Most people never see how a dried flower bouquet actually gets made. That's a shame because the process is half the reason the finished bouquet is worth having. This is what goes into every bouquet that leaves our Andover workshop — from the stems we source to the way we pack them for the post.
Where the Stems Come From
We source our stems from a mix of UK growers and European dried-flower specialists. Pampas grass, teasel, and bunny tails tend to come from UK fields when we can find supply that meets our quality bar. Preserved eucalyptus, palm, and the rich jewel-toned stems (like our deep-red protea) usually travel from specialist preservers in the Netherlands and Italy who've been doing this for generations.
"Sourcing" sounds tidier than it actually is. In practice it means we end up with dozens of types of stem in varying quantities each week. That's why our seasonal collections rotate — we build around what's actually in the workshop, not around a planning document.
How We Dry And Preserve
Some of our flowers come pre-dried from the grower. Others we dry ourselves in the workshop's drying loft, which is a dedicated room with controlled airflow and very little natural light. UV is the enemy of dried flowers — any stem that spends time in direct sunlight before it reaches you is going to fade faster. Dried in the dark, stems keep their colour far longer.
For stems that need to stay flexible rather than brittle — preserved eucalyptus is the classic example — we use a glycerin preservation process. The glycerin replaces the water in the plant cells, which is why a preserved eucalyptus stem still feels pliable years after it's cut, while a traditionally-dried stem can snap.
Drying takes anywhere from five days (smaller delicate blooms) to three weeks (dense stems like eucalyptus bunches or large pampas plumes). There's no shortcut we'd trust; anything faster compromises the colour or the longevity.
The Hand-Tying Itself
This is where the workshop earns its name. Every bouquet in our dried flower bouquet range is tied by hand, one at a time, by one of our florists — Lauren, Lucy, Hannah, or Kerys. We don't use an assembly line. The bouquets you see on the product pages aren't stock images; they're representative of what you'll actually receive, because we tie every one to the same composition brief.
A typical hand-tie looks like this:
- Select the stems. For a mixed bouquet, that's typically 5–7 different stem types, each pulled from their own batch in the right quantity.
- Stagger the heights. Taller stems (pampas, teasel) go at the back; feature blooms (roses, protea) sit at the front; filler (eucalyptus, bunny tails) wraps around the outside.
- Tie at the natural grip point. A florist's hand finds this automatically — it's about two-thirds up the stem length. Tying too high or too low makes the bouquet hard to display.
- Trim to length. Stems are cut so the bouquet sits at a standard height when placed in a vase — around 30cm of visible stem plus the arrangement.
- Wrap the grip. We use a dry floral tape or a ribbon, depending on the style. Hand-tied bouquets sold without a vase get ribbon; bud-vase bouquets get tape because the ribbon would interfere with the vase.
Packing For The Post
A hand-tied bouquet is only as good as the packaging it travels in. Dried stems are more robust than fresh flowers — they won't wilt — but they can still snap or shed petals if they bounce around inside a box. Our packaging has three jobs:
- Hold the bouquet still. Every bouquet is secured inside a cardboard cradle sized to its dimensions. No loose room to bounce.
- Protect delicate heads. Feature blooms get a tissue wrap so other stems can't press against them in transit.
- Fit through a UK letterbox where relevant. Our letterbox-specific bouquets are built inside slim rectangular boxes sized for a standard UK letterbox slot. The rest ship in right-sized boxes that still protect the product without wasting cardboard.
Every box leaves the workshop with a care card, an optional handwritten-style gift message if the customer requested one, and a Trustpilot review invitation for after delivery.
What This Means For The Bouquet You Receive
Two practical consequences of how we work:
Each bouquet varies a little. Because they're hand-tied from what's actually in the workshop, no two are pixel-perfect copies of the product photo. The overall palette, feature stems, and style are consistent, but exact stem counts and specific blooms can differ. We'd rather be honest about this than pretend we run a production line.
They last. The combination of shade-drying, hand-selection, and careful packaging means a bouquet you buy this week is still going to look good next year — and the year after. That's the actual point of a dried flower bouquet versus a fresh one.
Come Visit (Sort Of)
The workshop isn't a public-facing retail space but we share weekly workshop content on Instagram — behind the scenes of what we're tying, which stems are coming in, which bouquets are in the dispatch pile. Follow us there if you want to see the week's work.
Or skip ahead and browse the finished dried flower bouquets that are in the post today.
