ready for use. A year is required to make a
varied and handsome collection, as each flower has its own season for
blossoming. Wild flowers retain their colors better than cultivated;
but experience alone will teach you what flowers will retain their
color best. Many pretend to be able to preserve all kinds of flowers,
but it is impossible. I will give a list of flowers which are known to
retain their color by this mode of pressing.
All Geraniums (except the horse-shoe and sweet-scented) preserve their
color. They are very essential, as their colors are brilliant and keep
for years. All yellow flowers, both wild and cultivated, retain their
color. The Violet and Pansy, Dwarf Blue Convolvulus, Blue Larkspur,
Blue Myrtle, Blue Lobelia, Heaths, the small original Red Fuchsia, Wild
Housatonia, and many tiny blue, and even white flowers press perfectly.
For green, Ivy, Maiden Hair, Ferns or Brake, Mosses, &c., retain their
color best. Rarely a cultivated green leaf presses well. Autumn leaves,
if small, and the youngest oak leaves, mix in well. Certain kinds of
stems, such as Pansy, and others of similar character, are best adapted
for pressing.
After your collection is made, take some card-board, without a polish
if possible, and arrange your flowers as you design to have them. Gum
them to the paper with tragacanth, using a camel’s hair brush, then
press on the paper and flower with a cloth, carefully absorbing all
moisture, as well as firmly pressing the flower on the paper. Geraniums
and some large flowers look better if each leaf is glued on separately.
In forming your bouquet, it is better to arrange the stems first and
work upwards. Baskets and vases of moss with flowers are pretty. To
form these you must trace out with a pencil your vase or basket, and
glue on the moss. Then arrange your flowers.
We have heard amusing criticisms on the coloring of such bouquets from
persons who mistook them for paintings. Framed and covered with a
glass, they make ornamental pictures.
It is a pleasant way of preserving mementos of friends, places, or
events. Flower albums or journals are very beautiful. Wreaths arranged
of different varieties of Pelargoniums, mixed in with any pretty green,
and other little flowers, such as Lobelias, are very handsome, and
the colors are durable. Pansies of different shades look well, and
brilliant wreaths may be made of all the varieties of flowers that hold
their color. The oval shape looks the best for wreaths.
There are innumerable varieties of Ferns, Lycopodiums, and Maiden
Hair, both native and foreign, suitable for pressing. By pasting each
specimen on a separate sheet, and interspersing specimens of our
beautiful autumn leaves, also on separate sheets, and fastening them
together, either bound as a book, or in a portfolio, you will possess a
beautiful and attractive book with but little expense.
Crosses can be arranged with Ferns, and shaded to appear as if painted
in perspective, and look like a cross standing on a mossy bank, with
flowers, &c., growing around and over it. First draw and shade your
cross, as a guide, then take the small leaflets of the darkest colored
ferns you can procure, and glue them on carefully where the cross
should be in shadow darkest, then take the brighter green Ferns (such
as are gathered in spring), and end with the white Ferns (which can
only be obtained in the fall), using them for the lightest shade;
be careful to cover every part, and shade it with Nature’s colors
as you would with paint. In a cross six inches high, and suitably
proportioned, full two hundred of the tiny leaflets of the Fern may
be used to good advantage before it is completed. Then take wild
Lycopodium, if you can obtain it, if not, the finest of the cultivated,
and arrange it on your cross to look like a vine growing over and
hanging from it; also paste on to it tiny little pressed Lobelias, and
arrange small Ferns, mosses, and any little flowers (wild ones are
preferable) around the base of the cross, to look like a mossy bank.
Different designs can be arranged in the same way.
Be very careful in pasting on flowers and leaves, that every part,
however small, is firmly fixed to the paper; press them on after
pasting with a dry cloth.
September is the time to collect the beautiful white ferns; the first
slight frost turns the green fern white. They should then be gathered
at once, and carefully pressed; when dry they resemble the skeleton
leaves. A vase of these forms a beautiful winter ornament. If you defer
gathering them till the heavy frosts come, they turn brown.