Festive Foliage and Friends!

 

Last Friday I had the most enjoyable day when some friends came around for coffee, biscuits and wreath making.   Mr. L had been busy with his chain saw on our overgrown Leylandii hedge to give us some base materials and I had pruned the eucalyptus and rosemary bushes that I let grow large for this very purpose.  Between the rain storms, I’d nipped out and cut a little holly and ivy and from the hedgerow and I’d gathered some teasels from the scrub land next to our house and some pine cones from a local park.  There are no air miles attached to these wreaths!!

Jane’s husband Dave also came along to offer words of encouragement and be a guest cat bed for Leia….

I’d watched a Gardener’s World video and made a wreath last year so I was the appointed “teacher”.   We started with a 12” wire frame and using binding wire, attached the various base foliage to the frame by winding the wire around the frame and foliage, wiggling it between the fronds and leaves to avoid getting a ‘bandaged’ look!

This process was repeated until the base layer was completed and the wire frame was covered.

Next, we prepared the accent pieces – the holly, ivy, pinecones and teasels – by wrapping the stems with floristry wire.  Our holly was nude so we attached some artificial berries for added colour.

These pieces were pushed through the base layer and secured to the metal frame.  We finished the wreaths by making a bow using wire edged ribbon and secured that into the frame with some binding wire.

 

Here are Ruth, Joy and Jane with their finished wreaths.  Don't they look fabulous?

We had so much fun making these and they really weren’t difficult nor expensive to make so I encourage you to have a go!

Since there was a lot of foliage left, Jane took home a couple of the eucalyptus branches for the church flowers so Dave got his own aromatherapy experience on their return journey!

I made three wreaths in total; one for us and one each for my Mum and my Mum-in-law.  I finished off my wreaths with a bit of spray glitter.

Last year we bought mini Christmas trees, hellebores and cyclamen to put in the wall mangers which gradually died when I neglected to remove them and plant them in the garden in the spring.  So, since I had enough base foliage to make wreaths for about half of Hampshire(!), I decided to fashion some wreath style Christmas trees.  I started with some garden wire mesh and cut and moulded it to form a sort of half cone shape and then added the foliage in tree type layers.

 

Some accent pieces, fairy lights and a star for the top and my Festive Foliage Christmas Tree (that looks like Cousin It!) was complete.