Homemade Potpourri Is the Secret to Long-Lasting Holiday Scent – These Are the 5 Best Fragrant Plants to Use, and You Can Forage Them Right From Your Yard

Plants have so much to offer when it comes to curating the perfect interiors for the holidays. You can't beat the inviting fragrance of real plants, from living Christmas trees to potpourri. Making your own potpourri is all the more rewarding, often creating the freshest of fragrances that lasts through the entire holiday season.

To make potpourri, you essentially need to dry fragrant plants and mix them with spices and essential oils. Placing this mixture in an organza bag (like this set of organza mesh bags from Amazon) means you can gift your homemade potpourri and display it around the home. But, which plants should you use?

Many of the best Christmas plants can be incorporated into potpourri, but there are also some more unexpected plants that work well. Here, I talk through our top five plants for homemade potpourri, with insights from a horticulturist on growing them in your yard to forage from every year for this festive DIY.

5 Plants to Grow for Homemade Potpourri

It's likely you already have some of these plants for homemade potpourri and can collect materials from your yard, or pick up some materials when foraging natural materials for a homegrown Christmas wreath.

1. Orange Tree

When you purchase pre-packaged potpourri bags (like this set of potpourri materials from Walmart), there's one ingredient likely to catch your eye straight away: orange slices.

The good news is growing an orange tree is one of the easier choices among fruit trees. You can even grow an orange tree indoors, specifically with a dwarf orange tree (like this one from Amazon).

The main care requirements are a sunny position, pruning your orange tree in spring, and giving it a boost of fertilizer (you can use a citrus tree-specific fertilizer, available at Amazon).

You can expect to harvest oranges from fall until spring and cut them into slices for drying and preserving for this year and next year's potpourri. One hack for drying orange slices is using an air fryer or baking them in the oven on low heat.

Alternatively, you can use the peels from the oranges you purchase from the store to add a citrus note to your potpourri.

'Peeled strips can be dried until crisp to add to potpourri. Making sure they're entirely dry will prevent mold,' says plant expert Michael Clarke. 'They pair well with cinnamon sticks and cloves for a spicy potpourri blend,' he adds.

Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke is the founder of Yardwork and Pulled, the online platforms for everything home and garden. He has a degree in landscape architecture and horticulture from the University of California Davis. He was previously the founder of a landscape development and maintenance company.

2. Rosemary

If you're looking for one of the easiest herbs to grow and add to potpourri, consider growing rosemary. In potpourri, it adds a piney, herbal aroma.

Outdoors, rosemary can be grown across US hardiness zone 8-11. But, it also makes an excellent addition to indoor herb gardens.

'Rosemary is best grown in sunny, sheltered spots with light, well-drained soil,' Michael advises.

As for adding it to homemade potpourri, Michael suggests taking cuttings, stripping woody stems, and drying the leaves on a warm windowsill.

You can either try growing rosemary from seed (you can find rosemary seeds at Burpee), or purchase an established rosemary plant from a supermarket, like Walmart, to take cuttings from.

3. Lemon Balm

To enhance the citrus notes in your potpourri, consider growing lemon balm, one of the most distinct-smelling plants for homemade potpourri.

Outdoors, this aromatic herb does best across US hardiness zone 4-9, but it is also possible to grow lemon balm indoors year-round, so long as you can provide six to eight hours of sunlight a day (e.g. on a south-facing windowsill).

Bear in mind lemon balm is sometimes considered an invasive herb, with very vigorous growth. That's why it's best to contain it in a planter, like this already potted lemon balm plant from Walmart.

'Lemon balm retains a gentle lemon scent and dries very quickly, so it's good for potpourri,' says Michael.

You can pinch off lemon balm leaves and lay them out on newspaper of parchment paper to dry, before adding them to your potpourri.

4. Rose

To add a sweet aroma to your homemade potpourri, you can add dried rose petals. You can use just about any rose variety for this, but it's best to choose a more fragrant variety that will retain its scent when the petals have dried.

'I recommend Damask and English roses,' says Michael. 'You should dry the petals in a single layer until they feel papery. You could even add a drop of rose essential oil (available at Amazon) to enhance the scent,' he adds.

Rose care is very particular, so it's wise to read up on rose growing mistakes if you're keen to incorporate one into your yard.

'Roses tend to love around six hours of sunlight a day, and deadheading spent blooms will encourage more flowers,' Michael says.

Alternatively, you can purchase dried rose petals from Amazon to add into your potpourri.

Discover the range of fragrant rose shrubs available at Nature Hills.

5. Pine Tree

You can use pine needles from the best pine trees for homemade potpourri. A bonus is it's often a material you can forage – just look down at the ground when walking through a park with pine trees for needles that have dropped.

This will provide an instant fresh, woody scent to your potpourri. Just make sure to dry them first to prevent mold and mildew. You can do this by laying them out on a piece of newspaper in a well-ventilated area.

Something to bear in mind about pine trees is that some varieties are huge in size and may not be suitable for growing in a smaller yard.

Having said that, you can find compact varieties (like this dwarf mugo pine shrub from Fast Growing Trees). You can even get some houseplant pine trees (like this Norfolk Island pine tree from Fast Growing Trees), which will infuse a woody scent in the home year-round.

FAQs

How Do You Dry Plants For Potpourri?

There are a few ways to dry plants for potpourri, including air-drying them by hanging them upside down in bunches. Alternatively, you can laying them out on a piece of newspaper or parchment paper in a warm location. You should make sure the location in which you dry your plant material has good ventilation to prevent mold building up. Some plants, especially fruit slices and herbs, can also be dried in the oven on very low heat. This is a process that takes several hours, and requires you to flip the slices over every couple of hours.

All of these plants can also be used to make a simmer pot recipe for fall and winter, releasing a delicious festive scent throughout the home. You can also try throwing the best unusual herbs for festive scent.

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