Make Your Own Potpourri
by Don Janssen, Extension Educator
Potpourris, those aromatic mixtures of dried plant materials, are easy and inexpensive to make, and many of the ingredients can be found in your garden, in woods and fields, and in your own kitchen.
The basics of potpourris are few. They are aromatic plant materials, thoroughly dried; decorative plant materials, thoroughly dried; other aromatic ingredients, such as whole spices, chips of pleasant-smelling wood and bits of citrus peel; essential oils; and fixative, which combines with the essential oils to preserve their fragrance. Except for the fixative and essential oils, most of the ingredients are free for the picking.
Aromatic plant materials include such things as rose petals, marigold flowers and foliage, scented geraniums, lavender, mints, fragrant herbs of all kinds and evergreen needles. You can use almost any plant material for its scent, color or shape as long as it's thoroughly dried so your mixture doesn't mold.
Dry by hanging plant materials upside-down in bunches in a cool, well ventilated area, spreading them on paper towels in a well ventilated spot out of direct sun, or placing them between layers of paper towels in a microwave oven. Then combine them with whole cloves or stick cinnamon, bits of cedar bark, and visually interesting items such as gum tree seed pods and pine cones. To this mixture you then add a fixative and a few drops of a compatible essential oil for a stronger, longer lasting scent than the dried ingredients alone can provide.
The most common fixative is orris root, which should be available wherever you purchase the essential oils. It's sold in powdered or chunk form. Chunks tend to be effective longer and work better in sachets or pillows because they can't sift through the fabric as the powdered form can.
Because materials have to be collected and dried, making potpourri from gathered materials is not a spur-of-the-moment project. On the other hand, you don't have to wait for a particular time to start collecting -- you can start accumulating the dried ingredients anytime. Needles from a discarded Christmas tree can be the beginning. Then rose petals from a Valentine's Day or Mother's Day bouquet, marigolds from the garden, bittersweet berries from a backyard vine, chrysanthemum blossoms, weed seeds and pine cones -- collect whenever the opportunity presents itself. Then dry the materials and store them in tightly sealed glass containers (canning jars are good) in a spot where they'll be protected from heat and sunlight.
Mix the desired materials in a glass or ceramic bowl or a sturdy plastic bag. Follow a recipe or invent your own. Be sure to write down the ingredients and the quantities you use in case you ever want to recreate a given mixture.
Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon or shake it gently in the plastic bag. Then put it in jars, along with the fixative and essential oil, close the jars and shake well. Label and store in a cool, dry place and shake daily.
Let the potpourri age for at least a month before you use it. If the scent is fainter than you want, put another drop or two of oil on a little fixative, add it to the mixture, shake and age some more.
Potpourri is often placed in cloth bags or sachets for use in closets and dresser drawers. It can also be used in shallow bowls or decorative glass containers to add fragrance to a room. This is where visually interesting items such as strawflowers, dried berries, seed pods and cones come into the picture. They make the mixture pleasing to the eye as well as the nose.
(This resource was added June 2004 and appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star Newspaper Sunday edition. For information on reproducing this article or using any photographs or graphics, read the Terms of Use statement)
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