Pressed Flowers and Old Frames: A Simple Botanical Wall for the Entryway

By late August, the garden is at its most generous and I am already thinking about how to hold onto it. One of my favorite ways is pressing flowers — an old-fashioned practice that costs almost nothing and yields something quietly beautiful. This year I made a small wall of pressed botanicals in mismatched frames for our entryway, and it has become the first thing I look at every time I walk through the door.

You do not need special equipment. A heavy book, a stack of newspaper or blotting paper, and a little patience will do. The flowers you press should be fresh, dry, and picked in the morning after the dew has lifted. Flat-faced blooms work best — pansies, cosmos, daisies, hydrangea florets, and delicate ferns. Thick, fleshy flowers tend to mold, so skip the roses and peonies unless you are willing to take them apart petal by petal.

Pressing and Preparing

Lay your flowers face down between two sheets of blotting paper or newspaper, then place them inside a heavy book. Stack more books on top and leave them for two to three weeks. If you want faster results, a flower press with screws will do the job in about ten days. The key is to change the paper after the first few days if it feels damp, and to resist the urge to peek too often — the flowers need steady, even pressure.

Once pressed, the flowers are fragile and should be handled with tweezers. I like to arrange them on cream or ivory cardstock, leaving plenty of white space around each one. A tiny label in neat handwriting — the name of the flower and the month it was picked — turns each frame into a small record of the season. Use a dab of white glue or a piece of double-sided tape to secure them, and press the finished card under a book for another hour before framing.

Framing and Arranging

For the frames, I look for small wooden or brass ones at thrift stores and estate sales — the kind with a bit of age and a simple profile. Paint them all the same color if you want a unified look, or leave them as they are for a collected, over-time feel. Hang them in a loose cluster rather than a rigid grid, with the largest in the center and smaller ones radiating out. Mix in a few empty frames or a small mirror to break up the pattern.

Keep the wall out of direct sunlight, which will fade the colors over time. If you want to rotate the display, press a new batch of flowers each season — spring violets, summer daisies, autumn maple leaves, winter evergreens — and swap them out as the year turns. It is a slow, small practice, but it keeps the garden close even when the ground is frozen and the windows are gray.