The Freeze Drying Process
Is there a difference between dried and freeze-dried flowers?
We’re often asked that question, and the answer is a big, “YES!”
Our process is vastly different than what you typically find on Etsy or advertised on social media. The majority of those are simple ‘hang flowers upside down until they dry,’ pressing flowers, or drying them with silica.
We have two $30,000 state-of-the-art freeze drying machines that are actually food and medical grade machines that also happen to work fabulously for floral freeze drying. These machines remove all the water from frozen botanicals as water vapor, and collect that water vapor as ice in a condenser. With the botanicals solidly frozen during the process, and under a deep vacuum, shrinkage is minimized, and a high quality preservation will result.
The process requires the flowers to be frozen in the machine and then gradually the temperature is raised to stimulate sublimation (ice crystals changing directly to water vapor). Over a period of 12-15 days all the water from the botanicals will sublimate and go into a condensation chamber. The water vapor turns back into ice in this very cold (-40° F or lower) condensation chamber. Defrosting the condensation chamber removes moisture from the freeze drying system. When ice quits forming in the condenser the flowers are now officially freeze dried.
Bet you feel smarter now, don’t you!? This concludes today’s science lesson ;-)
2. We Disassemble the Bouquet
Once we have received your bouquet, we work on gently taking it apart so that we can start the prep work for freeze drying. This is also the time when we determine which flowers are in the best condition for your design. Dead or damaged flowers will not be freeze dried.
4. Freeze Dryer Prep
Once the hydration treatment is complete, we arrange your flowers on our freeze drying racks so that they can go into the machines.
6. Remove from Freeze Dryer
Once your flowers are removed from the freeze dryer they are stored in air tight containers until we can begin your design work.
We do not begin any design work until your order selections are complete, any extra keepsakes are delivered to us, and your order balance is paid in full. Once paid in full, your order goes into the queue behind other paid in full orders. To avoid long waits for your order, bring any keepsakes with you to your drop-off or design appointment and pay in full.
You Prep the Bouquet
Receiving bouquets in good condition is crucial to the entire process, and we do have to refuse some flowers that are just too damaged or dying to proceed.
Recut your stems and put your flowers in a vase with fresh cool water. There’s no need to refrigerate them, just make sure they do not get too hot or too cold.
DO NOT wrap tightly! DO NOT freeze your flowers!
3. Hydration Treatment
When your bouquet is fully disassembled we give your flowers a final hydration treatment to help counteract the effects of aging/dying. This doesn’t bring a dead flower back to life, but it does help breathe a little extra life into the flowers that were on the verge of being unusable.
5. Time to freeze dry!
Your flowers will be inside the freeze drying machines for a period of 12-15 days as the machines work their magic.
You can read all about the scientific process at the top of this page if you want to nerd out a little ;-)
7. Rebuilding your flowers
Each type of flower reacts to the drying process differently. Some come out of the freeze dryer completely intact and others require a little more work.
For some varieties of flowers, we need to secure every petal back into place. As you can imagine this can be quite the laborious process, which is why some flowers (Mums and Dahlias) cannot be preserved without extra cost.
Note: Freeze drying flowers does not guarantee exact color results!
So many factors are at play when it comes to the natural color composition of your flowers. Things that can affect the color include, but are not limited to, what condition we receive them in, the quality of the original flower (grocery store rose vs. boutique/designer rose), if they were painted or dyed, etc.
We cannot guarantee that flowers will retain their original color once freeze dried.
To learn more about these color differences, please review our FAQ page.