Hesperis (Sweet Rocket) Dried | Norfolk Seed Head Bunch

Most people know sweet rocket in summer, as the purple and white sprays that scent the evening garden alongside stocks and evening primrose. This is the same plant three months later. Once the flowers finish they give way to long slender seed pods, called siliques, held on tall branching stems that have gone woody, and they dry to a straw-gold and pale green with a little burgundy in them.

These are not stems about colour. They are about line. Wire-thin, branching, curving gently, they cut through denser material and give an arrangement air, which is the job nothing soft can do. Think of them as the pencil sketch under the finished painting. Foragers pick something similar out of a hedgerow by instinct; growing it deliberately for the seed head is one of the quieter pleasures of running a cutting field with the whole life of the plant in mind.

Bunches are 4 stems, cut late once the pods have fully formed and the stems have hardened, then hung in the barn so the silhouette stays as it grew. Grown chemical-free at Salle Moor Hall, no dyes, no imported stems. They are brittle by design rather than by fault, so handle from the base of the bunch and expect a few loose pods when you unpack. Seasonal, while the late-summer stock lasts.