It may sound old fashioned, but potpourri is making a comeback. As well as being super decorative, it’s also more environmentally friendly than a lot of store-bought room fresheners, especially if you make your own.
Here’s how you can do just that:
First, choose your flowers.
You can either use a bouquet of flowers that you already have, buy a bouquet specifically (hello supermarkets!), or grow and harvest flowers for your potpourri from your garden if you have one.
Flowers that work particularly well for potpourri are lavender, rose (especially roses in bud form), chrysanthemum, calendula, pansy, and geranium. Any flowers will do, but keep in mind that potpourri should be visually pleasing.
Next, dry them out.
Tie the stems of your flowers together with string, hang them upside down, and leave them to dry. Depending on where you dry them and how hot it is, a couple of weeks should be enough time to fully dry them out.
When your flowers are dry, remove the flowers from their stems. You may also wish to add other natural materials such as dried citrus peel, star anise, cinnamon sticks, small pine cones, and cloves to your mix.
Now add oil.
Choose an essential oil that will complement any fragrances which your flowers will already naturally have. Rose and lavender essential oils are good options for the oil, as are citrus scents.
When you’ve chosen your oil, put your potpourri mixture in a sealable container, add a few drops of the oil to your potpourri and allow a couple of weeks for the oil to be absorbed.
Arranging your potpourri.
When this is done, arrange your potpourri in a decorative dish, ceramic pot, glass bowl, mason jar…you get the idea. Maybe experiment with adding pebbles to the display, or tying ribbon or string around the container for added effect.
Making potpourri isn’t a quick process, but it’s fairly easy to do, and it can look super chic!
