Goldenrod in Floral Arrangements

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I found a kindred spirit while reading up on golden rod. Althea Fann wrote a charming article, “Reflections of an Accidental Florist,” you can find online. Printed in Crazyhorse, a College of Charleston publication, it’s available at the site Longreads.com. From her experience working for a Charleston florist, Fann delightfully recounts tales about brides and their insistence on having peonies and such out of season. I was especially charmed by her comments on goldenrod, that her favorite arrangement used crooked stems collected from roadside clumps rather than the perfect, straight specimens ordered from commercial growers. An older mentor told her that the allergens had been breed out of the “cultivated goldenrod.” Of course, goldenrod, be it from the roadside or a florist, has heavy pollen moved by insects and is given a false rap for making us sneeze.