What’s the Best Way to Preserve Orchid Flowers?

After a year (or more) of patience, watering, and whispering sweet nothings to your orchid, you finally get it to bloom. You put it in the middle of the kitchen table so you and everyone else in your house can admire its beauty. Orchid flowers can last for months, so the flower becomes a fixture in your home, a bright spot even on a rainy or difficult day. But one day, you see it: the blooms are starting to shrivel and brown around the edges. Suddenly, the dozens of photos you snapped of your orchid in its glory seem insufficient. You want the flowers themselves to last, somehow. 

Carnations and roses can be turned into corsages that last for a few days, especially if refrigerated, but you’d like to preserve a flower or two for longer. But how? 

My cattleya starting to fade (see the dry leaf on the left with the bent yellow stem)

I found myself in this position a few weeks ago when my cattleya orchid started showing signs that its wild display of pinks and purples was winding down. At the same time, the flowers on my oldest and biggest phalaenopsis, which has been in constant bloom for nearly a year, started shriveling. Since I had nothing to lose, I cut one flower off and left it in a sunny spot to dry, and I cut off another and stuck it in the freezer to see what would happen. 

The bloom I dried in a sunny spot

The one in the sunny spot shriveled into a paper remnant of the gorgeous flower. The one in the freezer held up a little better, but still didn’t retain its colors and shape. The white phalaenopsis flower looked translucent in parts after spending time in the freezer, perhaps because whatever moisture was in the leaves expanded.

Freezer phalaenopsis bloom

Given the lackluster results of my initial attempts, I turned to the oracle—er, the Internet—for additional guidance. It turns out that the freezing idea wasn’t the worst. Freeze-drying is a popular technique (one can buy frozen edible orchids and other flowers), but best results come from blast chillers and other high-end freezers that most of us don’t have.

Growers on various orchid forums recommend using glycerin, a sugar alcohol, to preserve flowers. The process takes about a week and requires careful monitoring of temperature and other environmental conditions to prevent bacteria and fungus. Here’s a PDF manual with instructions, if anyone wants to give it a try.

YouTube video referenced/linked to below

Other growers prefer silica gel, which can be purchased separately or as part of a drying kit. Here’s a YouTube video detailing instructions for using silica. Some people also press orchid blooms, which is a process commonly used on many types of flowers and leaves. Pressing involves putting flowers between sheets of paper, ironing them to extract any remaining moisture, and then leaving them under a flat, heavy object for a few more days. 

If none of these options sound appealing and you still want preserved orchid flowers, you could order from companies such as Verdissimo or on Etsy, where sellers offer preserved orchid flower jewelry, paperweights, and other art pieces.