In January 2022, during the dead of winter, I started dreaming of flowers. I had been planting sunflowers for years but a friend had reached out and suggested planting “everlasting” flowers. I really wasn’t even sure what everlasting flowers were so I started doing some research. Basically, they are flowers that can be dried down and hold their shape and color. I started ordering seeds…and probably went a little over board! I think I initially bought 10 different kinds of forever flowers! I wanted to see what would work and what would not.
Spring came and I started planting and almost immediately felt completely overwhelmed! Some of the flowers did not even grow. One, in particular, must have been bad seed because there was 0% germination. I (tried) planting between 18-36 plants of each flower. This mostly depended on the size of the plants. Larger plants, I planted 18 and for smaller plants, I planted 36. We had a cool, wet spring so it was challenging to get things out into the garden to grow. Eventually, some flowers did grow…
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_2204-1024x768.jpg)
I tried 2 different types of strawflower and really fell in love with one of them! Here is a butterfly enjoying a strawflower…
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Here is a closer pic of the Love Lies Bleeding…it was a true show stopper and HUGE plant! Most of them were as tall as me…more like small bushes!
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_2146-768x1024.jpg)
This little blue flower is called Love In a Mist and I thought you were supposed to pick the flower BUT if you wait…these beutiful purple striped seed pods appear!
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/love-in-the-mist.jpeg)
The most prolific flowers were the statice…they are great for filler in an arrangement…
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_2135-768x1024.jpg)
When the flowers bloomed, I would cut them and then hang them to dry upside down…
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_2207-1024x768.jpg)
Then, I would take the dried flowers and attempt to arrange them…I think the more you do it, the better you get…
![](http://www.remarkablefarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/IMG_2291-1.jpg)
So, I learned a lot about growing the flowers and I will do less varieties in 2023 to keep things more manageable. The strawflowers were my favorite and I will be growing a lot more of them next year!