Making Christmas wreaths: You don't need a wire form to create a beautiful decoration: The Pecks (2024)

First, before I go off on yet another tangent — my favorite tangent, actually — you should know that this column is about making some very cool free-form wreaths out of garden clippings.

OK, enough of this non-tangent thinking, because I just have to say something about my favorite subject.

Which is, of course, Christmas.

Everybody knows people who obsess about this particular holiday. You know, they have every collectible imaginable (figurines from "Ernest Saves Christmas," even), and their house makes Clark Griswold's exterior holiday illumination look bush league in comparison.

For you similarly hooked on the holidays, I have two words of advice: Amateurs!

I actually have nightmares about not finding the perfect Christmas tree.

In July. (

Marcia:

This is true and not an exaggeration).

I used to start playing holiday music in September, or as I referred to it "the start of the embers," which includes December, which includes Christmas, so ipso facto and voila, it was the holiday. And, as a tangent to the tangent, if there's anyone out there who thinks Johnny Mathis didn't produce the ultimate Christmas album, you can stop reading now, unless you think it was Bing Crosby, who did a pretty decent one, too.

Marcia humored me for our first years of marriage but, especially as our kids have grown, I've become a little more balanced — some might say almost sane — too.

But those wreaths she's making this year may change all that. Well, those and the four grandkids, which reminds me: Are there any decent Christmas trees left out there?

Marcia:

You could say Dennis' attitude about Christmas is a bit epic. We used to wait, early in the morning at the entrance to a tree farm, waiting for the gates to open the day after Thanksgiving.

Now, he does wait to get the tree until a week or two before Christmas, so it isn't a dried-up piece of kindling on Christmas morning.

It's also become a ritual with the whole family to tease him every time a car drives by with a tree strapped to the top of it. We tell him it was the last decent Christmas tree out there, they're all gone, and he'll have to go without this year (

Dennis:

At least now I know why I have the nightmares).

Very Grinchesque of us, don't you think?

We wrote about making wreaths with wire frames several years ago (http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2011/12/making_your_own_wreath.html), so this column is instead about making free-from, frameless wreaths with plant material from your own garden.

It's a great time of year to do a little pruning, and instead of throwing everything into the greens can, why not do the ultimate in recycling and make a holiday wreath instead? If you don't have anything in your garden, ask your neighbors for their clippings or buy pre-cut greens from your local nursery.

When gathering prunings from your garden try the unusual because, when you think about it, you have nothing to lose.

I tried using physocarpus branches but they wouldn't bend, bamboo broke and the leaves curled up by the next day.

It's costing you nothing if it's from your garden, so experiment and see what does and doesn't work.

I found that long branches of weeping blue atlas cedar, when overlapped and wired together in a circle, was stunning.

I also tried Austrian pine, crabapple, eucalyptus, bottle brush, and deciduous magnolia.

These free-form wreaths have a lot of character and are very earthy, which is what I like most about them. They're a little harder to make than wire-framed wreaths, but worth the effort.

Dennis:

Before Marcia provides the tips, I have to confess I'm glad this column is about wreaths and not trees, because I'm 99 percent certain I saw the last one pass me, strapped to the roof of a Subaru, on my way home Friday.

Tips

1. Gather cuttings. This year I used weeping blue atlas cedar, eucalyptus, crabapple, bottle brush, Austrian pine and magnolia, to name a few. Every year I try something new. Experiment!

2. All you need is florist wire to secure branches together, pruners and wire snips.

3. Each type of greenery has its own quirks, so I can only give you general guidelines

• If the plant material is very bendy, such as weeping blue atlas cedar, just wire overlapping branches together in one long, 6-to-8-foot strand and then coil it into a circle and wire the layers to hold its wreath shape.

• If the plant material doesn't have as much give, wire the branches together while holding it in the size and shape you want it to end up. I used this technique for magnolia, Austrian pine, crabapple, etc.

4. Some wreaths require a lot of wire along the bundled branches in order for them to form a nice curve when bent into a circle. Just take small pieces of florist wire and wrap it around the branches while trying not to smoosh the leaves. Make a few twists to tighten and secure the wire snugly against the branches.

5. You can add interest or more cuttings to bare spots by just weaving greenery into the wreath and wiring it to an existing branch.

6. Hang the wreath and prune or weave any stray branches to make a nice shape, but remember these wreaths shouldn't be perfect and should have a little character.

7. Add moss, pine cones, berries, bows, etc., by wiring them to the wreath.

8. If you are going to hang the wreath on your door, make sure it is the right width.

9. These wreaths can hang outdoors or indoors.

Depending on the plant material, some of these wreaths will dry out beautifully. We have a deciduous magnolia branch wreath hanging on our family room wall that I made about 10 years ago. It still looks great, other than the fact it could use a good dusting.

•

Marcia Westcott Peck is a landscape designer (

) and Dennis Peck is not. He is a curator at The Oregonian, which is a good thing for him, because if he had to use his hands for anything other than typing, it would not be pretty.