Dried seedheads for cutting, wildlife and ornamentation

Grow your own bird seed and sustainable festive decorations

When flowers set seed they form seedheads that take on a unique natural beauty in their own right, perfect for festive decorations and providing birds with seeds to eat. Architectural shapes and textures are as varied and magical as the flowers themselves. In an array of earth tones from brown umber to pale beige or white. Even the Pantone colour of 2025, Mocha Mousse!

I remember our family collecting dried seedheads of honesty, Lunaria annua, from our garden in the 1980s. Fascinated by the papery ovals. They and other dried plants blended the outside world with the inside of our little thatched cottage, itself half made of plant.

Back then dried plants were starting to go out of fashion. Tarnished at best by the fuddy-duddiness of potpourri and lavender, at worst by rumours of swingers parties if you dared grow pampas grass. I’ve looked into the pampas grass rumour - on research grounds alone you understand - and it is nothing but a myth.

These days, thanks to the new perennial mov…