Growing Ammobium (Winged Everlasting): A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Ammobium, commonly called winged everlasting for the papery white bracts and the winged ridges running down its stems, is an uncommon but easy dried-flower crop worth trying if the more familiar strawflower feels overdone.
An easy, fast-germinating start
Transplanting is recommended, sowing seed 5 to 6 weeks before your last frost with the seed covered lightly. Germination is quick, just 4 to 8 days at 65-70°F. Space plants 6 to 9 inches apart; mature plants reach 20 to 26 inches tall.
Harvest before the centers show
Cut fresh or for drying before the yellow centers show, while flowers are only half open. Unlike a fully-open flower, ammobium’s blooms continue opening as they dry, so cutting early still results in a fully developed dried flower.
Ammobium has no well-established companion pairings, and nothing it needs to be kept away from. At 4 plants per square foot, it’s a reliable, low-maintenance addition to a dried-flower row in the Garden Designer.
Source: Ammobium: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Ammobium (Winged Everlasting) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 1.5-2 ft
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. It needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
When to plant ammobium (winged everlasting), by zone
Every zone ammobium (winged everlasting) grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Bloom |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 8–Apr 15 | May 20–May 27 | Aug 8–Aug 15 |
| 3a & 3b | Apr 18–Apr 25 | May 30–Jun 6 | Aug 18–Aug 25 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 3–Apr 10 | May 15–May 22 | Aug 3–Aug 10 |
| 5a & 5b | Mar 29–Apr 5 | May 10–May 17 | Jul 29–Aug 5 |
| 6a & 6b | Mar 14–Mar 21 | Apr 25–May 2 | Jul 14–Jul 21 |
| 7a & 7b | Feb 27–Mar 6 | Apr 10–Apr 17 | Jun 29–Jul 6 |
| 8a & 8b | Feb 11–Feb 18 | Mar 25–Apr 1 | Jun 13–Jun 20 |
| 9a & 9b | Jan 4–Jan 11 | Feb 15–Feb 22 | May 6–May 13 |
| 10a & 10b | Dec 19–Dec 26 | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Apr 20–Apr 27 |
| 11a & 11b | Nov 20–Nov 27 | Jan 1–Jan 8 | Mar 22–Mar 29 |
Bloom dates are about 80 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Ammobium (Winged Everlasting) plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1.5-2 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species ammobium (Ammobium alatum): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells this species plain; it's an uncommon everlasting rather than a widely bred ornamental, so there's no meaningful named-cultivar market beyond the species. (source)
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy ammobium seeds
None of the seed suppliers we list carries ammobium seeds right now. A local garden center or a specialty seed house is the place to look.
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing ammobium (winged everlasting)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Ammobium (Winged Everlasting): An uncommon but easy dried-flower crop, named for the papery white bracts and winged ridges running down its stems.
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