A Decorating Scavenger Hunt

November 20th, 2018

   Gardeners have a distinct advantage when it comes to holiday decorating.

A gardener’s yard can be a treasure trove of free Christmas/winter decorations.

   Yards filled with plants other than grass and yew bushes are virtual treasure troves for “harvesting decorations.”

   Wreath clippings from the firs, red-berried twigs from the hollies, and fallen cones from pines are just some of the bounty that’s free for the taking.

   Some people even cut their own Christmas trees from the back yard each December. You won’t get a tree any fresher.

   If you’re a creative and crafty sort, gatherings from around the yard are the raw materials for a limitless line of decorations. You’ll likely run out of materials before you run out of ideas.

   Before starting your decorating this season, take a look around outside. Most yards have at least a smattering of fresh materials that can be cut or collected to make attractive wreaths, swags, and holiday pots.

   You might find pods, nutlets and such already on the ground.

   Take your pruners to clip the rest, such as dried flowers from the hydrangea bushes, berried twigs from the hollies, and the mainstream of branch clippings from the needled evergreens.

   If you’re using these materials as outside decorations, there’s no need for any special treatment.

   If you’re using them inside, soak needled evergreens in water for a day ahead of time to make sure they’re well hydrated, and consider spray-painting or using hairspray on dried plant parts to help keep them from cracking apart.

   Ready to try your hand at holiday scavenging and repurposing? Here are 12 ideas to get you started:

   * Take cuttings from conifers, especially ones with colorful needles, such as blue junipers and golden falsecypress. Start with the cut ends of long branches that need pruning anyway.

Conifer cuttings are useful for wreaths, swags, and all sorts of projects.

   These can be bundled into boughs and swags using plastic cable ties from the hardware store or twisty-tied to a circular frame to make your own fresh indoor or outdoor wreathes.

   * Use those same circular frames to make wreathes out of other twining plants, such as cuttings from grapevines, willows, Scotch brooms, clematis and trumpet vines.

   * Make a winter pot out of cuttings from red-twig dogwoods, clipped bunches of ornamental grasses (with plumes or seed heads attached), and a few twigs of holly berries. Use ribbon and a red bow to bundle the grasses.

   * Gather dried seed heads from shrubs, trees and perennials (crape myrtles, rose-of-sharon and sumac are three good examples) and spray-paint them as accents for wreathes and swags.

   * Look for fallen pods, cones or fruits that can be spray-painted and used in decorative baskets or as accents for wreathes or trees. Examples are the spiky seed pods of sweetgum trees (a redeeming use for these pain-in-the-foot nuisances) and the baseball-sized warty fruits of osage orange trees.

Dried hydrangea flowers make showy table arrangements.

   * Use dried hydrangea flowers – especially the round white ones from native smooth hydrangeas – as snowball-like accents on trees. Or take hydrangea cuttings with about a foot of the stems attached and stick them into the dried potting soil of window boxes.

   * The dried seed heads of alliums (ornamental onions) are another snowball-like decoration, especially when they’re spray-painted white. If some of the stem is taken with the cutting, alliums look a lot like magic wands.

   * Use dried flowers of celosia, statice, babys breath, globe amaranth and strawflowers as accents on boughs, wreathes, trees, etc.

   * Berry clusters from hollies, junipers and St. Johnswort can be used as accent in the same way as dried flowers, serving as “jewelry” to add color to evergreens.

   * Clip interesting, still-standing foliage of perennials and herbs to weave into wreathes, swags and boughs of clipped needled evergreens. Some of the best are euonymus, rosemary, artemisia, variegated ivy and dusty miller.

   * Use dried roses, globe amaranth, strawflowers, twigs of rosemary and any flowers or plant parts with a scent mixed in a bowl as a holiday potpourri.

A simple basket of cones or similar “found/fallen” objects from the yard can make a nice display.

   * Use acorns, fallen nuts, and other plant parts as the building blocks for crafty creations, such as spray-painting locust pods white to look like icicles, gluing butternuts onto feather-adorned pine cones to become bird ornaments, and stacking hydrangea flowers three-high to create what look like snowmen.

   Some of the best plants for holiday decorating:

   Evergreen Cuttings: Boxwood, Japanese red cedar, falsecypress, fir, holly, juniper, Leyland cypress, cherry laurel, pine, spruce, magnolia

   Berries/Fruits/Nuts/Pods: Beautyberry, catalpa- and goldenrain-tree pods, chokeberry, crabapple, apples or dried apple slices, holly, dried hot peppers (be careful handling these), St. Johnswort, Japanese plum yew, juniper, osage oranges, pine/fir/spruce cones, rose hips, sweetgum balls, viburnum, walnuts, winterberry holly

   Foliage Accents: Artemisia, coralbells, dusty miller, euonymus, fennel, ivy, lavender, leucothoe, mountain mint, rosemary, sage, tansy, thyme

   Interesting Flower/Seed Heads: Allium, bachelor buttons, babys breath, celosia, cimicifuga, coneflowers, crape myrtle, globe amaranth, hydrangea, money plant, ornamental grasses, sedum, statice, strawflower, sumac, rose-of-sharon, yarrow