Everlastings not only make your garden beautiful, but they're great for dried arrangements

Plan now to reserve a space in next spring’s ornamental garden for everlastings. This wonderfully varied and colorful group of plants produces flowers, foliage, and seedheads that can be dried, arranged in a vase, and stay fresh-looking and beautiful forever.

Well, “forever” is a stretch. But your everlasting arrangement, sown in late winter or early spring 2019 and harvested and dried in the late summer or fall, will look like a cheery summer day right through next winter into the fateful election year of 2020.

Most of the everlastings we grow in our gardens are available as seeds or started plants, but two of the prettiest kinds are native weeds. Not only are these two plants pretty, but they have the most intriguing scent-a mix of butterscotch and coffee.

The most widespread - found from Maine to California and from Mexico to Alaska - is the perennial native called Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea).

It’s a tough little weed in the aster family that uses its everlasting quality to enjoy the sun and dry conditions of our California Mediterranean climate. It likes the edges of back roads, dry fields, and mountain slopes.

Each plant produces a clutch of little white bracts surrounding many tiny yellow flowers in the center, and each plant’s flowers are either male or female, so the plants must cross-pollinate. As the song says, it takes two.

Pearly Everlasting attracts painted lady butterflies and beneficial insects. Many suppliers have seeds. Just Google “Pearly Everlasting seeds for sale.” Google can also take you to a native California cousin of Pearly called California Cudweed (Pseudognaphalium californicum). It looks similar to Pearly but its central clutch of yellow flowers is lighter in color.

It’s also fragrant, and if your cow loses her cud due to stomach inflammation, just feed her some cudweed and her digestive health will be restored. It’s a prolific re-seeder, though, so you may want to stick with Pearly.

Everlastings are easy to prepare. Cut them after the morning fog or dew has evaporated and remove most of the leaves from the stems. Tie up loose bundles so that air can circulate freely through the plants when they’re hung upside down. Dry them in a dark, warm, dry room.

If you want to collect and save seed, dry them inside a paper shopping bag tied very loosely over the bundle so air can circulate. They are finished when the stem no longer bends, but snaps with a crack when bent. Then turn them right side up and make your arrangement.

Besides the wildings, many garden everlastings are available as seeds. Some are annuals, some biennials, some perennials. Here’s a rundown:

Love Lies Bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus) is an annual that produces tassel-like red seedheads that add color and drooping form to an arrangement.

Baby’s Breath (Gypsophila paniculata) is a perennial with loose, airy stems, tiny foliage, and small star-like flowers.

Bells of Ireland (Moluccella laevis) is an annual with two to three-foot stems covered with apple green shell-like flowers.

Blue Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro) is a perennial that produces spiky, dusty-blue balls of florets on three-foot stems.

Alpine Sea Holly (Eryngium alpinum) grows about two to three feet tall with spiny, heart-shaped leaves and steel blue flower heads. Very showy.

Fairy Wand (Dierama pulcherrimum) carries reddish bells on the ends of long, graceful leafless wands.

Cockscomb (Celosia spp.) is an annual with two forms: plume-like and crested. Both dry well for everlasting arrangements.

Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) adds golden flower clusters to an arrangement and is a garden perennial.

Globe Amaranth (Gomphrena globosa) is an easy-to-grow annual that produces lots of white, pink, lavender, or purple round, papery flower balls.

Chinese Lanterns (Physalis alkekengi) is a perennial (usually grown as an annual) with pretty red “lanterns” dangling from two or three-foot stems.

Money Plant (Lunaria annua) is a biennial with clusters of lavender flowers in spring. By late summer or fall it makes translucent disks for its seeds. This is when to dry it.

Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena) is an annual with sky blue spring flowers followed by decorative seedheads that can be cut and dried for arrangements.

Pincushion Flower (Scabiosa stellata) is an annual with many heads of pale blue flowers that dry to papery bronze.

Statice (Limonium sinuatum) is an annual with winged flower stems and clusters of flowers that hold their blue, lavender, or rose color when dried.

Strawflower (Helichrysum bracteatum) is an annual that makes red, yellow, orange, or white prickly balls that hold their color for years if dried.

Teasel (Dipsacus sativa) is a perennial that produces oblong heads of hooked spikes that are striking in a dried arrangement. It’s also a native weed in wet areas of our region.

Common Immortelle (Xeranthemum annuum) is an annual with daisy-like everlasting flowers in shades of pink, white, lavender, or purple.