Home » Plants & Animals » Shade Gardening » Holiday Decorations From The Garden

Holiday Decorations From The Garden

© Marge Talt

Holidays are scattered throughout the year, but, for me, December is the holiday month. No matter which ones you celebrate, decorations of some sort are likely the order of the day. At our house, the Yuletide season is full of traditions. One of them is "decking the halls". For nearly thirty years, I've been making swags, wreaths and table decorations using materials from nature. Some, like a collection of enormous pine cones, I've been given and some I glean from the garden each year.

Materials

Mother Nature supplies all the basic raw materials - although, I confess to using some that don't grow in my garden, such as preserved Eucalyptus branches and the pine roping I sometimes buy. In the early years, I used to walk the roadsides and waste fields, collecting anything with seedheads of interest, like Solidago (goldenrod). They are lovely, but extremely messy to use as they shed all over the place.

Once my garden became fairly well established, I found all I needed in it. A few days to a week before I want to decorate the house, I walk around with my wheelbarrow and secateurs and clip greenery. I leave the wheelbarrow full of clippings outside, under a porch roof, until I actually use the material. This helps keep it fresh. It doesn't matter if it gets rained or snowed on, but if it's wet, you will get wet and so will your carpet or floor.

Needled evergreens are the primary ingredient for my decorative concoctions. Different genera offer an array of color, textures and scents. If you have pines (Pinus), you can judiciously clip some branches, but you have to be careful, since they do not sprout from old wood. Either take an entire limb, or only the tips of newer growth. Pines are really essential for bulk and scent. Of course, if you happen to live in a part of the world where Balsam firs (Abies balsamea) grow, you are in real luck. Nothing scents a room like they do.

Junipers (Juniperus spp.) also have a lovely scent and provide bulk, but they are tough to work with, being extremely prickly. Be sure to wear gloves if you handle these, since they can give you a rash if your skin is sensitive. I have quite a number of Pfitzer junipers (J. chinensis 'Pfitzeriana'), so generally include a fair amount in my gatherings.

Sometimes, I add hemlock (Tsuga canadensis, in my case) because of the silvery color of the underside of the needles. If I want some graceful drooping, I take branches from my huge old Japanese falsecypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Filifera'). These were sold as 'Nana', but have become immense and threaten to engulf the front steps, so need continual snipping to keep a path open.