I use a lot of the 'wild marjoram' aka 'ornamental oregano' flowers and it is a hardy perennial. Also artemesia, herb cuttings, just about anything that can be dried. I made this one over a year ago and it is still beautiful and fragrant. EP

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artemesia (wormwood) comes in a whole bunch of lacey forms
and works better than mothballs at repelling most bugs

lamb's ear leaves dry really well, and are silky, taboot.

but little peppers are my favorite- the hot kind that I use for 'edible art' or the colored ones that I just use like flower accents.

Artemesia is good for wreaths because it isn't brittle. I like ornamental oregano, sage (culinary type), hydrangeas,& gomphrenas. Goldenrod makes a good background material.

Yarrow is good. The white grows wild here, but I grow the colored varieties in my garden, too. Lavender leaves and flowers retain their scent well after drying. I made an entire wreath with lambs' ears as the background, then added dried roses, peonies, etc. It is almost ten years old and is still pretty. I've had to change the roses and decorative stuff, but the lambs' ears base is still great.

Gail

I started drying flowers this summer, as I made grapevine wreaths last fall. I have only put one together so far, but it looked nice. Some puffy kind of goldenrod picked while still yellow is amazingly lovely, stays yellow, that is my favorite so far. I also dried some in the older white phase, am contemplating spray painting it (have an infinite amount.) Queen Anne's Lace dried really well, too. I also dried a lot of tall unknown type grasses that had lovely seed heads, and that tall rusty-brown seedy weed that I forget what it is called. They look great. Daisies of two varieties both dried well and kept their color, those I dried in sand, the rest I hung up or put on screens. I tried drying red clover, it looks okay but not great. Silver-leafed maple leaves dry with nice color (green/white on different sides.) Seed pods from gladiolas look great, interesting texture.

Am trying to dry highbush cranberries, but they seem to be smelling funny, and make a horrible mess if they get into the carpeting.

I think if you just let any large area grow whatever it wants, you will get some things that dry nicely! WIldflowers, grasses, weeds, whatever. I mostly planted none of the things I am drying. Note: Black-eyed susans didn't dry worth a darn