Holiday Décor From the Garden

Maybe I’m hyperactively creative. Perhaps, I’m cheap. It’s even possible that I purposely shirk convention. Whatever the Grinch-y reason, each year, I try to come up with unique holiday décor. This year, I’m enlisting my son to help me decorate with things we find in the garden. Much of my tree will be filled with dried hardy Hydrangea flower heads, cuttings of Winterberry Holly and tear drops of magnolia leaves.

First, let me suggest that before your go in your garden and start cutting numerous branches off your Hydrangeas, you make sure to identify that they are the type that blooms on new growth- like Bobo^® Hardy Hydrangea. Some hydrangeas bloom on old growth (Cityline^{^®} Paris Hydrangea), or on old and new growth (Let’s Dance^® Diva! Reblooming Hydrangea), and if you aren’t careful, you can end up cutting off next year’s blooms.

For this project, I chose flower heads that were the right size for my tree. While filling the tree with dried flower heads in the natural tan color would be very pretty and elegant, I decided to spray paint mine red. If red seems tame, you could opt to go for wilder colors for a modern twist or add glitter to reflect the tree lights. I had my son and his friend to do much of the painting. For the record, they did spray paint each other once or twice. To finish, I’ll tie a bit of raffia to each bloom to create some vertical interest in the tree.

Once I’ve placed the painted blooms, I’ll intersperse cuttings from Berry Heavy^{^®} Winterberry Holly and hang silver-painted tear drops of magnolia leaves. The Winterberry Holly and the Hydrangea heads will simply be laid on the branches and stuck in crevices. The magnolia leaves will be suspended by a red raffia loop hot-glued to the top of the leaf back. Any painted evergreen leaf would work.

Sometimes, my decorating efforts are more effective than others. One year, I used wide professional color laser printer ribbons from my office to swirl about my tree and make bows to display through out the house. It sounds odd, but it really worked. The ribbon was translucent, with blocks of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Then, there was the year that I found a bunch of orange feather boas at a flea market. I have to say that by the time New Year’s rolled around, I was really ready to pack-in the tangerine. However this year, I’ll have an elegant tree that’s unique, natural and inexpensive.