Christmas Greens, Arrangements and Holiday Decorating

We (that's mostly Ric) do some wreaths and arrangements from fresh greens every year. How much we do depends on how much time we have. This year Josh is crying for some for his house, too. I usually harvest some Juniper, Holly and what ever else I can find in the yard or woods. I trade with a friend who brings me some greens from her yard. This year is a little different.
Tuesday night the son of a friend called and asked to borrow our trailer (it gets passed around quite a bit) he was helping a friend that has a Christmas tree lot. Then he called and asked if he could keep it one more night as they needed to dump the trimmings, I told him to throw the trimmings in the trailer and bring it home I'd love to have them. Well my 8ft X 4ft X 2ft deep trailer is full of greens from several different types of trees. I took some up to my daughter’s house and have plenty for Josh's and our house. Called my trading friend and said don't bother to cut greens just come on down.
I was wondering if any of you decorate with fresh greens and harvest from your yard and woods like I do. I'd love to see some of your arrangements and holiday decorating.

Here are a few things I cut from my yard and the woods nearby.
There is juniper, holly, rose hips and pine cones from the yard and bittersweet from the woods. We will be using some of these things in the wreaths and arrangements.

There is a lot of other "yard waste" that can be used to make very attractive arrangements. I saved my lotus pods this summer and used them in my fall arrangements and might put a few in some of my Christmas arrangements, I was thinking that the heads from my sedum would look nice and I've been looking at some of the astilbe stems that I never cut back. There is a neighbor with some very pretty reddish grass. If you want, some of these could be sprayed with gold or silver spray paint or sprinkled with frost. We are running a little late this year so I think most of my arrangements will be pretty simple but they will still be pretty. Ric did this yesterday just simple greens, lights and bows.

Holly- nice idea. I picked some full bittersweet tthe other day but I'm thinking wherever I put it there'll be seedlings to pull..
My house has no railings or porch to festoon. I did this with osage oranges in the pots I had by the front door this year.
You wouldn't be LEEVE the price I saw on greens etc last week.

Here are some fern spore fronds I use in dried flower. These from ostrich fern. Sensitive fern (bead fern) has nice ones too.

This message was edited Dec 13, 2008 5:35 PM

Sally, Love the osage oranges. I know exactly where to get plenty of those. Ric and I were cutting wood the other week and there were a ton of them all over the ground, I may go back and get some. I too looked at my Sensitive fern but decided to leave them in place, they got dug up, divided and moved around quite a bit this summer when we did the wall. Wish I had some hygrandeas.
I was thinking the same thing about the bittersweet as I have quite a pile of it sitting in the raised bed next to the front door. LOL
I understand the there is quite a bit more greens to be hauled away from the Christmas tree lot so our trailer will be going up there again in a couple of days. I think we will mulch anything we don't use and put it under the juniper hedge. Pine mulch is pretty nice.
I traded a western saddle for this trailer more than 20 years ago. I think it was a pretty good trade. LOL

Josh came over last night to make swags for his windows. Ric showed him how. Josh worked on swags, Ric worked on a wreath and I worked on a bottle of wine. LOL
All in all a pretty good night, there was Christmas music, wreath and swag making, snacks, card playing and late night hot tubing.

Josh made eight of these.

and Rics wreath.

Very pretty, Holly, Rick and josh!!!! Can't "ruin" anything--always looks good.

I hope all HD's do this--ours does.
Where they trim and bag the X-trees, we have a big bin (4 palates wired together) that they throw all the green trimmings in. Customers can take these for free. So fresh smalling--if you bring some in the house.

I went to a friends and we all made Boxwood wreaths. She has a lot of boxwoods on her property. I only made the one--for my daughter to hang on her apartment door.
I like using pine cones in wreaths.....kind of simple, but pretty.

My friend does this every year. Then we eat hot soup and drink wine, and gab...

Gita

Very pretty Gita, sounds like a lot of fun, too. I love box wood, are those gold walnuts? They look very nice with the pine cones.

No, Holly. Those are more like...little gold apples.

I am a trash-picker--and when I worked at "Franks", I would retrieve all kinds of things they were throwing out. Even to this day--when I am in Michaels of Joannes--I will pick up the fallen bits and pieces and blooms laying on the floor...It is trash to them and will get swept away. Sometimes i ask if I may keep them--sometimes I just pick them up.

And so--I have boxes and bags full of this and that--and whenever i need something--I just get them out...attach picks for stems--if needed.

This was my Fall arrangement. I am sure about 75% of what it is made out of was "trash" at one point....Basket purchased at Good Will...
Gita

Gita, That really is nice, you know what they say one persons trash is another persons treasure. I picked up a really nice basket at the Salvation Army Store the other day. Here it is sitting on top of my other SAS find. It's solid wood I think it might be Cherry.

Ooh, lovely new cabinet... and great arrangements, everyone! Holly, you might take a look at the topics lists and the scheduled articles, maybe consider if there's room for one on making evergreen wreaths and swags. I don't think I'm going to manage to make swags (again) this year for under our windows, so that topic for me has been shelved until next year. You've got some great photos! I love Ric's wreath -- and his big grin!

Thanks Critter, It's a TV armoire you should have seen the cardboard shelves I have had my TV and stereo on for years. LOL
I did look last month and would have loved to write about gathering things from your garden to make wreaths and arrangements but just couldn't seem to get motivated in that area and would never get anything put together now.
Here is the wreath hanging on the front of my house, it lights up at night. Before you all ask I had a metal decoration hanging on that wall and we just hung the wreath over it.

Hi Everyone! I have been back a few days from Vacation and have been reading posts and catching up.
The homemade decorations look lovely, I really like the traditional looking wreaths and swags. Ric and Josh did a really good job, and Gita's boxwood wreath is lovely, I like the pine cones too.
I have been making cookies dough for the co-workers cookie baking party this Wednesday, doing laundry and resting up from Disney. I have a lot of pictures to share.
Here is one picture of the 4 of us (the only one with all of us I got) SIL is in front with Tyler ( friend of the Family) and I am behind SIL, DD is beside me in green shirt. Picture was on the Mount Everest ride in Animal Kingdom.
Will start a separate thread of Vacation pic once I go through them all.

This message was edited Dec 14, 2008 4:15 PM

Ric, great wreath; Gita beautiful wreath and arrangement. We bought a fresh tree today and I threw a bunch of branches in the truck with it. Dont know what I can do with them--mild tomorrow maybe decorate my mailbox. and put the bittersweet on it too.

I've got to try to get some branches even though we're not getting a tree this year... the branches are great to put on top of all my irises, especially the new ones, to keep them from heaving... just be sure to get them up before the spring rains start! If necessary, I'll raid the curb on toss-the-tree day.

THAT'S SO SMART, JILL!! (Sorry, but you come to our forum, so ...)

Carrie, you're welcome in the MAG forum anytime! :-) (I'm sure you read that tip before... in my article on planting irises... ROFLOL!)

Jill -- I bet that would work on heucheras as well -- I gotta try it.

I used a bunch of tree trimmings to turn my mailbox post (cheap metal pipe) into a pseudo bush. Topped it with a big red bow under the box. Draped bittersweet over the maibox. At least it looks like I tried! But honestly. I have plenty of evergreens growing in the front yard, it seems silly to augment them with this. I am SO NOT a decorator.

LOL Sally, Hey we all have our talents, arrangements isn't one of mine, that's why Ric does them all. Problem is I know what I want them to look like, so I'm always standing back and saying It needs more of this or that. He just loves it when I tell him to take something out and put in something else. LOL

We pretty much finished up outside, The terracotta planters on either side of the door need done and my old snowman needs fixed up a bit. Josh hung his swags but still needs to make a couple of wreaths he sent me a pic from his phone it looks very nice. I'll post a pic when I get down there with a camera.
It's snowing up here and everything looks just beautiful.

Holly, all those decorations look so wonderful against your beautiful siding!

Thanks Critter, Yes, The siding looks pretty good. I had known that the siding was in bad need of re-staining and then I posted a few pictures and WOW it looked sooo very bad. It was one of the first things Ric did last summer and the decks are all done now so next spring it will be the barn.
Anybody else out there have some decorations to post????

I will take pictures of our lights the next night when it's not raining/sleeting! We didn't do a lot this year, but we've got various lights in the windows (moravian stars as well as candles and a couple strands of icicle lights), a lit garland and a wreath on the front door (did you read my story about the wren who tried roosting in it?), and a few lights by the front walk.

We put up a few lights outside for the grandchildren to enjoy when the visit. Moving very slowly this year because my DH can't quite get over the agony of his shingles attack. Boy, is that a persistent annoyance.

Santa lights up at night and stands under our beauty berry bush near the front door.

I love all the pictures of the fresh green arrangements shown above!!

Teri

So far, just white pine garland with lights and ribbons on the porch railing here. I'll probably make a couple wreaths yet.

Claypa, you're brave working with long needle! All that sap, whew, I'd get halfway down the railing and be glued in place. Anytime I use cones, I like them to be last years'. I know Frasier is fragrant, which usually means sappy, this year is no exception but the aroma is fantastic. Just brushing a frond or two lights it up. I did notice quite a few Frasiers in the fields were bearing their rather unusual cones this year, must have been either the right age, a good growth year, or both. The cones develop in the upper third of the tree and point upward, when they lose their plates and seed, they leave small candle-like structures, as Sergeant Schultz would say "verrry interesssting". Later, Ric

Happy--

Do you know that any sap can be removed from your hands by rubbing them in some kind of fat/grease? We used to use butter--but anything else will do----Just rub away and then wipe with paper towels and then wash with soap----It will be all gone!

I want to say "but stupid", but I like fir trees!

Making that cone star was a real mess. It reminds me of when I used to harvest balsam fir boughs in Maine ( "tippin" ). We'd get all cold and wet (or hot and sweaty, depending on the weather, it could happen) and get the balsam sap all over. It would stick like crazy and we'd smell like balsam for days. It's astringent and burned your eyes. I don't remember what they paid for a pound but it wasn't enough to keep at it for long. I switched to making wreaths, which was only slightly better. Not much in the way of job opportunities there, sometimes.

Teri that's a neat Santa. I just got some beautyberry seeds in swap, I hope they grow.

Here's my baby dawn redwood. I only put lights as high as I could reach. Two years ago it was 40" tall, now it's maybe 12'.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh...Claypa---That is so simple and so beautiful!

Are Redwoods deciduous? Yours in the picture seems to have only branches--NO needles!
I should know this--but, at the moment--I do not....mea culpa......

Gita

Yes, this one is anyway, a deciduous conifer, Metasequoia glyptostroboides. They turn coppery-orange in the fall and lose the leaves. They get huge, but I think there's room for it here.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/222292/

I hit preview before the last post, I don't know

Indoor tree in progress. Douglas fir, which isn't a true fir, they have their own genus (Pseudotsuga, "false hemlock")

Ooh, I wanted to plant a Dawn Redwood here, but I think I've decided (reluctantly) that there really isn't quite enough room (We put in maples instead, LOL). They're stunning trees, and your little one is so sweet all decked out!

Critter, I have a Moravian star, too. I just love them one of these days I would like to make one out of glass mine is plastic and held together with several layers of hot glue.
Terri, That Santa is very cute. I hope DH is feeling better soon shingles in very very painful and since it affects the nerves it can take quite a long time till you stop feeling the effect.
Gita, Thanks for the tip I'll have to try that.
Claypa, Great decorations love the pine cone star. Is that wired together? Your Dawn Redwood looks so cute all naked. LOL
I have a friend that planted one in her field there is nothing around it no wires, structures or other large trees I am looking forward to seeing how big and beautiful it will get unimpeded.

For those of you who make wreathes, do you buy the wire forms or do you make your own forms?

Shingles is really bad news. Its a great thing that kids are now getting chicken pox vacc, and my moms HMO did let her know they will cover shingles vacc now on. but she's already had them so. ?

Happy, We use a form of some kind, wire, grapevine, straw pretty much what ever happens to be handy. We got a tip from a retired florist he said to buy those really cheap PVC wreaths when they are on sale use them as a base you can add real greens or a better quality artificial green to them. That was what we used on the large house wreath and I don't think you can see any of the fake stuff under the real.

Holly the wreaths and garlands look great, Gita love your arrangement, Sally like the osage orange idea.
Chris glad you had a good time. Hadn't been down there since the kiddies were born( 6 years), used to to go every year.

I usually cut some branches from my pines and use them in my whiskey barrels and little decorative wagons with red Christmas ornaments. I make one swag for the inside I still need to do it, I am so behind on the decorating this year.