How to Make an Easy Wreath from Your Garden Evergreens

Your evergreen shrubs should be pruned at this time of year anyway, so why not use them for holiday decorations? Straw wreath forms that you can buy at craft stores make it easy. Good for your holiday and good for your garden!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Straw wreath form
• U-shaped florist pins
• Hand pruning tool
• Ribbon and other decorations

1. Trim your evergreens. Shrubs like privet and box are ideal for wreathmaking. Don't clip little bits off the ends of the branches. You want to prune them where they are dense, so that light and air can circulate. Cut long pieces, eight inches to ten inches, down to where they grow out of a bigger branch.
2. Cut your trimmings into pieces four to six inches long.
3. Lay a sprig against the straw wreath form, and press the florist pin in about two inches up from the bottom of the stem.
4. Continue around in a circle, overlapping the sprigs slightly, until the form is covered as thickly as you like.
5. Add decorations. Most bows and small decorations can be attached with more of the florist pins. Try other garden cuttings like dried seed pods and herbs like rosemary that are still green in early winter. Larger decorations like pine cones may need to be attached with long pieces of wire.

Tips & Warnings

• Nearly all evergreens can be used to make wreaths. White pine, which is thin, is better mixed with other greens. Trimmings from the bottom of Christmas trees can also be used if you don't have enough shrubs that need pruning in your (or your neighbor's!) yard.

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