Modern Everlastings: Advice on Dried Flowers from 4 Farmer-Florists

Just as fashion keeps reviving styles from past decades, the flower trade is rediscovering how valuable and versatile dried botanicals can be. Growers now have a far wider range of crops to choose from for drying, and florists appreciate the extra colors, textures and shapes. Dried well, cut flowers truly become everlasting, and they are now treated as a year-round crop that supports both flower farms and florists.

Several years ago, a Slow Flowers industry forecast named "Modern Everlastings" as a trend, noting:

Dried flowers are making a comeback. Many people remember how popular they were in home decor in the 1970s and '80s, and the push to extend the selling season may be leading flower farmers back to crops that are easy to preserve.

Interest in dried flowers has kept growing as farms preserve long-lasting field crops, from ammobium to yarrow, for wreath makers, crafters and designers. As artists work more dried material into their designs, especially in the cold months, the trend fits a broader desire for sustainability and less disposable consumption.

The growers we heard from: farmer-florists in Oregon's Willamette Valley, northern Alberta, Cape Cod and Nevada's high desert.

The Hensley's team talked with four farmer-florists from the Slow Flowers community about growing flowers for drying and about how dried flowers have become a key source of income. This article follows dried botanicals through three stages:

1. Selection and Planning
2. Growing, Harvesting, and Drying
3. Designing, Pricing, and Selling

The four growers:

1. A longtime grower at an Oregon cut-flower and nursery farm, Willamette Valley, Oregon
2. A grower at a northern Alberta flower farm, Alberta, Canada
3. A grower at a Cape Cod flower farm, Massachusetts
4. A grower at a high-desert flower farm, northern Nevada

For the Alberta grower, dried flowers have been a big part of the business for several years.

Her northern growing season for fresh flowers is very short, roughly three months, too short to earn a good living from fresh flowers alone. Looking for a way to make the farm work, she found that flowers dry very well in the region's cold, dry winters. Over time she has built a market and a loyal following, and dried bouquets are now a cornerstone of her business.

In the high desert, fall and winter are the season for everlastings, along with grasses, seedpods and other plants left standing in the field to weather as it gets colder.

— High-desert flower farmer, Nevada

Photo: Nevada flower farm. Third-party photo.

A short season in northern Nevada has also pushed the high-desert grower to focus more on dried flowers:

Once fall arrives, fresh flowers are done, so she turns to everlastings, grasses, pods and other plants that age in the field as temperatures drop. Dried flowers are seasonal flowers too. Turning them into home decor gives her a way to talk with her community about seasonality, about the environmental cost of imported flowers, and about appreciating what the local climate offers right now.

Her favorite annuals include Nigella, Orlaya, and poppies grown for their seedpods, and perennial Veronica is another top crop. She recently tried broom corn , which was great fun for wreaths, and she found blushing lantern (Silene vulgaris) very useful.

She often gathers dried material right from the beds. Some plants dry beautifully in place, such as gladiolus leaves that twist and fade to a warm camel color, and alliums.

She sees dried flowers as a way to reinforce the message of seasonality. Growing these crops and showing them off helps get people excited about flowers and nature, especially in fall and winter.

— High-desert flower farmer, Nevada

Photo: Nevada flower farm. Third-party photo.

Over several years, the Cape Cod grower has shifted what her farm grows. She now plans her crops around what dries well, and that goes beyond strawflower and gomphrena. Many flowers people do not think of as dryable will dry nicely if they are cut at the right stage and dried under the right conditions.

Ammobium, also called winged everlasting, is one example. She finds it hard to make a wreath without adding some. She also needs more grains, pods and other textural materials in her studio. Flowers alone are not enough to make her designs interesting; she wants a wide variety of elements.

Many crops most people would never think to dry turn out well when cut at the right time and dried in good conditions.

— Cape Cod flower farmer

Photo: Cape Cod flower farm. Third-party photo.

The Alberta grower learned by trial and error which flowers to grow for drying, and found useful guidance in vintage books on growing (rather than crafting) dried flowers. Today she grows dozens of annuals and perennials for drying.

Her specialty is premium bouquets, so she dries dahlias, peonies, ranunculus and lisianthus. These cost more to grow, and she prices them accordingly. To support those luxury flowers, she also grows large quantities of annuals: larkspur, statice, strawflower, celosia, and sunflowers. These are her staple, bulk ingredients, used in everything, so she needs a lot of them. For new growers, or anyone just starting to dry flowers, annuals are an easy, economical way in. Larkspur gives many cuts per plant. Statice provides a main stem or two for bouquets plus side shoots for flower crowns, boutonnieres and wreaths, and she saves all her prunings for other projects.

A large and steadily growing share of her harvest now goes to drying. She used to plan to sell out of dried flowers by late spring to make room for fresh ones, but now she needs dried stock all year and plans to grow more. She walks her fields with a different mindset, and it can be hard for her to cut flowers for fresh use when she would rather save them for drying.

The Oregon grower jokes that her motto, "everything dries," belongs on a T-shirt. People often ask her whether a certain flower can be dried, and her answer is yes, almost everything dries, as long as you have the right drying environment.

Her advice: try everything and experiment with different stages. 

— Oregon flower and nursery grower

Photo: Oregon flower farm. Third-party photo.

The farm grows a broad mix of crops, including perennials such as oregano, pennyroyal, peony, yarrowand lavender. The owners track which annuals sold well in past seasons to plan future plantings. Some crops sell out every year, and she advises getting Lepidium seed (Persian cress) early.

Woody shrubs and perennials help set the farm's dried line apart. She dries many Viburnum varieties, including 'Snowball', 'Popcorn' and 'Mary Milton'. She had not seen them sold dried, so she tried it and found the flowers beautiful. The same was true of calla lilies. Her advice is to try everything and experiment with different harvest stages.

Good records help you learn from past seasons and plan future plantings. The Cape Cod grower takes lots of photos so she can look back, even to a specific week, and see when she started a crop, when it bloomed and when she harvested it.

2 • Growing, Harvesting & Drying

Watch crops closely; each one has its own ideal harvest stage for drying. 

— Oregon flower and nursery grower

Photo: Oregon flower farm. Third-party photo.

During the last dried-flower boom in the 1990s, the Oregon farm built a tall barn and dedicated its upper loft to drying flowers. The loft gets very hot, over 100°F (38°C), so it is fitted with vents and plenty of fans. Harvest stage has a lot to do with how well a flower holds its color and shape. Each crop has its own best time to cut for drying. The farm does dry high-quality leftovers that have been kept in its coolers at a wholesale flower market, but never flowers that have dried out in the field or wilted in the heat at a farmers market.

Several of the growers recommend cutting strawflowers while the blooms are still tight, because they keep opening after harvest and can shatter if cut too late. Some varieties, such as rose and pink types, have thicker stems that feed the flower more, and flowers in general keep developing as they hang. For ornamental grasses such as Miscanthus (silver grass), cut while the plumes are silky and tight, before they shed pollen.

The Cape Cod grower says she gets better each season at knowing how to cut and dry specific varieties. Her Gomphrena flowers all summer and she harvests it constantly. As plants mature, stems lengthen and heads grow larger, which dries better, so she sells Gomphrena fresh early in the season and saves the late crop of Gomphrena for drying.

Gomphrena flowers all summer for her. Later in the season the plants produce longer stems and bigger heads that dry better, so she sells Gomphrena fresh early on and dries the later Gomphrena to drying.

— Cape Cod flower farmer

Photo: Cape Cod flower farm. Third-party photo.

She used to dry flowers on basement rafters with a dehumidifier and also tried a hot attic. Now she uses a small shed on the farm. It has proven to be an ideal drying space. Shaded by trees, it gets no direct sun and stays warm in summer when closed. A drop ceiling made from a livestock panel raises and lowers so she can hang bunches without climbing on chairs.

Flower size and color strongly affect how dried flowers look. The Alberta grower picks the biggest heads of ranunculus, peonies and lisianthus for drying. Flowers shrink considerably as they dry, so the largest blooms make the best dried flowers. Sunflowers shrink a lot, so she dries the huge heads she would not use fresh, and she saves her most perfect peonies for drying.

She waits until lisianthus has many open flowers on a stem before drying it. That gives great value: one main stem for a bouquet and the rest broken down for flower crowns.

The Cape Cod grower also considers color. Peach and blush flowers often look washed out when dried, while flowers that are bright when fresh tend to dry to soft, rich tones. She dries many deep purples and burgundies, and most brightly colored dahlias and zinnias dry well, while pale café-au-lait dahlias tend to look dull. Some whites keep their color well when dried, she notes, including strawflower, gomphrena, feverfew, larkspur and Ammobium.

A former graphic designer, the Cape Cod grower treats dried botanicals as art supplies for one-of-a-kind wreaths and other products. She loves working with color and texture. Many dried flowers are wonderfully colorful, if a bit softer, and she has come to love that look. Sometimes drying changes a flower's color completely, producing subtle shades no breeder could plan.

One of her all-Echinops wreath designs drew a big response online years ago, and people still ask for copies, but repeating it is not what inspires her. She is in it for the creativity.

— Cape Cod flower farmer

Photo: Cape Cod flower farm. Third-party photo.

She believes one-of-a-kind wreaths are worth more than ones made from a formula. An all-echinops wreath of hers became popular online and she still gets requests for it, but she prefers to keep creating new designs. Creativity is what drives her.

Her spouse gathers grapevine and Virginia creeper from their woods for wreath bases, and she has started growing willow for the same use. Most of her wreaths are crescent designs, with wired flower clusters covering much of the base and the natural vine left visible as part of the look.

Her wreaths sell at a premium price, and demand keeps surprising her. Going into one holiday season, she worried tight budgets would hurt sales, but customers came to her shed and bought several wreaths at a time. She now keeps making wreaths through Valentine's Day.

The Alberta grower's dried wedding bouquets have become a nearly year-round specialty. Her designs look nothing like the dried bouquets of past decades: she strips foliage and side shoots from every stem to build a compact, spiraled, hand-tied bouquet. She sees dried wedding bouquets as an underserved niche in her province, where many couples marry outdoors with mountain views. They suit snowy winter weddings, but customers want them all year, so she makes them for summer weddings too. A dried bouquet is a built-in keepsake.

The Oregon farm stand sells dried wreaths to retail customers, but most of the farm's income comes from single-variety bunches sold wholesale. Its online shop sells single-variety bunches with clear photos showing bunch size and suggests a small minimum order to make shipping worthwhile.

The Alberta farm's hand-tied pink-and-white dried bouquet (larkspur, Lunaria, strawflowers and Ranunculus) ships across Canada, with an optional silk ribbon wrap.

The Nevada grower generally prices dried crops somewhat higher than fresh. The markup covers the extra work of drying and storing flowers after harvest.

— High-desert flower farmer, Nevada

Photo: Nevada flower farm. Third-party photo.

Her florist customers buy dried material from her all year, including Nigella, poppy pods, Ammobium, strawflower and Gomphrena. Florists buy these dried items in summer too, because they add texture to designs. She typically charges a modest premium for dried crops to cover the time spent drying and storing them.

All four growers make a point of explaining to customers how long dried flowers last. The Cape Cod grower jokes that her wreaths could last longer, but she tells customers to come back for a fresh one each year because they deserve it. A hair dryer on its cool, low setting will blow off dust, but the flowers will fade over time.

The Alberta grower includes a care card with each custom dried bouquet. She advises keeping dried flowers out of direct sun, away from pets and in a dry, dust-free spot.

"Everything dries." 

— Oregon flower and nursery grower

Photo: Oregon flower farm. Third-party photo.

The Alberta grower sees good reasons for the dried-flower boom: Dried flowers let anyone enjoy local flowers. They are like a gardener's jam or tomato sauce: a way to take something fresh and seasonal and keep it for winter.

The Nevada grower sees dried flowers as a reminder of seasonality. What growers raise and show off helps people get excited about flowers and nature, especially in fall and winter.

Giving surplus flowers a second life, or growing crops specifically to dry, is a good example of sustainability. At the very least, these growers' experience is strong encouragement to experiment with growing, cutting and drying many kinds of stems from your fields, beds, hedgerows and coppiced shrubs. Let their beauty last in a new form.

Learn More

Browse the links on this page to learn more about dried botanicals.