Achillea Pastel Mixed

A seed mix rather than a single variety, giving flat yarrow plates in apricot, peach, dusty rose, cream, soft yellow and pale lilac. Every plant comes out slightly different and the drift reads as one soft faded haze rather than a block of colour.

That is also the honest drawback. You do not get to choose what you get. Sow twenty and a few will be muddy, or so pale they barely register, and if you have set your heart on a particular apricot you would be better buying a named cultivar. Grown in a group and allowed to blend, though, the variation is the whole charm, and it is the achillea that sits most easily with roses, lavender and silver foliage.

Keep it lean and sunny. Rich soil gives soft floppy growth and washes the colours out further. It is thoroughly drought-tolerant once the roots are down. For drying it is the pick of the yarrows, because the pastels warm and deepen as they dry into the vintage tones that are hard to get any other way.