Briza maxima earns its common name honestly. The pendulous spikelets, reddish-brown touched with green and tan, hang from fine arching stems and quiver with a visible, almost anxious energy in even the gentlest breeze. The effect in a border or cutting garden is one of lightness and animation, a counterpoint to plants that hold their form with more composure. Dried, the seedheads hold their shape and color for months, making this one of the more reliable candidates for the cutting garden that doubles as a dried-flower supply.

It is a plant of honestly poor circumstances: it grows best in lean, well-drained soil where richer conditions would produce excessive foliage at the expense of those characteristic seedheads. Direct seed in early spring or autumn in a sunny position and largely leave it alone. In mild climates it can naturalize and spread, a quality that has made it a listed invasive in California, where gardeners should avoid it entirely. Elsewhere it behaves with reasonable manners, offering a season of movement and texture that few annuals can match.