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We started pressing flowers the first fall.
The telephone company delivered leftover phone books from one of our
smaller communities so each child could have her own. We found that
for first graders, it's just too complicated to have them pick their own
flowers. So volunteers pick them ahead of time.
Then, after the students have placed the pre-picked flowers in their
phone books, they pick another one or two from the gardens.
We pre-pick some of the flowers for the second
graders. We show them the ones we have picked and why. We also
show them which flowers are not good for pressing and why. After they
press 5-10 flowers and leaves from the ones we precut, they go into the
gardens and select 5-6 more.
 By
the third grade, the students have had two years experience with the
process of pressing flowers and leaves and can progress to creating a
botanical
record of the plants on the school grounds.
When will the flowers be ready to use?
A pressed flower held by its stem will stand upright if it is completely
dry. How long it takes depends on the weather (damp/dry) and the
thickness of your flower. We press the flowers in the fall and leave
them in the phone books until January. It's like a treasure hunt
searching for the little gems of summer hidding in between the pages on
a dreary Cincinnati winter day.
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