Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Festive containers
I love creating my festive containers! I decided to do it on a weekend day that was not supposed to be THAT cold… whatever! I went to my local nursery and bought the “ingredients”, spruce tops, cedar branches and various other evergreens, and new this year for me… eucalyptus leaves!
I also used my own hydrangea flowers, ornamental grasses and berry branches from a friend who pruned for a local business. I really love using natural elements.
There are so many gorgeous options, like that twisty stick that broke off in the wind and is laying in the yard, pinecones, acorns, seedpods, sedum flowers, stems with galls made by little insects! There’s character in nearly everything. NOTE: I buy the holiday pieces after the season and search my yard and nature for cool looking stuff to add. It saves a few bucks and it’s fun!
In the past, I’ve spray-painted many of the elements with red or gold but I’ve seen people get very creative with really any color!
There are nearly endless colors in spray-paint now! This year I did choose to go all natural but I’ll likely add some lights after Thanksgiving. I’m not one for Christmas stuff BEFORE Thanksgiving. I guess I’m just old school!
If your containers are all outside, like mine, then your soil is likely frozen, use a drill to poke some holes in there to place the main elements and add more soil to secure them. Some of the soil in mine was on the verge of freezing, the one that was frozen, I swapped out!
The most important thing is to know that you can take your time, place items and step back, take a look. I move stuff around all the time while I’m working on a container! It’s fun!
This year was all natural… so far! I’ll likely add a few other elements once it gets closer… By the way, in the container below, I bought just one larger spruce top for this size container, I wanted height and I wanted it thinner. I pulled the branches down as they were bundled. Be a little gentle but they shouldn’t break when you do this.
