Briza Maxima - Quaking Grass

Flattened heart-shaped lockets hanging off stems so fine that the whole plant rattles and dances in the smallest breeze. The seed heads are the entire point; the grass itself is unremarkable.

They open a silvery-green flushed with pink and ripen through summer to warm golden straw. Cut them at whichever stage you prefer, because both dry well and the dried heads hold their shape and colour for years rather than months. For a dried arrangement it is one of the most reliable things you can grow, and it costs almost nothing to raise.

It is a hardy annual making a tidy clump at 45 to 60cm, drought-tolerant once away, and left alone by rabbits and deer. It does seed itself about. The old catalogues call it polite and it is certainly no couch grass, but on light Norfolk soil you will find it turning up in the gravel and between paving for years afterwards, so cut for drying before the heads shatter if you would rather it stayed put. Once the seed has ripened the plant browns off and goes over, so it is worth having something behind it to take August on.