Michigan Strawflowers

Touch a strawflower and the name makes instant sense: the blooms feel like crisp, dry straw, yet they glow in warm sunset colors. What look like petals are actually stiff, papery bracts ringing a small central button, and they open into tidy double pom-poms of gold, copper, rose, and apricot. Because the color and shape live in those bracts rather than in soft petals, a cut strawflower can look freshly picked for months, which is exactly why it never goes out of style.

Strawflower is not a Michigan wildflower. It hails from Australia, where Xerochrysum bracteatum can grow as a perennial, but in our climate it is planted each spring and grown as a heat-loving annual. It comes into its own once Michigan summer settles in, blooming from July through October and often carrying the warmest color in the field as the season turns toward fall.

Strawflower rewards a grower who knows the crop. The stems can be slender and the blooms open in stages, so our member farmers cut each stem at just the right moment and you pick it up at the barn instead of after days on a truck. That means strong color and stems ready to use fresh or to hang and dry for everlasting decor. Reserve a DIY bucket, ask us to build strawflower into a mixed bucket of warm-toned blooms, or talk with our floral designers about an arrangement that carries color from summer into fall.