Ask a Master Gardener: Making Fresh Greenery Arrangements as Gifts

Table arrangement

By: Brenda Bolton, Mobile County Master Gardener, www.mobilecountymastergardeners.org

Editor’s Note: Creating fresh greenery arrangements during a holiday season can result in  special gifts for friends. In this column from November 2016, Brenda Bolton gives expert tips on using what you grow for décor that lasts as long as possible.  And we want you to know that as a backup to DIY, the Master Gardeners invite you to place your order for Holiday Greenery now www.mobilecountymastergardeners.org/hgs25  for pick-up the week after Thanksgiving.

Preparation:  Look outside your favorite window - that beautiful fresh greenery decor you see in the magazines, whether used on a holiday mantel or a winter buffet table for Mardi Gras brunch, is often growing right outside in your own yard. Or maybe your neighbor’s.

Winter is the perfect time to harvest greenery, because the leaves are mature and have hardened off.  If you try to use greenery with tender spring leaves, the tips wilt. Winter greenery is usually well hydrated from winter rains and cooler temperatures, so it will last.  Deeply water the plants for harvest a couple of times in the days before cutting it.  Immediately place cut stems into warm water, soak overnight, recut to proper length and strip leaves to clean the ends in the water.  Refresh live greenery by daily watering and misting. 

Have realistic expectations for live plant material.  Well-prepared fresh greenery, maintained with daily fresh water, will last a minimum of a week.  Beyond that will depend on the type of greenery used.  Cedars, junipers, Christmas tree firs, holly that has hardened off for winter can last several weeks.

Incorporating dried plant material enhances your decor:  pinecones, interesting bare stems, seed pods such as magnolia or bog lotus, or even dried, left-over summer okra pods, and beautiful red winter berries.  Make use in a tablescape of winter blooms such as our heritage camellias, forced amaryllis or narcissus, colorful poinsettias, or even pots of pansies and violets. 

Uses: Mixed natural materials are beautiful draping a banister or newel post, adorning a flat surface such as a mantel or table, as a wreath or embellishing a commercial wreath, tree, or garland, filling a windowsill, or arranged in a vase or container. Upgrade artificial wreaths, garlands, or trees by inserting fresh greenery nosegays. 

Design Tips

When designing a container arrangement, use plant material that is foundational, structural, filling, and accenting:

-Place linear, structural stems to give the arrangement its shape (pyramid, triangle,         mounding, rounded, etc.)  Establish height and width first so that other pieces

 can be cut and placed in relation.

-Build a bed of greenery as a foundation

-Place feathery and fine-textured filler

-Select and place accents, keeping a single main feature placed in a central position (some designers advise placing the main feature first)

-Continue filling in

-To incorporate bloom, start with a container of bulbs or a violet placed into a larger container, using a floral wet foam ring around it to hold the addition of surrounding greenery

-Incorporate blooms by making nosegays of accent flowers in water vials to insert into the arrangement, and swap out the nosegay as the blooms fade to extend the life of

the arrangement or change the look

Select long lasting, varying textures and colors to fill each function

-Use stems with leaves that are shiny or hard-surfaced for longer lasting greenery, such as boxwood, yaupon, holly, camellia, magnolia, pittosporum, cleyera, ligustrum, viburnum

-Use strong, linear stems for structure, feathery pieces to build foundations and fill vacant spots, arching stems for form or accent

-Use long-lasting feathery evergreens such as Leyland cypress, juniper, arborvitae, cedar, cryptomeria for foundations or infill

-Use unusual pieces for accents or form, such as ginger, aspidistra, sago palm fronds,    rosemary, small pinecones or seed pods, berry stems, even citrus like kumquat

Plan for the material to endure:

-Prepare material properly

-Use wet florist foam (oasis) or a water vase

-Extend freshness by using stem water vials or make homemade water vials by wrapping stems in wet paper towel and covering with a plastic baggie, then wrap in green florist tape and attach with the tape to a florist stake for inserting into the arrangement.

Enjoy your greenery creation!

Master Gardener Brenda Bolton working on greenery arrangement, by T Davidson

Front Door Swag

Master Gardener Pam Noerr working with oasis, by T Davidson