Dried flowers from your own sowing keep their shape and colour for 1-2 years if you choose the right varieties and harvest them at the right stage. Most everlastings are sown from seed in February to April, harvested in July to September and ready to arrange after 1-3 weeks hanging upside down in the dark. Here you get the varieties, the harvest stage for each one, a timeline and the most common mistakes.
Choose flowers that dry on their own
One rule decides the method. Flowers with papery petals or firm seed heads are air dried hanging: strawflower, statice, winged everlasting, pearly everlasting, starflower scabious, love-in-a-mist, poppy, lavender, masterwort and larkspur. Ornamental grasses and eucalyptus belong here too. Flowers with soft, watery petals, such as zinnia, dahlia and Iceland poppy, shrivel on the string and need silica gel.
Colour is the second factor. Blue and yellow keep best, pink fades most. A pink strawflower dried in the dark keeps for 12 months or more, but place it as far from the window as possible.
Harvest stage and drying time variety by variety
Everlastings keep opening as they dry. That is why strawflower, winged everlasting and pearly everlasting are cut before they have opened fully, otherwise they splay out and drop their centres. Seed heads are cut when they are firm but before they turn brown and split. Grasses are cut as soon as the plume has unfolded, otherwise the seeds shed in the bouquet.
| Variety | Latin name | Harvest when | Drying time upside down |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strawflower | Xerochrysum bracteatum | 2-3 outer rows of petals are open, the centre is closed | 2-3 weeks |
| Statice | Limonium sinuatum | Almost fully open | 1-2 weeks |
| Winged everlasting | Ammobium alatum | The white bracts have opened, the centre is still yellow | 2-3 weeks |
| Pearly everlasting | Anaphalis margaritacea | The white bracts have opened, the centre is still pale | 2-3 weeks |
| Bishop's flower | Ammi majus | The whole umbel is open, before seed set | 1-2 weeks |
| Starflower scabious | Scabiosa stellata | The flowers have dropped and the seed head is firm and bronze | 1-2 weeks |
| Love-in-a-mist | Nigella damascena | The capsule is full size but still green with purple stripes | 2-3 weeks |
| Poppy | Papaver somniferum | The capsule is grey-green and the seeds rattle inside | 2-3 weeks |
| Lavender | Lavandula angustifolia | The lowest flowers on the spike have opened | 1-2 weeks |
| Masterwort | Astrantia major | Two thirds of the florets inside the collar are open | 1-2 weeks |
| Larkspur | Delphinium, Consolida | Two thirds of the flowers on the spike are open | 2-3 weeks |
| Eucalyptus | Eucalyptus cinerea, E. gunnii | The leaves are mature and firm, from late summer | 2-3 weeks |
| Greater quaking grass | Briza maxima | The spikelets are fully developed but still green | 1-2 weeks |
| Fountain grass | Pennisetum alopecuroides | The plume has just unfolded completely | 1-2 weeks |
| Foxtail millet | Setaria italica | The head is full size, before the seeds ripen and drop | 1-2 weeks |
For strawflower we have four varieties in white and pink among our strawflower seeds, and the Qis series offers statice in lavender, pink and light blue. The seed heads of starflower scabious Drumsticks turn into bronze balls of 2-3 cm.
Timeline from sowing to dried bouquet
December to February: start eucalyptus indoors, it needs 6-8 months to give leaves that can take drying. See our article on growing eucalyptus from seed.
February to March: start statice and lavender indoors. Statice wants a long season, see our article on growing statice.
March to April: start strawflower, winged everlasting, starflower scabious and bishop's flower indoors at 18-22 °C. Masterwort needs cold to germinate and is sown outdoors in October or cold stratified in the fridge for 4-6 weeks.
April: start foxtail millet, Panicum and quaking grass. Grasses germinate in 1-2 weeks and need no earlier start.
April to May: sow love-in-a-mist, poppy and annual larkspur directly outdoors. Plant out what you started indoors after the last frost, usually in mid to late May, with 25-40 cm between plants.
July: first harvest of lavender, masterwort and the earliest strawflowers.
August: main harvest of everlastings, statice, bishop's flower, quaking grass and foxtail millet. The seed capsules of love-in-a-mist are ready now.
September to October: poppy capsules, fountain grass, starflower scabious, pearly everlasting and eucalyptus. Bring in the last of it before the first frost.
Air drying in the dark step by step
Harvest dry: cut in the late morning once the dew has dried, never after rain. Leave 30-40 cm of stem to tie with.
Strip the leaves: remove all leaves on the lower half of the stem. Leaves hold moisture and are the first to go mouldy.
Bunch small: 5-10 stems per bunch, fastened with a rubber band. Stems shrink as they dry and string slips off.
Hang upside down: dark, dry and airy at 18-25 °C. An attic, a storeroom or a wardrobe with the door ajar works. Keep 10-15 cm between bunches.
Wait 1-3 weeks: the flowers are ready when the stem snaps instead of bending and the flower head feels papery all the way through.
Store in the dark: in a cardboard box with tissue paper between the layers, not in plastic. A dry wardrobe keeps them for 1-2 years.
Common mistakes
Everlastings are harvested fully open. They keep opening, splay out and drop their centres. Cut when 2-3 rows of petals have opened.
The bunches are too thick. More than 10 stems means mould in the middle. Split them up.
Drying in a greenhouse or window. The sun bleaches the colour already during drying, pink shades first. 18 °C in a dark storeroom beats 30 °C in a greenhouse.
The grass is harvested too late. Ripe seeds shed at the slightest touch. Cut when the plume has just unfolded.
The stems are cut too short. Under 20 cm they are hard to tie. Leave 30-40 cm and shorten afterwards.
Storage in a plastic bag. The slightest residual moisture makes the flowers soften and go mouldy. Use cardboard and tissue paper.
Silica gel for flowers with soft petals
Silica gel draws the moisture out of the petals before they can shrivel and suits zinnia, dahlia, Iceland poppy and roses.
Prepare the container: a jar with a tight lid and 2-3 cm of silica gel in the bottom.
Shorten the stem: to 1-2 cm and set the flower face up in the gel.
Fill around the edges: pour the gel along the sides of the jar so that it runs in between the petals. If you pour straight on top, the flower is flattened.
Cover and close: 2-3 cm of gel on top, lid on, 5-7 days at room temperature.
Dig it out: pour off the gel slowly and brush away the remains with a soft brush. Dry the gel in the oven at about 150 °C until the indicator colour returns, and it can be used again.
Pearly everlasting gives dried flowers year after year
All the varieties above except lavender, masterwort and fountain grass are grown as annuals in most of the UK and northern Europe and are sown again every spring. If you want a source that comes back on its own, pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) is the best choice. It is a perennial of up to 90 cm with white, pearly bracts around a yellow centre, flowers from July to September and tolerates cold well below freezing. It spreads by runners, so give it a dry, sunny spot with at least 40 cm to its neighbours. Harvest when the bracts have opened but before the centre darkens, and hang for 2-3 weeks. Lavender is the other perennial option, and how it overwinters is described in our article on growing lavender.
How we do it at Florea
We dry in a windowless storeroom where the temperature stays around 20 °C, and we have stopped making big bunches. Eight stems per rubber band is our limit for strawflower, because in thicker bunches we have had mould in the middle where the air does not reach. Ulrica, who runs our customer service, mixes strawflower Silvery Rose with statice in lavender. Grasses and seed heads we hang separately, since they are ready a week before the flowers. You can see which grasses we grow among our ornamental grass seeds.
Author: Emma Vogiatzi
Fact-checked by Erik Hoekstra
Last updated 2026-10-20