Growing Sweet Annie (Artemisia): A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Sweet Annie is not the culinary tarragon already covered on this site, though the two share a genus. This one is grown for its sweetly aromatic, feathery foliage, a favorite for wreaths and as a fragrant filler in dried arrangements.
Two sowing options
Transplant, sowing seed 5 to 6 weeks before planting out, barely covered. Direct-seeding after frost danger passes also works, seed covered lightly; broadcast seeding isn’t recommended, since it makes thinning to proper spacing difficult. Germination takes 7 to 21 days at 70-75°F. Space plants 12 to 24 inches apart; mature plants reach a tall 4 to 6 feet.
A notable relative
Sweet Annie is also known as sweet wormwood, the original plant source of artemisinin, a major antimalarial compound used in modern medicine. This profile covers it strictly as an ornamental and fragrance herb rather than a medicinal crop to process, but it’s worth knowing the plant’s broader significance.
Harvest
Cut fresh or for drying once flower heads have developed on the stems.
Sweet Annie has no recorded companions or antagonists in our data. See the full companion guide for sweet annie for how it’s tracked. At 1 plant per square foot and standing tall, it works well at the back of a fragrant cutting row in the Garden Designer.
Source: Artemisia (Sweet Annie): Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Sweet Annie (Artemisia) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Sweet Annie (Artemisia) tolerates either.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Sweet Annie (Artemisia) plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 4-6 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species sweet Annie (Artemisia annua): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells this species as an organic seed offering, described as a sweetly aromatic everlasting used in wreaths and as a bouquet filler; there's no meaningful named-cultivar market for it. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy sweet annie seeds
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews. See the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing sweet annie (artemisia)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
%3A%20Not%20the%20culinary%20tarragon%2C%20though%20it%20shares%20the%20genus%3B%20sweet%20Annie%20is%20grown%20for%20its%20sweetly%20aromatic%2C%20feathery%20foliage%2C%20popular%20dried%20in%20wreaths%20and%20as%20a%20fragrant%20bouquet%20filler.)
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Growing Sweet Annie (Artemisia): Not the culinary tarragon, though it shares the genus; sweet Annie is grown for its sweetly aromatic, feathery foliage, popular dried in wreaths and as a fragrant bouquet filler.
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