Wildflowers are essential flower press fodder with their thin stalks and abundance of striking flowers. Thriving on very little water, they dry out quickly and make beautiful pressings. Team this with the fact they can be gathered from meadows, curbsides, waste ground and alleyways, costing you nothing, and it’s a great starting point for anybody wanting to give flower pressing a go! Wild flowers are also easy to grow in pots or straight in the soil with long flowering seasons. Here is a list of my best wild flowers UK to press.
- Red Campion
- Orange Hawkweed
- Musk Mallow
- Valerian
- Cow Parsley
- Clover
- Buttercup
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This year I grew and pressed red campion and clover in pots and had wild mallow growing in an unkept wall of my garden. I love mixing wildflowers with more traditional cut flowers with their long flowering seasons. Check out some of the results in the blog post The Best Flowers To Press for a comprehensive flower pressing guide!
Best Purple Wild Flower – Red Campion
Red campion, also known in Latin as Silene Dioica or commonly as red catchfly, are fuchsia pink wildflowers growing wild here in the UK and much of Northern Europe. I grew Silene Dioica from a Sarah Raven Country Lane Mix in pots on my patio. They love the shade, but after moving into my central patio over winter, I forgot to move them back, and they seemed to enjoy sunnier spells too! They didn’t do much the first year I sowed them, but this year, I had an abundance of spectacular wildflowers. Not only were they easy to grow, but the fushia pink flowers transcended into beautiful purple hues as they dried flat!
Sow outdoors between March and May or August to October. Wildflowers thrive in low-nutrient soil, so I mixed topsoil with just a tiny amount of compost. They have a long flowering period on and off from May to November and self-seed, bringing pots back to life repeatedly, with multiple opportunities to press!
Best Orange Wild Flower – Orange Hawkweed
Orange hawkweed is an alpine herb known in Latin as Pilosella aurantiaca or commonly as a fox-and-cub plant, chimney sweep, grim the collier and devil’s paintbrush. I foraged mine from an alleyway in my neighbourhood, but they are also a common lawn weed found worldwide.
More mature orange hawkweed excrete a milk substance when flattened, so use blotting paper backed with a kitchen towel to absorb moisture fully. It is a flowering plant producing clusters of tiny flower heads similar to the daisy family. Structure: Each flower is made from many small petals, yellow in its centre with an orange rim and burnt orange markings.
Sow in pots or rockeries after the last frost has passed, mid-May. They like loam soils with a mix of sand, clay and silt. They flower from June to August in the sunshine and are great for attracting bees.
Best Mauve Wild Flower – Musk Mallow
Sometimes referred to as the old-fashioned sister to the common hollyhock, musk mallow is Malva moschata in Latin and is also known as Australian hollyhock and musk rose. The flowers are mauve, ‘mallow’ being the French word for the colour mauve, and they have five petals and generally flower in clusters up a stem. I foraged mine from an alleyway in my neighbourhood last year and now have them growing in my garden. Although the branches look pretty chunky, they flatten beautifully, being quite hollow.
Sow outdoors in early spring in ordinary soil and full sun. They have a flowering period from July to August and will self-seed.
Best Red Wild Flower – Valerian
Valerian, also known in Latin as Centranthus ruber or commonly as devil’s beard, is a perennial with a shrub-like appearance and tall, spear-like stems of tiny flowers.
Growing out of walls, rocks and in the wild along grass verges. Flowers bloom from May to October and are common in the south of England.
Best White Wildflower – Cow Parsley
Cow parsley, also known in Latin as Anthriscus sylvestris or commonly as wild chervil, wild-beaked parsley or Queen Anne’s lace, is a towering green perennial with clusters of little white flowers. Adorning hedgerows, roadsides and woodlands, you don’t have to look far to find this flower presser favourite! A favourite because it’s almost impossible to get bad press with its airy umbrella-like structure. The example artworks displayed here and similar are available in my online shop, Contempfleury.
Sow seeds direct to the soil from March to April for a short-lived but showy floral display from May to June.
Best Pink Wild Flower – Red Clover
Red clover is a fast-spreading wildflower, also known in Latin as Trifolium pratense and commonly as cow clover, meadow clover and wild clover. They are great for patio pots but not for traditionally kept, tidy lawns. The flowers remind me of little pom poms as they have circular-shaped heads made from lots of little spiked-shaped petals in shades of white and pink, graduating to red. I’ve grown mine in two patio pots without wanting them to overtake my garden.
Common on any grassland in the UK from May to October, the best time to sow June to September.
Best Yellow Wild Flower – Buttercup
Buttercups, also known in Latin as Ranunculus, are a lovely shot of bright yellow for pressed flower compositions. Their colour preserves well when pressed, and their tiny structures make them beautiful little specimens for the press. They ooze childhood nostalgia as well as cottage-core chic!
Flower Presses
I like large simple flower presses that can A4 sheets of blotting paper like these by Little Garden Vintage. If money were no object I’d also splurge on one of these luxury flower presses by Blue Brontide. They are stunning!
My Top Five Tips For Pressing Wild Flowers
1. Cut within a couple of days of them flowering whilst they are at their best
2. Pick branches that create interesting shapes
3. Use a traditional A4-sized flower press. Many of the wild flowers grow tall, so an A4 size is perfect for pressing cuttings.
4. Invest in good quality blotting paper for the best flower pressing results
5. Press for about three weeks
Wild Flower Seeds
Sarah Raven has a fantastic selection of wild flower seeds:
Country Lane Mix (this is the seed I used successfully for my pots)
Fox & Cubs (orange hawkweed)
Silene Dioica (red campion)
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Contempfleury
Contempfleury is the studio of artist Leah Nikolaou. Trained in Constructed Textiles at The Royal College Of Art in London, Leah’s artwork focuses on mixing flower pressing and embroidery techniques to make contemporary artworks for the modern home.
Conclusion
Pressing wild flowers in the UK is so much fun with such an array of interesting wild flora. If you fancy giving daffodils or spring bulbs a go check out The 10 Best Daffodils & Spring Bulbs To Press. For more tips and tricks, check out the ultimate flower pressing guide, The Best Flowers To Press. For composition and framing ideas, How To Make A Pressed Flower Frame or if you are short of time to press wild flowers yourself, check out the Contempfleury shop!
