One of my favorite childhood storybooks followed an animal family through harvest to their mid-winter festival. I loved their community, their industry, and their cozy little homes in the woods. But most of all, I loved the decorations. Bouquets of golden wheat kernels sat on the toadstool table, and clusters of berries hung like grapes by the door, evidence of the bounty of their surroundings.
Using natural materials to decorate opens the door to a vast selection of things – from waxy magnolia leaves, and their large crimson-seeded pods, wheat sheaves, dried hydrangea lightly sprayed rose or blue, to berry- or pinecone-laden evergreens to grasses, dried flowers, pods, and vines.
Sandra Baker, owner of Country Beautiful in Chestertown, uses a wide range of natural and found materials for wreaths and other autumn and winter decorations.
“We use a lot of things local to our area,” she says, “oyster shells, marsh grasses, things distinctly Chestertown or Kent County. We dry our own yarrow, coxcomb, Artemisia and straw flowers, whatever is available.”
Award-winning potter and ikebana (traditional Japanese flower arranging) master, Seiko Behr of Chestertown, often puts a single osage orange, scooped up on an afternoon walk, on the mantelpiece.
“I use it whole,” she says. “It has such a nice fragrance.”
Both the farmer’s market and the produce section of the grocery store hold a wealth of potential decorations, too. Fruits, vegetables, and nuts add color and can even be used as primary materials.
“In winter, I use winter berry, bamboo, and nandina,” says Behr. “For the New Year, we always use pine, which is a symbol of longevity.”
She has a kind of rotating display in her Chestertown studio, where she makes and sells wonderfully dramatic containers. At any given time, there may be a lone dried lotus pod bending like a watering can nozzle over its vase, which looks like an upended slab of shale. A rosy pomegranate might set off a writhing sweep of bittersweet. In a corner, dried hydrangea and corkscrew willow have been known to erupt from a boulder-sized container reminiscent of the misty mountains of China.
“In ikebana, the container is as important as the materials,” Behr explains.
Regardless of the container, style or materials, natural decorations can be used in a variety of places – to dress up a room, garland an archway, and welcome guests to the front door. Choosing a theme can inspire the choice of materials. Dried red peppers add a Mexican note to a wreath, for example. A delicate swag of Russian olive (which is invasive here in Maryland) can frame a mantelpiece collection of Russian nesting dolls.
HUNTING AND GATHERING
Hunting for natural materials is fun, especially with kids, even if it’s in a garden center or craft shop. But start by walking around your own yard with a discerning eye. Often there are a few weeds gone to glorious seed – teasel, as in the picture above, and dried wild Chinese lantern for example, make lovely additions to an arrangement of miniature pumpkins and greens. You can also trade with obliging neighbors. Each year, friends pillage my holly, juniper and autumn-blooming hydrangea while I pull bittersweet from their trees.
There are two big caveats to woods foraging. First, know what you are taking so you don’t remove seeds, roots or clippings from either endangered natives or invasive non-natives. Second, never take all of what you find. Tithing (taking one-tenth) is a healthy rule of thumb.
PICKING AND PREPPING
Picking at the right time – and if necessary, conditioning — helps extend the life of materials. The trick with hydrangea is picking the blooms when they feel like paper and look like parchment. Then if you like you can lightly spray them with color. For woody-stemmed evergreens, cut about 2” off the ends at an angle, slit up the cut end and scrape off about 2” of bark to increase the plant’s water intake then put immediately in water. Behr, who uses mostly live material, recommends cutting all stems, leaves, or flowers under water to keep air bubbles from rising up the stem and blocking water intake. Then put them immediately into water.
“If materials get wilted, cut them again in hot water – bathtub or hotter especially for heavy stem things like roses – and leave them in it overnight,” she says. “Next morning, they will stand up.”
Country Beautiful
503 Washington Ave
Chestertown
www.countrybeautiful, net
410-778-0079
Seiko Behr Pottery
100 South Queen St.
Chestertown, MD
410-778-1498
Studio closed in summer. Call for winter hours.
Christmas Decorations from Williamsburg by Susan Hight Rountree
(The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1991) illustrates scores of ideas with materials lists and illustrated instructions.
Available by ordering through Compleat Bookseller on High Street.
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