Wildflowers are abundant, even invasive sometimes. To see all this plenty makes my fingers always itch to press, but I have had little luck with many of them. Tops on that list of unpressables are chicory and white aster daisies. Chicory has a very thick calyx, and by the time you get it home, the petals are limp and shriveled. The asters have super thin, thread-like petals with a large, hard center. I managed to press a few recently, and had a bit of luck. I crushed the calyx of the chicory before I placed it in the pressing book. I did the same with the center of the aster daisies. In the top corner are a few petals of lantana, a whole other story I won’t get into today. I gave these wildflowers about 15 to 30 seconds of heat. The amount of time depends on how hot your microwave gets. I wanted the book to be gently warmed, not hot.
The bottom line on these two wildflowers is you must press three to five times the amount of flowers you want to use. As you can see from the chicory on the left, only one out of three worked out at all. The blue was retained, but there is also a little browning I will need to try to pull or cut away. Still, true-blue flowers are not abundant in the garden, and the daisies are unique and delicate. I will keep trying and press more than I think I need.
