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Design trends

Holiday Wreaths Made Easy

This wreath features hydrangea, holly and Chinese pistache berries.

You can have chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose but what would the holidays be without a beautiful wreath to decorate the door? Maybe you want to put together a swag for the mantle or candle holder for the table. All of these traditional holiday decorations are easy and fun to make. They cost virtually nothing and make wonderful gifts for family, friends and neighbors, too.

Look outside your door for different shades of foliage and spent flower heads. You can make a stunning wreath yourself from most anything you find around your garden. You?ll be amazed at what you can find right outside your door.

Take advantage of this opportunity to prune your evergreen shrubs and trees to use in wreaths and swags. Cuttings from fir, redwoods, pine, holly, mahonia, strawberry tree, toyon and cotoneaster parneyi make fine additions to your wreath. Just don’t whack off snippets indiscriminately. To reveal the plant’s naturally handsome form, prune from the bottom up and from the inside out. Avoid ugly stubs by cutting back to the next largest branch or to the trunk. If the plant has grown too dense, selectively remove whole branches to allow more air and sunlight to reach into the plant.

Dramatic leaves like Southern magnolia stay fresh for a long time in a holiday wreath.

Some of the plant material that hold up well in a wreath include conifers like cypress, deodar cedar, redwood, arborvitae and fir. Broadleaf evergreens such as camellia, bottlebrush, variegated pittosporum, variegated holly, green holly, silver dollar eucalyptus, boxwood, oleander, acacia. melaleuca and abelia are also good. For color, try snippets of leptospermum Ruby Glow, leucodendron ?Safari Sunset?, camellia, rose buds and dry hydrangea flowers. Favorite berries are myrtus communis, texas privet, pepper berries, holly berries, nandina and Chinese pistache.

If you?re thinking of getting together with others in your bubble or pod to make wreaths or swags, start by having each bring a couple grocery bags of greens to share with other wreath makers. It helps if you can borrow a couple tables and have a few extra clippers on hand in case someone forgets theirs. Each person brings their own wreath frames of wire or grape vine and some thin gauge wire on a paddle to attach the bundles to the frame. Wire coat hangers work just fine, too.

Everyone makes a slightly different style wreath choosing greens, berries, seeds pods and hydrangea blooms or flower clusters of eucalyptus, acacia, pittosporum and Ruby Glow tea tree. Hollywood juniper, deodar cedar, red cedar, black pine, boxwood, camellia, oleander with long, slender seed pods and red flower buds, California bay, privet with berries and bottlebrush are just some of the plant material that I?ll be looking for this year.

Trust me, you can?t make a bad wreath. They all turn out beautiful.

Christmas tradtitions, Christmas wreaths, holiday lore, holiday wreaths

Holiday Wreaths, Traditions & Lore

It happened again last week– the annual gathering of wreath makers at Barb Kelley?s house in south Felton. The day was crisp and clear and with ginger bread and Prosecco in hand, a dozen or us shared techniques and ideas for this year?s wreaths. 14 wreaths were made on the day I was there but Barb told me the total last year was 44 for the week-long event. Creating a wreath or swag for the holidays from foliage cut from your own garden is a good way to make a little light pruning around the yard fun. Here are some tips.

Hydrangea-holly-juniper-pepper berry wreath

Every year the foliage and flowers provided by Barb and her husband, Reg varies. Some greenery like the Hollywood juniper comes from a neighbor who waits until December and then allows the Kelley?s to prune to their heart?s content. The gardener at the bank near Safeway allowed the magnolia tree to be pruned along with some of their impressive pink seed pods. The hot pink Chinese pistache berries come from a secret source in Scotts Valley. Variegated holly is harvested from another garden as are the Ruby Glow tea tree branches.

Huge piles of douglas fir boughs, cypress branches, oleander and eucalyptus flowers, purple Japanese privet berry clusters and feathery Japanese black pine boughs were also available for the making of our wreaths. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Barb decided to rejuvenate her hydrangea shrub collection and there were boxes of blue and rich pink flower clusters, too.

Take advantage of this opportunity to prune your evergreen shrubs and conifers but don?t whack off snippets indiscriminately. To reveal the plant?s natural form, prune from the bottom up and from the inside out. Avoid ugly stubs by cutting back to the next largest branch or back to the trunk. If the plant has grown too dense, selectively remove whole branches to allow more air and sunlight to reach inside the plant.

The author making first of three wreaths

Winter solstice is December 21st. Solstice literally mean ?Sun stands still? and for a few days around this time of year the sun does appear to stand still in the sky. Nearly all cultures and faiths have some sort of winter solstice celebration. These celebrations date back thousands of years starting at the beginning of agriculture among people who depended on return of the sun. We have incorporated many of the same plants into our holiday traditions like holly, ivy, evergreens, rosemary and mistletoe.

Holly remains green throughout the year. Decorating with it has long been believed to bring protection and good luck. Placing a ring of holly on doors originated in Ireland. Norseman and Celts use to plant a holly tree near their homes to ward off lightning strikes. The crooked lines of the holly leaf gave rise to its association with lighting and in fact holly does conduct lightning into the ground better than most trees.

Evergreen trees also play a role in solstice celebrations. Early Romans and Christians considered the evergreen a symbol of the continuity of life. Fir, cedar and pine bough wreaths were used to decorate homes. Small gifts were hung from evergreen tree branches which may have been where the Christian tradition of decorating an evergreen tree in December originated.

Take a few minutes to create your a wreath for your door or tabletop or to give away to friends and neighbors. It?s a fun way to celebrate the holidays and trust me, you can?t make a bad wreath. They all turn out beautiful.