Glad Tidings

A bushland wreath that captures the essence of summer.

The traditional Christmas wreath of deep-green spruce and ribbons always has a wintry Northern Hemisphere ‘ring’ to it. How lovely it is, then, to see this very Australian version of a seasonal welcome, made by Perth florist Lisschele Masters.

To create her wreath, Lisschele used a mix of fresh and dried materials in the muted, silvery-grey tones of our native bushland. “I chose these hues because, for me, they evoke the essence of an Australian Christmas,” she says.

All the ingredients were gathered by Lisschele, from her own garden and a local flower farm. She constructed the base of the wreath with lengths of grapevine, twisted and shaped into a circle. Threaded around the vines is a range of native and exotic plant material. Sprigs of eucalyptus and acacia are interwoven with the foliage of Magnolia ‘Little Gem’ (“I used the underside of the magnolia leaves to create those coppery-brown tones”) and a mix of dried materials – banksia flowers, lotus pods, wattle seed pods, leucadendron and twigs.

Pops of classic Christmas red come from clusters of hypericum berries, the only part of the wreath that’s not everlasting.

“Wreath-making is completely meditative and soothing,” says Lisschele. “I love how all the materials come together in unity.” This wreath even smells like a hazy Australian summer, mainly because of the eucalyptus leaves. “They have the most beautiful and lingering fragrance, even in their dried state,” she adds.