Walter’s Garden in Zeeland, Michigan – the country’s largest wholesale field grower of perennials, says yellow is the official color of the year, not only in fashion and home décor – but in the garden as well. Yellow is the color of “hope, warmth, radiant optimism, and positive energy,” and as we start to see improvement in the economy, yellow has become fashionable again. I’m glad! For years, I’ve heard the phrase “anything but yellow” when helping people plan their gardens. But it’s such a sunny, cheerful color! Is there anything that heralds the coming of spring so much as the yellow trumpets of daffodils. Or anything that signals autumn is approaching more than a field of goldenrod, dotted with purple asters? Yellow brightens dark corners in the garden, combines well with both cool and warm colors, and as an added benefit, is an attractant to pollinating bees.

From the first breath of spring through autumn’s first frost, yellow flowers are a welcoming sight in any garden.

(As a side note, if you’re ever in Zeeland, stop in and take a walk through Walter’s Garden trial gardens – absolutely gorgeous!)

The first frost might be hitting many gardens much earlier than normal next year. ‘First Frost’ has been named The American Hosta Growers Hosta of the Year for 2010. This medium-sized hosta is aptly named; it leaves hold up well until the first frost. A sport of the ever-popular ‘Halcyon,’ ‘First Frost’ has the same vibrant blue-green leaves, but each one comes with a gold margin that changes to white as summer progresses.

The 2010 Perennial Plant Association Plant of the Year is a native plant and an old-fashioned garden favorite. Baptisia australis (Blue False Indigo, left) is long-lived and easy to grow. From mid-to-late spring, bright indigo-blue flowers bloom above a dense mound of bluish-green foliage. After the flowers fade, long, black seed pods develop, providing interest through autumn and into winter.

Breeders continue to develop new varieties of Echinacea in shades of red, orange, and yellow. I love coneflowers, but I have to admit I’ve been disappointed with most of the newer varieties for the past few years. Coneflowers are supposed to be vigorous and easy to grow in most any type of soil, right? But unlike the those garden stalwarts – the sturdy, indestructible, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ and its white-colored cousin, Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ – the red and orange varieties seem to always look weak and scraggly. The yellows seem to be a bit more vigorous, but not nearly as much and the purple and white. Though I’ve heard some positive feedback from some of my customers, most have been as disappointed as I am, so I stopped carrying them at the nursery a couple of years ago, and one of my largest perennials suppliers stopped growing them for the same reason.

During the Independent Garden Center Conference and Trade Show in Chicago this August, I had the opportunity to speak with a representative from Terra Nova, which developed many of these Echinacea hybrids. I asked him why they don’t seem to thrive, and often fail. They are hybrids developed from Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) and Echinacea paradoxa (Ozark coneflower), he explained. In order to develop a more vigorous plant, the flower buds should be cut off just as they start to develop for the first one or even two years. Do not allow the plants to grow very tall either; pinch them back as you would mums. The problem with vigor may lie with the traits Echinacea paradoxa brings to the hybrids. This yellow coneflower, though very hardy in zones 3 to 9, has a very deep taproot. In its native habitat, this species may not reach its full size or may not flower for the first few years until that taproot develops. Cutting off the flower buds and keeping the plant from getting leggy will aid in developing a larger root system quicker.

Placing my perennials orders for the nursery this fall, I could not resist ordering at least one of the red coneflowers. Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’ has flaming red-orange pom-pom type flowers. Though a hybrid, it’s touted to have the sturdy stems, foliage and habit of Echinacea purpurea.

We’ll see more of pom-pom type coneflowers in garden centers next year. The good news (in my book) is the majority of them are Echinacea purpurea varieties, both in the purple tones and in white. ‘Coconut Lime’ was a nice white-flowered variety this year; additions to the white pom-poms are ‘Meringue,’ a double-white with a green cone, and ‘Milkshake,’ a shorter variety.

Green coneflowers are becoming popular, and there’ll be a few more varieties available for 2010. One of my favorites is Echinacea purpurea ‘Green Jewel.’ It’s fragrant, fairly short at 2 feet tall, with a large light green petals centered around a darker green cone.

It’s not just the Echinacea, of course, that have plant breeders busy. In the shrub department, Lo & Behold^TM ‘Blue Chip’ butterfly bush (Buddleia x ‘Blue Chip’) is the first in a series of new miniature butterfly bushes that bloom continuously without dead-heading. Bloomerang^TM Purple (Syringa x ‘Penda’) is a new reblooming lilac, with fragrant flowers in spring, mid-summer and into fall.

Spring Meadows in Grand Haven, Michigan, has bred what I consider the most exciting recent breakthrough in hydrangeas. Nearly everyone is familiar with the ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea. It’s world’s most recognizable and most popular hydrangea. “Foolproof,” “ironclad,” “indestructible” – whatever you want to call it, it’s a cultivar of our native Hydrangea arborescens, and it’s extremely hardy.

But it only comes in white – that is, until now. Spring Meadows introduces us to the first ever pink ‘Annabelle’ – Invincibelle^TM Spirit (Hydrangea arborescens ‘NCHA1’). With a USDA hardiness rating of zones 3 to 9, ‘Invincibelle’ promises to be just as hardy as the species. The blooms begin a dark pink, maturing to a clear pink, flowering from summer through first frost.

As this year’s garden season draws to a close, we take stock of what worked in our gardens, and what didn’t. Already, we start to plan what changes we’ll make, and look forward to the coming season with optimism. These plants are just a few of the offerings that may be waiting for you at garden centers in 2010. Hope to see you there!

Note: Hybridized plants listed in this article, excluding Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus,’ Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’ and Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ are trademarked, patented, or patent-pending and must be listed as such at the point of purchase. Asexual propagation of these perennials is prohibited. Propagation of and/or the sale of listed shrubs is prohibited without a license.

“Profusion best describes the cottage garden – a place where flowers of assorted sizes, shapes, and colors spill over walls and paths, where herbs, vegetables, and berry bushes crowd among roses and fruit trees. The bloom is perpetual, as new blossoms draw attention away from any fading flowers. Planting is haphazard and cultivation is minimal, since the fullness of the beds makes it difficult for all but the most determined weeds to find a foothold. Seedlings are pampered in the beginning to assure a healthy start, and then allowed to grow freely. Plants thrive on this benign neglect.” – Marina Schinz from Visions of Paradise: Themes and Variations on the Garden

Haphazard? Minimal cultivation? Benign neglect! Ah-ha! See, there is a method to my madness; a style to the semi-controlled chaos in my yard. “You’ve got a lovely cottage garden,” sidewalk passers-by have said to me as I sit on my favorite perch on the front porch; sometimes they stop to look at the flowers in the garden along the sidewalk; other times Keith will offer them a “tour.” He’s so funny. “Let me give you a tour of the grounds,” he says. Or to me, “The grounds look nice today, Dear.” Giving the impression we actually have “grounds” to tour, instead of a ¾ acre lot in town.

A visiting friend recently exclaimed after such a tour, “You’ve brought the country right here to the middle of town.” The term “cottage garden” presents romantic images of farmhouses along a country road fronted by an old stone wall; an unpretentious village house with the open gate of a white picket fence inviting visitors up the path leading to the door; a painted lady of the Victorian era with an arch of climbing roses framing the front porch, or a centuries old stone cottage in England, barely visible through the vines covering it, and the gardens surrounding it.

Is our house a Victorian or a farmhouse? It may have started out as one, but ended up as the other. It’s changed and been added on to so many times in its one-hundred-plus years of existence, who can really tell? A house with acreage in the country, a lot in suburbia, or a brownstone in the city: the style of the house and its location is unimportant. It’s not the type of dwelling, but the abundance and variety of plantings, generous doses of color and texture that blend with simplicity which define a cottage garden.

If I have a cottage garden it was created purely by accident; some of the elements are there, but it’s not a style I set out to adopt. And whether or not it’s “lovely” is most surely debatable. Come take a walk with me, and you can decide. We’ll tour some of  “the grounds” as I tell you a little bit about one of the world’s oldest forms of gardening, and the history of how it came to be. Welcome to the cottage garden.

Enter a cottage garden and most often you’ll walk through a gate and down a path to the front door. Look! I’ve got a path … although it’s concrete. And there’s no gate to enter before you step onto the “path,” but there’s a garden along side it. This little garden along the sidewalk and front walk was created out of necessity. It’s sand; turf doesn’t grow in sand, and the sand kept eroding onto the sidewalk. There are plants that do grow in sand though; this bed is a mix of flowering perennials and herbs – chives, sage, parsley, and winter savory. The bees love the masses of tiny white flowers of winter savory; if anyone can tell me what else it’s good for I’d love to know. I planted it strictly for its looks; I’ve got no idea what to use it for in the kitchen.

Cottage gardens began as necessities, probably during medieval times. Laboring families grew the essentials: herbs used for medicinal and culinary purposes, fruits were eaten fresh, and preserved for hard winters when food was scarce. Flowers were grown as nectar sources for bees, and to use inside the house for fragrance ... because let’s face it; people during that period did not have the same type of hygiene standards we practice today. To put it bluntly, they stank. Unpleasant odors not only came from their own bodies, but also from earth privies, and domestic animals in close proximity, often right outside the door and sometimes right inside the house. Pleasant counter-smells were used to combat the offensive odors. Roses were made into rosewater, flowers and herbs were used in pomanders, which were carried and sniffed whenever unpleasant smells reached the nose, and strewing herbs – sweet smelling plants – were scattered on the earthen floors, so that their scent was released when walked upon.

I actually do have a path to the front door – it’s the servant’s entrance; the servant would be me. It was also created out of necessity, again because this patch of front yard is comprised mostly of sand. When we moved into the house, the “lawn,” which was mostly a tangle of weeds, ran up to the foundation of the house. What little grass that grew there was worn thin from us walking across it from the driveway, creating a dust-bowl whenever the wind blew. The early garden once had a boundary of brick like the path’s outer edge, but it has long since been lost as ‘Fairy’ roses, lady’s mantle, and lamb’s ears are allowed to spill over the edge. Excuse the weeds in the path please; if I had known you were coming, I’d have swept them under the bushes.

Some of the weeds I would have left, even if I had known you were coming. A benevolent wind blew in seeds from this common white campion; a rather pretty weed I think, so I let it stay. In the spring, poppies, forget-me-nots, and tall wild phlox bloom here. The poppies and forget-me-nots are courtesy of my neighbor’s garden, the seeds also blown in from the wind. I waited for years for the phlox to arrive – it grows everywhere around here – and last year it finally came; this year it was beautiful. The wind here isn’t wicked all the time. In earliest gardens, flowers and herbs were collected from the wild, others were traded with neighbors. The plants in a cottage garden are often considered ordinary; they’re not fussy and are the plants your grandmother’s grandmother grew. You’d never find white campion and its companions in this garden – the ditch lilies, spiderwort, and rose checker mallow – on any hot new must-have perennial list.

Because of the simplicity of the plants contained in a cottage garden, it’s often thought of as a kind of botanical archive. Cottage gardeners are credited with preserving older species and varieties of plants, allowing new generations to nostalgically fill their gardens with the plants their great-grandmothers grew.

This ‘Seven Sisters’ rose bush is a very old variety of rose, first cultivated in 1817. The woman who lived in our house for fifty years may have planted it; it may have been planted by the house’s original owners. She took it with her when she moved, though. When we bought the house from its next owners, just a sprig remained, and even that Keith accidently cut down with the lawn mower. Its size now is a testament to its indestructibility. It’s considered a collector’s rose in cultivation for nearly 200 years, but those centuries have taken a toll; there’s much debate about what is a “true” ‘Seven Sisters.’ But it’s pretty just the same. If you look hard enough at this photo, you’ll see another weed growing up from the rose bush. Long after the roses fade and petals drop, tiny white asters on tall willowy stems will bloom in autumn. Who can think a plant as a weed when it willingly gives you flowers after everything else has faded?

Speaking of weeds ... the tall torch-like thing is common mullein. Somehow I always end up with one or two a year, always in different parts of the yard. Wherever they crop up, they get to stay too ... just because I think they’re really cool. In front of it are peach and rose-colored daylilies and purple coneflower. And yes, that’s really orange and pink. Together. It’s a combination that would make most people cringe, but it’s my favorite color scheme, and you’ll see variations of it in most of these pictures.

Aside from the clash of colors, there is a lot going on in this garden. I love flowers; the family and I are also fond of fruits and vegetables. We have very little sun in our yard; most of my gardening is done in the shade. In the few areas we do have sun, as much has to be packed into the garden as possible. In his book English Gardens, Peter Coats, garden editor of House and Garden quoted a friend as saying, “A garden should be like a fat woman in a tight corset – bulging out of it.” I couldn’t agree more.

Beyond the flowers are the squash and tomato patches; the two vegetables are separated by a mulched path which allows us to get to the blueberries planted in a row along the house. They took a hard hit this winter; ice built up under the eaves, and came crashing down on the bushes. As a result, I really had to prune them hard in spring. We’ve got berries though; maybe not as much as we’d like, but we’ve been picking a handful here and there. Potatoes are planted between the blueberry bushes.

Just on the other side of the fence is a smaller garden with asparagus, chives, and parsley. I’ll be moving the blackberries to the vegetable garden in fall; they only get about half a day of sun now and would really prefer more. Vegetables will continue to be planted here next year, though I’ll be expanding the side garden along the driveway where our beans are growing now to include more. A grape vine that bears heavy clusters of the sweetest amber-colored grapes is trellised in the foreground.

(Yep – that wooden thing is another piece of “Good Junque.” It’s a neat old hand-truck my boss was getting rid of a couple of weeks ago, which somehow ended up in my yard ... which had nothing to do with me putting it in my trunk and taking it home.)

Up until about a century ago, cottage gardens contained fruits such as currants, gooseberries, and raspberries. Apple and pear trees rose above mixed beds with herbs, flowers, and vegetables. Early in the nineteenth century as people became more prosperous, the gardens turned more toward ornamental plantings. I think it’s interesting that with many people now growing their own fruits and vegetables and adding them in existing gardens, cottage gardens are returning more toward their original form.

Cottage gardens are generous; plants are not singled out and defined, but rather are allowed to mingle, colors blend, and both useful and ornamental plants are grown in a manner that’s does not require a lot of effort to tend. It’s an intimate type of garden, simple and without pretension. Space is the only limiting factor; there are no restrictions about what to plant, or where to plant it – anything can be included – even if it’s pink and orange together, or an odd combination of hydrangeas and squash (see below). It’s a garden for people who love plants. It’s nostalgic and perhaps represents an idealized version our desire to return to more simple times; it’s less a particular style than it is an attitude.

And it’s not for everybody. My sister-in-law told me once that she looked at the photos in gardening books and magazines of gardens brimming with flowers and thought they looked messy. My friend, who has a gorgeous garden, likes things symmetrical and orderly and meticulously plucks blemished leaves and faded flowers from her plants. You’d never see a weed in her garden, much less one purposely allowed to grow there. If our gardens could be considered children, she’d constantly try to run a brush through my child’s hair; her child wouldn’t have a hair out of place, just tempting me to tousle it.

Whatever style of gardening you prefer, I hope you enjoyed this little tour, and the hearing a bit of history about the cottage garden. Are you tired after all that? Grab a seat and rest for a bit ... but be careful where you sit! You never quite know what you’ll find in a cottage garden.

The lilacs are beginning to open here – just in time for Mother’s Day. Lilacs always remind me of Mother’s Day – one in particular when I was about six years old and gave my Mom a simple, hand-picked bouquet. My friend and I decided flowers were the perfect Mother’s Day gift. Six-year-olds don’t pick up the phone and call a florist to order a bouquet; they pick their own. And we did … from every garden from one end of the street to the other. Daffodils, tulips, and other flowers I can’t recall, but I remember the lilacs – lots and lots of lilacs; I can almost smell their heady perfume even now.

I also recall Mom giving me a big hug when I presented this magnificent gift to her, finding a vase large enough to fit the huge the bouquet, then using the opportunity to teach me one of life’s important lessons: no matter how good the intentions, you do not take what is not yours, and do not borrow without asking first. With my small hand wrapped in hers, we visited every house where I had picked flowers. As I hid behind her, Mom explained to our neighbors that she’d received a wonderful gift courtesy of her daughter ... and of their gardens. She led by example; she apologized first for me picking their flowers without asking. Then it was my turn to peek from behind the folds of her dress where I was hiding, and say I was sorry.

I’ve repeated this story to my daughters when they were about the age I was way back then as we’ve walked down the street, thwarting their desire to pick a flower or two from a garden along the sidewalk. Flowers are sometimes so tempting. Instead they bring me flowers pulled from my garden ... sometimes, in Shannon’s case, with the roots still attached. This spring, tiny bouquets of sweetly-scented violets that last about as long as the flowers are small, line the windowsill. A bouquet of daffodils has been on the kitchen table since the flowers first started to open a few weeks ago; it’s freshened and replenished often by Shannon as one variety fades, and another opens.

I talked with Mom on the phone earlier this week. We laughed about a lot of things; my recounting of the Mother’s Day bouquet story was one of them. “Wow,” she said, “I’m amazed you remember that; you were so little at the time.” It was a lesson taught with love, and one that is still as vivid in my memory as is the scent of that armload of lilacs.

Mom turns eighty-one this year; as it has so many times in the past, this year her birthday falls on Mother’s Day. I always have told her it means she’s a doubly special Mom. She’s taught me so many things over the years; I wish she lived close enough for me to just pop in, give her a big hug, and tell her thanks. I’d bring bouquets of flowers snipped from my gardens. No lilacs; even where I live now, those belong to the neighbors.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

And Happy Mother’s Day to you, and all the other mothers out there.

Bottom photo: iStockphoto.com/Denise Torres

We have had a hard year … as have many people in this changing world today. I was feeling particularly sorry for my personal problems one day and decided to go for a walk to clear my head. It was a gorgeous day, a sharp contrast to my murky mood. I began to pray for God to help me to understand why things were happening the way they were and to give me the strength and wisdom to get through it … Thankfully, I took my camera along …

I noted the brown, dry grass crunching underfoot. Everything, in the midst of what was supposed to be the dawn of spring, was still dead and lifeless.

Until … I stopped and saw a small, white flower peeking out from among the brown grass!

I began searching for more … and began to happily play hopscotch trying to avoid the bounty of blooms scattered across the native grass carpet.

I found many beautiful things on that walk.

And by the time I got back to the house, I again prayed to God. I thanked him for the beauty he created, the incredible land we are so blessed to live on:

And the gentle way he showed me that even though things in my crazy life look tough now, there is hope and life on the way …

Brighter days are coming, and God is in the midst of us, holding our hand.

Ta-da-da-ta-ta-da! The daffodils are here! The early flowering bulbs have been opened for a couple of weeks – the crocus, the snowdrops, and the cute, little chionodoxa – glory-of-the-snow. They are all welcome spring visitors, but it’s in eager anticipation, I await my favorite springtime flower: the daffodil. When the daffodils bloom, it really feels like spring has arrived. I think it’s so fitting that they have built-in trumpets to blare, “Spring is here!!!” So beautiful, they can toot their own horns all they like and no one would mind.

The early, little ‘Tete-de-Tetes’ in the nursery’s arboretum are in full bloom; my early varieties at home are just starting to open. It’s the perfect time to cut them, letting them open indoors so that their heady scent fills the house. The later varieties are still just nubs poking through the ground. My favorite of the later daffodils is ‘Thalia.’ Sometimes referred to as the orchid narcissus, it’s a beautiful, fragrant pure white daffodil. All daffodils are in the Narcissus genus, but not all Narcissus are daffodils.

One such non-daffodil Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology. Narcissus was a beautiful, young hunter, without the disposition to match his appearance. Conceited – a true tooter of his own horn – and ill-tempered, his beauty was only skin deep.

Echo, a nymph of the woods and hills, was equally as beautiful as the young hunter. She had a gloriously sweet voice and was very fond of using it – always getting in the last word in conversations or arguments. This proved to be her curse. Echo kept Hera, the reigning goddess of Olympus, detained with her chatter while Hera’s philandering husband, Zeus, escaped the company of the nymphs unnoticed by his wife. Zeus escaped Hera’s wrath, but Echo did not. “You shall still have the last word, but no power to speak first,” Hera cursed when she discovered what Echo had done.

Echo, tormented with repeating all she heard, saw Narcissus chasing prey in the mountains and fell hopelessly in love. Not being able to express herself without sounding like a broken record, it was an unrequited love. “Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out and who was left?” With Echo repeating everything Narcissus said, their conversation was reminiscent of that children’s joke we’ve all heard a thousand times … possibly at one retelling. Narcissus found Echo to be a repetitive bore and shunned her. Echo was devastated and headed to the mountains. There poor Echo pined away and died, only her voice living on in the hills. You can still call to her to this day, and she will answer … but Hera’s curse was not lifted upon her death, and all you will hear is Echo repeating your call.

One good curse deserves another and what goes around comes around. Nemesis, the avenging goddess, punished Narcissus for his vanity and cold-heartedness by dooming him to “feel what it was to love and meet no return of affection”; he was cursed with falling in love with his own image.

In a pool Narcissus gazed, becoming so self-absorbed he forgot all else. He would have done well to use that self-absorption to his advantage by becoming sponge-like. Then he could have soaked up the water in the pool, releasing himself from gazing upon his own reflection. As it were, he was resigned to stare into the pools of his eyes reflected in the pools of water. Whenever he bent to hug or kiss the image in the pool, the water would ripple and his love, disappear. It eventually drove him to madness. Then he too, wilted and died, leaving only a flower in his place.

As with most of the Greek myths, there are variations of the story of Narcissus. The same is true of the origins of the word “daffodil” – tracing a word back in time can lead to origins as cloudy as poor Narcissus’ eyes became after staring at his reflection for so long. Originally “daffodil” was affodil, which referred to a plant in the lily family, the asphodel. The “asph” in asphodel became “aff” probably through phonetics and a misspelling. In medieval manuscripts, asphodel was spelled phonetically as “asfodel”. It’s thought probable one scribe could not decipher the lettering of another scribe, and “asfodel” became affodil. The first appearance of “daffodil” came in the sixteenth century, and how the “d” got to the front of the line-up is unclear. Best guesses are that daffodil is corrupted from the Dutch de affodil, “the affodil.” (Then, as now, the Dutch were leaders in bulb cultivation.)

Whatever the story behind the words, one thing is for certain. The sunny-yellow daffodil brightens gardens and hearts alike.

I have never been much for growing things (maybe it was the huge gardens we raised when I was a kid). Since I left home I have had exactly 3 house plants, and they've all died of neglect. I used to say that I had a black thumb. But ... whoever lived in my house before me planted perennials, so I have spring flowers.

And they tickle me to no end. I smile, I giggle, I talk about "my daffodils blooming" and "my crocuses coming up," just like I had something to do with it.

They herald the hope of the season for me, and I thank whoever planted them from the bottom of my heart every year as the cold finally creeps away and the first purple crocus peeks out of the ground.

The crocuses (which are finished now) were beautiful.

But the weird weather we've been having around here (really, snow on April fools?) messed with my daffodils. (Hear the ownership I feel?) They did bloom, but the stems had already bent over in the cold/wind/storms.

There's something especially sad about flowers that point at the ground. But, spring is coming, and, whether it's frozen or not, the moisture we're getting will make everything greener in the long run.

I have finally realized that Gardening is one of my true passions. I have always enjoyed gardening but I didn’t fully see the joy and excitement it brought me until now. Growing a vegetable garden has always been the norm for me and I never looked past that point. The minute we bought our 18 acres my mind started racing and I have all types of ideas … and Gardening is at the heart of it all!

My gardens this year did Great even though I had a tough time deciding what to plant here and/or down south. Growing gardens in two different locations is a challenge and quite frankly not a good idea. I have learned to respect the weather and worship its every move. I watch for rain, I watch for rain to cease after torrid downfalls for two days, I cringe when it’s hot and dry for 2 weeks in a row and I have no way of turning on the garden hose for some relief since I am 5 hours away.

To accompany all this wonder and worry I am now fascinated with Growing Flowers and not just growing them, but also learning to preserve or dry them. I learned quickly that not all flowers dry well and some don’t even grow well!

Organization – keeping track of what you plant, when and how it did is a necessity regardless if it be vegetables or flowers. I have charts and seem to have it all under control, but I have to confess I tried to grow too much at once. All from seeds and tiny seeds are very fickle! So … not everything worked as expected, but as with all good gardening – you just keep trying!

I do have my startup grow racks which I use year round and realized they are multi-functional since I am now using them without the lights to dry flowers!

Flowers that I found easy to grow and air dried well were:

Baby’s breath
Cockscomb
Globe amaranth 
Larkspur
Marigold
Statice
Strawflower
Yarrow
Zinnia

The possibilities to craft and create with dried flowers is endless and not difficult at all. Sometimes simple is so beautiful ...

On my kitchen table sits a glorious pot of gold. No – I wasn’t visited by leprechauns during the night, leaving me a treasure of untold wealth; I haven’t become instantly rich, and I would never find a merchant or bank to accept the gold as legal tender. The “pot” is a vase and the gold it contains is a treasure of another kind. It’s goldenrod – one of nature’s treasures.

“Cindy? Goldenrod inside the house?! Has all that allergy medication that you take for your hay-fever gone straight to your head, and left you delirious?” Thanks anyway, but save your tissues.

Edwin Rollin Spencer, in 1940, says of goldenrod in his book Just Weeds, “The goldenrods are truly weeds of the wayside, with emphasis on the ‘weeds.’ Aside from the beauty of some of the species, which has caused them to be adopted as State flowers in several States, the goldenrods have not a single commendable character, and they do have at least one very undesirable weedy trait. They are among the generators of hay fever. The ‘wondrous days of green and gold’ become horrible days for some people when the goldenrods come on the scene.”

Sure, goldenrod produces heavy pollen – just look at all the bees and butterflies that visit when it’s in bloom. And I suppose if you stuck your nose into the flower, it’d make you sneeze – just as you would if you got a noseful of pollen from any other flower. But the idea the goldenrod is the cause of hay-fever is an age-old misconception, and one that persists today as it did when Mr. Spencer wrote his book. Although the myth that goldenrod is the cause of hay-fever has been debunked, goldenrod is still often the scapegoat when the real culprit for those itchy, watery eyes, sneezes, and eye-closing sinus headaches is ragweed. (Achoo! Now you can pass the tissues, please!)

Goldenrod’s pollen is not air-borne; the pollen is sticky, and the plant is pollinated by insects. On the other hand, ragweed, (achoo!), which flowers at the same time as goldenrod, has wind-blown pollen.

Goldenrod is a wonderful cut flower; long-lasting, it’ll stay looking good for 7-10 days in a vase. Cut it when it’s still a lime-green color to use as filler for a mixed bouquet; it’s a favorite of florists used in this way. Pick when the inflorescences are just starting to show hints of yellow, or when it’s in its full golden glory. In every stage of bloom its beauty adds bright cheerfulness in the dog days of late summer, and a warmth that carries well into autumn. As with any cut flower, a teaspoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of white vinegar added to the water in the vase prolongs freshness. The sugar feeds the flowers, and the vinegar kills bacteria that speeds the decaying process.

Don’t hesitate to bring it into your house to enjoy – there’s no need to stock up on tissues first. Plant some in your garden too. Pick a bouquet to give to a friend; he or she will not only be thankful for your thoughtfulness, but also for the bouquet’s symbolism ... for this beautiful "weed of the wayside" really is a treasure. In the Language of Flowers, goldenrod represents treasure and good fortune, and folklore tells us it brings quick wealth if planted in the garden or displayed inside the house ... maybe there is a visit from that leprechaun in my near future after-all.