Stop Trashing Your Old Flowers—Here’s What to Do With Them Instead

Flowers that are past their prime don’t need to end up in the trash. Whether it’s flowers from a vase or spent flowers that you collected while deadheading your plants, there are ways to give them a second life.

Here are ideas for what to do with faded flowers, straight from a flower pro.

Composting

According to Justin Lievano, floral design manager at UrbanStems, anything with a softer stem can and should be composted.

“Whether you’re gardening in pots on your fire escape, or you have garden beds in the yard, compost is a great way each of us can live more sustainably and feed our gardens,” he says.

One thing he cautions against is composting invasive species to avoid accidentally spreading invasive plants further. Diseased plants also should not be composted; if the compost does not get hot enough to break down harmful bacteria it could spread to healthy plants treated with that same compost.

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Mulch for Potted Plants

If you don’t have a compost bin, you can still use the petals of spent flowers as mulch on potted plants. Pluck the flower apart and scatter the petals around the base of the plant in a layer no thicker than 1/2 inch, without the petals touching the stems.

Mulch keeps soil cool and reduces evaporation, which is especially helpful for plants outdoors whose soil dries out rapidly in warm weather. The petals are the part of the flower that decomposes the fastest, adding organic matter to the soil.

Pressed Flowers

For flowers that are just too pretty to bid goodbye to, there’s pressing. You can purchase all kinds of equipment and special materials for flower pressing, but any type of absorbent paper, such as printer paper or facial tissue, will do the job.

Flowers with bright colors, thin, flat petals, and low moisture content, such as cosmos or pansies, as well as individual rose petals, are ideal for pressing. You can use pressed flowers to make note cards, bookmarks, pressed flower candles, and outstanding specimens might even be worth framing.

Dried Flower Bouquets

For any flowers with a woody stem, Lievano recommends drying them so they can be kept for some time. To do this, he advises hanging the spent flower upside down for several weeks until all the flower’s tissues have dried and grown stiff.

“At that point, you can begin working with them. I love drying old flowers and making petite dried arrangements for my home,” he says.

Potpourri

Both fragrant and non-fragrant flowers that retain their color and shape when dried are good candidates for a potpourri. If you want the potpourri to be naturally fragrant, use aromatic flowers such as lavender, roses, and scented geraniums, but limit it to a variety or two to avoid the clashing of scents.

Scented Sachet

The petals of fragrant dried flowers are also an excellent base material for a scented sachet. Remove the petals from the flowers and spread them on a mesh surface or a cookie rack in a well-ventilated, warm place away from sunlight for about a week. Turning them twice a day speeds up the drying process. Place the dried mixture in a cotton pouch and tie it shut.