Six Culinary Herbs to Incorporate into Floral Arrangements

Foliage truly anchors an arrangement. It draws all the elements together, frames your focal flowers, fills in the gaps, hides mechanics, and often provides flutter AND fragrance all in one stem. Better yet, when you use culinary herbs as your foliage, you gift yourself (or the lucky recipient) something that’s not only beautiful but useful too.


Here are my favorite culinary herbs to use as foliage, filler, and flutter all in one: 

MINT
This easy to grow fragrant herb is a hearty producer from early spring until first frost and is a must-have in arrangement for its aromatherapy properties alone. My favorite varieties currently growing in my backyard garden are chocolate mint, apple mint, mojito mint, peppermint, and spearmint.



ROSEMARY
The heavenly scent alone is a reason to add this herb into every bouquet you ever make. But, when a few sprigs are clustered together, rosemary adds gorgeous texture and a soft green color. It can also last two weeks or more in vase!

SAGE
A beautiful herb that comes in so many different varieties, the velvety, downy leaves of sage are the perfect addition to arrangements that have pastel, cream and white blooms. I find myself consistently harvesting Berggarten, garden, Blue Monday (purpurea), and Rosea (pink) from my garden for arrangements. Like rosemary, sage also has an impressive vase life!  


FLOWERING OREGANO
Another cut and come again with wild woody stems, oregano, just before it goes to seed, produces beautiful white, pink or purple flowers that add the perfect flutter to any arrangement. Best of all, their deep sturdy stems reach up and out above your blooms (or cascade down your vessel) without overshadowing.



SWEET MARJORAM
Closely related to oregano, I love using this fragrant herb for its pleasant clean aroma and dense but dainty leaves. Like rosemary, I prefer to incorporate sweet marjoram into my bouquets in clusters of three or more stems for the biggest impact.



FENNEL
The light feathery foliage of fennel adds a bit of whimsy to any arrangement. And the beautiful yellow flowers it produces in the summertime add gorgeous green/yellow color in airy spurts, the perfect sunbursts in your sunset-themed arrangements.



Note: I also like to incorporate basil into my floral arrangements for its flamboyant fragrance and gorgeous pillowing leaves, however I have found it to have a shorter vase life compared to the other herbs listed above so it didn’t make my top six list for this purpose. (Cinnamon, purple, and sweet Thai are among my favorites to grow and use in floral work.)



So, what do you think? Will your next arrangement have a sprig or two of your favorite culinary herb? I surely hope so!