Charlotte, North Carolina USA

This is your excuse to grow all the plants with tiny flowers and leaves that are so easily lost in a large display garden. Tending the plants and picking the herbs for a tussie-mussie require quiet, calm, and patience. You must wait for the right time of day, the right stage of a bud's development, and no rain on the lamb's ears!

The following are plants I use frequently for fresh tussie-mussies, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. You probably have a treasure in your own garden that will be the perfect complement to other tussie-mussie plants. Think fragrance, texture, color, leaf size, and symbolic meaning when planning for a posey.

Artemisias
Roman wormwood (A. pontica): Very feathery, silver, low plant that might be invasive in other gardens - seems to have that tendency; no fragrance; similar to Silver Mound, but you won't damage the form by harvesting it as you would with Silver Mound.
Silver King, Silver Queen and Silver Bouquet: Best to use only the tips of the foliage before flowering.
Sweet Annie (A. annua): Arching stems of greenish-yellow just before the flowers open. (Incidentally, this is when to pick it for drying as well.)

Baby's Breath (Gypsophilia spp.)
Use sparingly to avoid a cutesy look.

Boxwood, Ivy, etc.

Cat Mint (Nepeta spp.)
Delightful powdery fragrance, soft green leaves and tiny purple flowers.

Chamomile (German)
Perfect little daisy-like flowers.

Erigeron (Erigeron spp.)
Tiny, perfect little daisy-like flowers on individual stems; some varieties are soft pink.

Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
Small white pincushion-type flowers with yellowish centers on good stems; the plant is sizable and will be effective in the garden.

Germander (Teucreum sp.)
Excellent deep, shiny green leaves to use for the "nest" around the central blossom. Also responds well to frequent pruning. Leaves a very nasty taste on your fingers after stripping the leaves.

Globe Amaranth (Gomphrena globosa)
Smaller blossoms work better than large mature cone-shaped blossoms.

Lamb's Ears (Stachys byzantina)
Pick the mid-sized leaves that are uniform in size and slightly fleshy with a fairly long stem. Never pick them when they are wet, especially when it is raining. They continue to wick up water and will drip onto whatever surface is under them, no matter how carefully you dry them. On the other hand, you can pick them days before you need them if rain is forecast.

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)
A distant second to lemon verbena, but acceptable. I have found it difficult to cut and keep firm and erect - don't cut in the heat of the day, and put it immediately into water. You can cut it back almost to the ground in midsummer if it begins to look ratty.

Lemon Verbena (Aloisa tryphylla)
Indispensable! Use only the top three leaves of a stem segment - that way you can get several segments out of one stem. Responds very well to frequent pruning, and will branch off into three new stems when cut. Tell people about Scarlet O'Hara's mother when you use it in a tussie.

Mint
Black mint (Mentha piperita) is especially nice - neither too strong nor too much camphor. More than 3 or 4 stems will overpower the other subtle fragrances in the nosegay. Pineapple mint and curly mint are also nice. Almost any mint that is not too strong is a good choice.

Oregano/Marjoram
Both are usually plentiful and excellent for the "nest" around the central blossoms. Each also has a flower that is pretty, purple and white, respectively. Invasive!

Pinks (Dianthus spp.)
All small-blossomed varieties with good long stems; varieties with clove fragrance are especially nice.

Roses
Try all kinds; the main thing is to have a 3"-4" individual stem for each bud, and the bud should feel hard when you squeeze it at the fattest part. You can pick them at the right point, then practically submerge them in a glass of water in the refrigerator for a day or two until you need them. The tightly packed herbs around the bud keep it from opening any further; elevating the bud a little bit above the other foliage will allow it to open if that is the look you want. Personally, I think Perle d'Or, a soft peachy-pink old rose, is the best of all for tussies.

Rosemary
Almost any variety will be wonderful. You want semi-woody stems whose tips will stay erect when harvested. Particularly nice if you can get blooms.

Salad Burnet
Lovely arching stems with orderly deep green leaves; slight cucumber fragrance. Particularly beautiful in the fall, winter and early spring. Don't count on it in the summer.

Scented Geraniums (Pelargonium spp.)
All kinds are lovely; long stems are very important. Some of the larger leaves overpower the delicacy of the tussie. 'Dr. Livingston' skeleton rose packs a lot of fragrance without a lot of bulk, also 'Rober's Lemon Rose'. They respond well to cutting.

Sweet Woodruff
Very difficult to pick and strip properly, but worth it for a spring posy (think of Camelot). You have to pinch off each little leaf of the whorl to expose the stem, which is extremely fragile.

Thyme
Creeping thymes generally don't do very well, as it is hard to get a good long stem with the right shape.
English thyme is good at all times, especially when it blooms.
Also lemon thyme, silver thyme, etc.

Violets
No explanation needed! The leaves are lovely for the ruff as well.

Yarrow
Leaves of varieties like 'Moonshine', 'Parker's Gold', 'Coronation Gold', etc. are excellent for a fern-like ruffle, a different look than lamb's ears. Flowers are usually too big, but there is a low creeping variety called 'King Edward' that has a nice little yellow flower, lacier than the other varieties. 'Pearl' (A. ptarmica) is a lively little button-like white flower on nice individual stems.

Reprinted from 3/23/01