Grow This Beautiful Blue-Blooming Flower To Keep For Unique Bouquets

There will always be room for the classics like peonies and roses, but if you want to spice up your homemade bouquets, Echinops should be added to your list of flowers perfect for a cut flower garden. Commonly known as globe thistle, these adorable flowers couldn't be more aptly named. When the flowers are still young, they are a small sphere of deep blue and silvery white spikes. The spikes later bloom into a ball of tiny, star-shaped flowers that attract all kinds of pollinators. 

Whether you plant Echinops ritro (globe thistle) or Echinops bannaticus (blue globe thistle), they both are easy-going additions to the garden. These drought-tolerant garden perennials don't like overly fertile soil either, so there's no need to pile on the compost and fertilizer. For the happiest globe thistle, let them grow in well-draining soil and full sun. Echinops fits in most spaces as well, only growing from 2-4 feet tall and 2-2.5 feet wide.  Their long, sturdy stems are excellent for layering into a bouquet, and many stems will house multiple blooms. They will surely add a pop of texture and color to your summer bouquets!

If you have ever searched for ways to preserve your wedding bouquet, you know how exciting it is to discover that you can dry many flowers. And if you're unfamiliar with the process, we definitely aren't talking about the crispy, brown leftovers still in the vase weeks after it ran out of water. Drying bunches of herbs, flowers, and bouquets is a relatively easy way to preserve a plant's beauty for months. You can dry a fresh bouquet before it gets too old, or you can dry several types of flowers and then build the bouquets using dried materials. 

Echinops looks amazing after being dried, but only if you harvest it at the right time. It's best to cut it when the flowers are vibrant but still closed. That's when the spikey globe is young enough not to start losing petals, and it will still have that brilliant bloom that makes it appealing in bouquets. After cutting a few stems, bundle them closely and tie them firmly together at the bottom. When flowers dry, they shrink a little, so make sure they are secure as you hang them upside down in a dry place out of direct sun. It may take a couple of weeks for them to dry completely, depending on the humidity levels of where you have them stored.