Look to nature for holiday decorating
Explore the outdoors — not the mall — for decorative materials to suit the season
Your front door says a lot about how you feel about the season — especially now, since we’re starting to close in on the season.
Here are some decorating options that do not require a visit to your local retailer. Some of these ideas give you a good excuse to get outdoors. And while you’re there, give your garden one last inspection before winter really sets in. Evergreen greens: They are called “evergreen” for a reason. The coniferous trees and shrubs around your property provide lots of opportunities for you to “spruce up” (intentional pun) your front entrance. Pruning a Christmas-tree shaped tree to harvest some greens is not difficult, if you have the right tools. A pruning saw and pair of loppers are in order. Make sure they are clean and sharp.
Take the boughs from the lower portion of the tree and remove more than you think you will need. A long branch of evergreen stems may provide several stems of greens that you can tuck into window boxes and hanging baskets full of soil, where they will freeze into place in a couple of weeks. Note that for every branch or limb that you cut from a maturing tree, new growth will eventually form. This will take time, but your evergreen will thicken in two or three years. Avoid cutting great swaths of branches from a well-balanced, great-looking tree or you will succeed in creating holes in the foliage that will look odd, at best.
Soft evergreens, which are sometimes referred to as “broad-leafed evergreens,” such as yews, boxwood and evergreen holly, can be harvested, too. Pruning the mature growth from the bottom of each plant is your best bet to preserve the appearance and shape of each plant.
It is not harmful to evergreens to be pruned this time of year. Rose hips: The roses on your neighbour’s vine are his, so leave them alone. Take a good look at the finished flowers on your own plants and inspect them for mature rose hips, the red/orange swollen seed pods on the plant. These can provide an interesting addition to your outdoor display. Rose hips make a colourful addition to a centrepiece indoors, too. Ornamental grasses: If you allowed your ornamental grasses to stand over the winter, as instructed in this column a few weeks ago, you have a great opportunity to create some visual drama at your front door. Cut them at the ground level so that you don’t leave an unsightly stems standing in your garden and harvest from the outside of the plant, to help retain a balanced appearance to the remainder of the plant that stands in your garden. Use the cuttings in the centre of urns and large pots and surround the tall grasses with evergreen boughs. The idea is to create a welcoming entrance to your residence at a time of year when you want invited guests to feel at home. Colourful shrub cuttings: Red and yellow twig dogwood and white birch can add a lot to a seasonal display. I am not advocating that you raid the local swamp or conservation area for this stuff, but the truth is, many farmers consider the native, red osier dogwood to be a weed. If you were to cut some of them down in an effort to create a nice display at your home, many landowners would be happy for your efforts. I recommend that you ask, just the same. Fruit and seeds: Pine and spruce cones, chestnuts, mountain ash seed clusters — have a look around your neighbourhood, and you might be surprised at what you find.
Again, I am not advocating that you poach the neighbourhood of excess plant parts, but let’s be honest, if you pick up some chestnuts from the ground in your local park, who would really care, other than a few squirrels? Cone fruits like those harvested from spruce and pine trees will expand when you bring them indoors to dry out.
A bowl of them, in a variety of sizes, can be quite appealing on the dinner table. When you have completed your exploration for raw material, don’t hesitate to let your creative juices flow.
I dropped by a friend’s place the other day to find the man of the house happily cutting up long stems of evergreen and shoving them into urns for the front of the house.
Don’t think of this as a guy thing, or a girl thing, or even a Christmas thing — it’s a fun thing. Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster and garden editor of Reno & Decor magazine. Get his free monthly newsletter at markcullen.com. Watch him on CTV Canada AM every Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. Email him at groundskeeper@markcullen.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCullen4 and Facebook.