Christmas greenery alone can make a stunning arrangement — no florals needed — for the mantel, the dining room table, or any other place that needs a bit of Christmas cheer. Whatever the spot, the height is the main determining factor when planning the arrangement.
Did you say greens? I think I still have some in the refrigerator left over from Thanksgiving. Oh, sorry, I misunderstood — wrong greens! I take it you’re asking how fast the greens are at our favorite golf club. The answer is fast, I think. Maybe 10 on the Stimpmeter. Oh, oh, really sorry, wrong greens again — now I understand, you’re asking about greenery to decorate for Christmas … got it. Now that we’re talking about the same shade of green, here we go.
You might not think of the Palmetto State as having an especially Christmassy landscape. With the palmetto on our flag and tourism campaigns that talk about trips to the beach and golf outings, you might think South Carolina is all about sun and sand. But once you start looking more closely, we live in a surprisingly Christmas friendly locale.
Among our mainstay landscaping plants, like pittosporum and Japanese holly, and the trees that are so abundant that we hardly see them, like pines and crepe myrtles, live a plethora of verdure that, when gathered together, makes the perfect Christmas decorations. In fact, so many perfect plants for Christmas grow in the Palmetto State that, if you brought all of them into your house, you wouldn’t have any room left for presents … or maybe even your family.
It’s relatively easy to walk out the front door, go for a walk, or at the most take a short drive to collect the majority of the materials needed to create fragrant, memorable Christmas decor. All of the classes of plants that come to mind when thinking about Christmas — firs, cedars, pines, magnolias, boxwoods, and hollies — grow very well in our area, as well as holiday specific plants like mistletoe. Once you become familiar with what’s growing in your vicinity — dare I say right in your backyard — you can begin to decide what you like the most.
You may realize that you have a hands-down favorite, such as pine, so you could make that the centerpiece of your holiday decorating. Since we have access to so many different kinds of pine right in our area, using several different varieties with different needle lengths, needle placement, and different pine cone sizes and shapes would provide plenty of interest. Or instead you might decide that you couldn’t possibly choose a favorite because they’re all so beautiful so you need a little bit of each kind for the perfect Christmas mix. Alternatively, you might be the streamlined Christmas purist who sticks to a single plant such as smilax, a great choice as it looks amazing anywhere.
Whatever your personal style, a few practices will help extend the life of your Christmas greenery bounty. The best way to get the longest life out of your Christmas greens is to cut them yourself. We tend to get rain in early December, so if you’re poised and ready right after a rain, that’s the perfect time to go cutting.
Whether you’re working with greenery you cut yourself or with greenery that you’ve purchased, the first step is to hydrate. If you’re working with branches, cut a new end on each one right before putting it in barely warm water. If the branches are particularly woody, you might want to give them a gentle tap with a hammer to slightly crush the stem before putting it in water.
If you’re working with a premade wreath or garland, you can soak the entire thing overnight in a zinc tub, a bathtub, or even a pool if you’re fortunate enough to have one. Note that the soaking phase isn’t a case of longer is better. I can tell you from sad personal experience that soaking more than overnight is a wonderful way to quickly rot the greenery you ran out in the rain and ruined your hair to gather. So, after soaking the greenery just overnight, let it drip-dry for about an hour and then spray it with some form of antitranspirant spray. Plants lose moisture through their leaves, even firs and cedars, so a spray that blocks the pores keeps the moisture in.
A readily available spray is Crowning Glory, but others are available like Wilt-Pruf and Wilt Stop that tend to come in larger, more commercial quantities in case you’re planning to really deck the halls. Either way, give the greenery a good spray, preferably outside, and let it dry a bit before bringing it in.
Now that you’ve hydrated and sprayed, you’re ready to turn the greenery you’ve gathered into wreaths, garlands, centerpieces — you name it! Note that working with fresh greenery is a messy business. Stray leaves, sticks, insects, and more come along for the ride. Given the choice, it’s better to do your assembly work outside and bring the magnificent creation inside when it’s finished. Then it can be oohed and aahed over away from the pile of debris you’re going to clean up in just a minute right after your nap, in just a minute, really. These aren’t exhaustive instructions, but a couple of basic how-tos to make decorations out of the greenery you’ve gathered.
One of most helpful modern inventions is the “faux” greenery form. Did you notice I didn’t say plastic garland or fake wreath? It’s for Christmas and it’s going to be beautiful, so it’s a faux greenery form. Gather up the form of your choice, some green florist’s wire, and clippers. To make life easier later, unfold the branches on your garland or your wreath before you get started. Now for the fun part. Cut a little bunch of greenery 10 to 12 inches long for a garland or 6 to 10 inches long for a wreath.
Wrap a piece of wire around the stems to hold the greenery in a bunch and then place the bunch on your form and wrap two of the wired branches of the form around the bundle; think of the “branches” as giving the bunch a warm Christmas hug and you have the right mental image. Make a second greenery bunch similar in length to the first bunch and place it on the form so that the bottom end just covers the stems of the previous bunch. Keep going until you have the length you need for your door, your mantel, or your bannister. The garland forms typically come in 6-foot lengths, so you can wire as many together as you need. An alternative to the faux form is a simple premade garland. Simple pine garlands are often for sale right after Thanksgiving, and they can be used as a base in the same way as the faux garland. The only difference is that since the pine garland doesn’t have wired arms that can bend around the fresh greenery bunch, the bunches need to be wired to the pine base using the green florist’s wire you used to make the bunches.
Wreath forms come in a few different sizes. If you’re making one for yourself you can decide to make it single-sided to hang on a wooden door or you can make it double-sided if it’s going to be seen from both sides, say on a glass door or against a mirror. You could also use the technique just explained to upgrade a premade, single-sided wreath into a double-sided wreath or just to add a little bit more interest to it.
Christmas greenery alone can make a stunning arrangement — no florals needed — maybe for the mantel, the dining room table, or any other place that needs a bit of Christmas cheer. Whatever the spot, the height is the main determining factor. Truly, pretty much any greenery in any combination is going to make a beautiful arrangement. Choose a container that’s the right size and cut the greenery to the needed length — longer for the mantel and shorter for the dining room table, typically.
Remember that whole idea that people need to be able to see each other over the centerpiece? Of course, rules are made to be broken, so if you have a fabulous, huge branch left over from your previous work and your relatives have been asking a few too many pointed questions about what you’re serving for Christmas dinner, particularly about dessert, then go on and make a nice tall centerpiece. Just let them try to see over it to find the trifle! But seriously, take the leftovers from your garland or wreath-making adventure, put them in a vase with a few red berries, and you and everyone else will be amazed by what you’ve put together.
The secret is that all of the plants were made by God, so they are individually beautiful — and they also go together beautifully because they all have the same Designer. Ho, ho, ho and have a wonderful time!
