Michigan Statice

Statice grows in branching sprays topped with clusters of crisp, papery little flowers in some of the most saturated colors in the field, electric purple, deep blue, sunny yellow, and soft apricot. The part that looks like a petal is actually a colorful papery calyx, while the true petals tucked inside are small and white, and that is the secret to why statice keeps its color for weeks in a vase and practically forever once dried. It has earned its name as the original everlasting flower, and it works as a hardworking filler that adds body, texture, and lasting color to any bunch.

Statice is not a Michigan wildflower. It belongs to the genus Limonium, whose home is the Mediterranean Basin, and the only sea lavender ever recorded growing wild in our state is a single introduced species listed in Michigan Flora. What that means for a bouquet is simple: the statice in our buckets is a warm-season annual that our member farmers sow and tend through Michigan’s hottest, sunniest stretch, roughly July through September, when the dry heat gives the papery blooms their most vivid color.

Because statice dries so well, it is easy to assume that how it traveled never mattered, but fresh, supple statice with full color and bendable stems only comes from flowers cut at their peak and handled gently. Our member farmers harvest it at just the right stage, and picking up at the barn means you get it fresh enough to arrange in a vase today or hang to dry on your own schedule. Reserve a DIY bucket for a wedding or a wreath project, add it to a mixed bucket, or ask our floral designers to build it into an everlasting arrangement you will still have next winter.