Making Pot Pourri Fashionable Again

I spent part of my childhood living in an old water mill. It was close to a village in Suffolk (UK) called Cavendish and famous for it’s marshmallow pink thatched cottages.

Cavendish had a handful of shops and one of them was called “Full of Beans”. It was in a small room in a Georgian house on the main street. Simply decked out with wooden furniture and very homespun, the shop contained drawers of dried beans, lentils and herbs. When you entered you were met with wholesome herbaceous woody scents. My ten year old self was enthralled. It made me want to go out pick and dry flowers and leaves and make my own concoctions. Boarding school and college aside I never really stopped doing this.

It is a way of storing up layers of plant material from each growing season. The scent of summer released with a gentle zhoosh .

The origins of pot pourri go back a long way. In sixteenth century Spain, pot pourri was known as olla podrida , which means rotten pot (!) to describe a stew of meat and vegetables. Scent was needed to chase away unpleasant smells and pestilence. Usually stored in containers with holes to release the perfume. Layers of petals, leaves, bay (sea) salt and orris root to preserve the scent.

My modern day version includes dried plant material, orris root , salt and the addition of essential oils . I like to display the mix in a bowl so that you can see the shapes and colours of the flowers. I add drops of essential oil as the scent begins to fade .

I love that it can be added to. I’ll pick a few fallen iris petals or the last tulip flower that I can’t quite bring myself to put into the compost. Here it can remain awhile as the year progresses, a little memento of the spring.