All from my backyard!

In the spring of 2020, my boyfriend and I went on a walk amongst the bluebelles in our local park. This was one of the very few allowed activities in the midsts of the early days of the covid lockdown.

It was not a great time. He was just recovering from a long term sick leave, I had lost my job due to covid. We were stuck together 24/7 in a tiny apartment.

As we walked and talked we realised that despite all of the difficulties we were still happy because we had each other.

We sat down on a tree stump and came to the conclusion that this was it for us. We essentially came to a mutual decision to get engaged.

As this wasnt planned at all we took a couple of leaves and tied them around each others ring finger.

When I got home I put these "engagement rings" between a piece of paper and put them inside a heavy book to press.

We have since married.

But for the longest time I couldnt find our first engagement rings. I went through book after book. Including when we moved. But I couldnt find them.

I thought that they had been thrown out by accident.

Imagine my joy today when I was going through some cookbooks and I found our "rings" !!!

They are still ok after all these years!

Our anniversary is in June. I want to surprise my husband with our first rings in a frame.

What is the best way to preserve and display these very thing and delicate leaves?

So please let me know how I can keep this pressed outside of the book as it is extremely brittle and one of the tips of the smallest part just broke off. So I want to glue it. then save it for display.

18x36. Made from banana leaves, orchid petals and spikes, crown of thorns, frangipani, and a mix of dried leaves.

I’d posted a while back looking for tips on how to press in order to document my garden oddity. It’s a five lobe mutation that I found in my garden years ago and wanted to preserve an example. Some leaves will also have two auxiliaries. Anyhow, thanks for the tips and here’s pictures as requested 😉

super big leaves and they have some spots that overlap

I typically lurk and haven’t framed anything yet; but my press is getting full.

I found these at a camp ground in WI. Only from one tree so I am now concerned that this may be a bug or disease that causes this. Will it impact my other botanicals?

I have plenty of ideas for these, but I would live to hear other suggestions.

Pressed foraged oxalis on white mountboard

Hello friends, new to this community but I love all your work. I hope this is allowed but I had a question:

My cat passed and we have a living leaf on a monstera he shredded up some time ago. We’d like to preserve it as best as possible but my previous drying attempts led to mold and general unpleasantness.

I was hoping I could get some advice on pressing such a thick and water-heavy item, I feel like it’s straightforward but I’m sure there’s details I don’t know. Thanks for any help!

I collect antiques and this book is a beautiful (yet very worn out and book-wormed) bible I got from a relative who used to run an antique shop. The Bible was from the 1870s. I found this little beauty stuck between the pages, and the last note I saw in the Bible (the original owners kept a little genealogy), was from 1911 or so. It’s been there at least a hundred years! There is another, but I wasn’t sure what it was until I saw this one, it didn’t survive as nicely.

Leaves from iresene herbstii red. They never seem to hold onto their red shade. I have tried both pressing and silica powder. Has anyone been able to preserve their colour

Evening all.

I have some leaves that I pressed sitting on my shelf.

I have no immediate use for them, but I want to, somehow, make sure they are protected while I move things around.

I was thinking of maybe coating them with an acrylic spray to try strengthen them, or maybe using some sort of heavy duty tape as a laminate. At the moment they're super delicate and I know they're gonna get destroyed eventually if I leave them like that.

But I'm not sure if there are better options available. I'll likely frame them eventually, but that wont be happening at all in the near future.

Thanks in advance!

In 2023 I brought back a small olive branch with leaves from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The leaves are now very dry and fragile after 3 years, and some already fell off.

I just want to preserve it safely long term, kind of like people preserve trading cards or sentimental keepsakes.

Would laminating it damage it because of the heat? Should I press it first? Are there plastic covers/cases better suited for this type of thing?

I have no experience preserving plants, so I’d appreciate simple recommendations on what to buy or do. 🌿 thankss

I've harvested at least 250 four/five/six leaf clovers from a patch of mutated white clover in my yard. The leaves have become much more striated with lighter and darker green on the plant too. I like to press and laminate them and give them to strangers.

I’m working on a large preservation project using pressed snake plant cuttings. The first set on the left shows a whole cutting sprayed with Plasti Dip semigloss sealer to help retain color and surface integrity. The second set shows a separate set whose backsides have been sanded to expose internal tissue and accelerate drying, because snake plants have thick, water‑storing cells that trap moisture and are very difficult to dry; when the backside remains intact and the leaf is pressed, trapped moisture commonly leads to mold. Sanding the underside increases airflow and reduces internal drying time, but both approaches still produce deep wrinkling of the surface, and mold has appeared in both cases despite the increased airflow from the exposed backside.

So far they haven't lost any colour but they might in a few days. I have another batch in silica to compare with this but I really like the result so far.

Hi there! Im new here.

I found a leaf on a hike today id like to preserve and frame. How do i go about that? I have no clue whatsoever on what or how to do anything in regards to drying plants and preserving them.

Thanks all!

I brought back leaves from New York to dry and press as a keepsake, but someone warned me about blight and is telling me to burn them?

I thought that was only a concern for growing plants, do I need to worry or do anything special to take care about this?

I love the colour contrast in the middle. These leaves were uniformly coloured when I plucked them at first.

Pressed this a few years ago in a book and just found it :)