Home Herbarium

Go for a walk and collect leaves and blossoms of plants that you like. Make sure you keep each plant’s parts together, so that you don’t get them mixed up.

Record where and when you collected them, and sketch the plant, noting details such as size, shape, colour etc.

Try to identify them from a plant identification app or the plant identification website of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.

At home, sandwich your specimens in between at least two sheets of newspaper per plant and put heavy books or other weights on top, to flatten and dry them out. 

Some plants will be dried after 3 days, but thicker specimens can take up to 2 weeks.

When the plant is dry and pressed, attach it to a sheet of cardboard or thick paper.

Arrange it so that all parts of the plant can be seen, and attach it with small strips of sticky tape, or sew it onto the paper.  

Write on the name of the plant, the date and place where you collected it and your name.

Repeat this with as many plants as you like.

You can keep your pressed specimens in a box or bind them into a book.