Fresh Clips: How To Make an Herbal Bouquet

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Herbal bouquets make great housewarming gifts or table toppers, and they make any floral arrangement unique. Photo courtesy iStockphoto.com/Philary

Bring inside the fresh scents of your garden this season. An herbal bouquet is the perfect antidote to stale late-winter air and helps prepare your home for spring. Herbal bouquets make great housewarming gifts or table toppers, and they make any floral arrangement unique.

Suzy Bales, author of Garden Bouquets and Beyond (Rodale, 2010), recommends combining a variety of fragrances and textures in your bouquet. Mint and geranium leaves make good bouquet herbs because they come in a wide array of scents, including chocolate, orange and apple. Herb Companion contributor Mary Fran McQuade likes geraniums because of their varied textures and also suggests including fuzzy lamb’s-ears in your bouquet so passersby will be intrigued to take a closer look and possibly even touch. Instead of baby’s breath or ferns to fill out your bouquet, try green wheat stalks, dill, parsley or fennel to add texture and shape.

Herbal bouquets can be as practical as they are beautiful. Bales suggests a bouquet of cooking herbs to decorate your kitchen table or to give as a gift to a friend who loves to cook. Cooking herbs like thyme, oregano and rosemary can be pulled out as needed while cooking. Lavender is another great bouquet herb because its long blooms coordinate well with many other flowers.

Suggested Bouquet Combinations:

+ Floral & Herbal Mix: Roses, lavender and green wheat stalks

+ Cooking Bouquet: Sage flowers, thyme, rosemary, basil and oregano

+ Bedside Bouquet: Chamomile flowers, lavender and sage blossoms

Lindsay Cleek is an intern at The Herb Companion.