WEDDING FLOWERS: christmas wreath
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Showing posts with label christmas wreath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas wreath. Show all posts

Christmas Time!

Christmas is fast approaching and I've started the annual Christmas Wreath making, one of my favourite Christmas activities.  I have a number of different styles planned which I'm looking forward to making.  There is so much variety in colour and texture at this time of year, which makes it a joy to get creative with flowers.


This year, I've decided to streamline the ordering process and use my Swallows Nest Farm online shop to handle the payments.  This way if you're a Hobart local, you can order and pay with credit card or paypal.
Here's a link to the listing.

There are three different styles you can choose from this year.  "Traditional" is your typical Christmas colouring - red and green with added holly.


Christmassy and full of fresh native goodness!


The second style is "Citrus" - yellows, oranges, and greens in a celebration of our Australian summery Christmas.


The third style is "Surprise Me!", where you give me permission to get creative with colour and come up with a unique design for your wreath.  So far, its proving to be the favourite style which has made me happy!


I love the opportunities for endless combinations of colour, texture and pattern that floral wreaths give.  Playing with flowers is a beautiful job to have.


I hope you have a wonderful, joy filled Christmas and that you have time to enjoy the beauty of the season wherever you find yourself.  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year


Can you believe we are saying goodbye to 2013?  The year seems to have flown by so fast and the Christmas Season has been so busy that I have hardly come up for air!  In Tasmania the long summer days linger and the summer solstice occurs just before Christmas.  It's a lovely time of year.  

The main flower we're harvesting now is the Leucospermum, commonly known as a Pincushion.  Its beautiful summer colours provide inspiration for me when it comes to festive decorations.  I love fresh Christmas wreaths.  They make great table centrepieces, especially with a candle in the middle.  


I love the challenge of combining colours and textures to create these wreaths.  Foliage plays a big part in the overall feel of the wreath and its fun foraging around the farm for beautiful fresh foliage to use.


I love the wreath above using some late Tasmanian Waratah and button bush or Berzelia.  I've also used some Dryandra Formosa, an Australian flower from the protea family that I did a test plant of a few years ago.  The golden flowers are surrounded by lovely foliage that looks like strips of green zig zag.  Dryandra flowers dry well too and last for years in a dried arrangement.


During spring I noticed a wonderful eucalypt in my local area that was laden with gum nuts.  So heavily laden was it that the branches were weighed down to the ground.  I snipped a few branches and dried them, looking forward to when I could use them.  They were a perfect addition to this wreath, I thought!


Orange Leucospermums and yellow Leucadendron Pisa make this wreath really summery and fresh.  The Pisa can be used at various stages.  I picked some quite early to use it in its flowering stage.  Later the central cone enlarges.   It is silvery green and beautifully surround by yellow and lime green bracts.  


Geraldton Wax flowers and Leucadendron Jubilee Crown, also known as Christmas Cones fill out the bright citrusy wreath.  I couldn't resist adding some more gum nuts!


Foraging around the farm lead me to seek out a small holly bush that had been overgrown in the last two years.  After a bit of bush-bashing, accompanied by my trusty sidekick, I found the bush and was delighted to discover that it had grown significantly, even though it had been almost hidden by bushy growth.  Needless to say I've now cleared around it.  The holly was fun to play with in wreaths and Christmas bunches too, although it was a little prickly to deal with. 


I also found, during one of my foraging walks, some impressive cones on a big conifer our family imaginatively calls the Christmas Tree!  When I first started doing the local farmer's market I was excited to use some foliage I found which had pink immature cones on it.  These are the same cones a couple of months later.  I really don't remember this tree producing such impressive cones before! The photo doesn't do them justice - they are shiny and deep purple.  Wonderful for an addition to a Christmas wreath!!


I saved them for my own Christmas wreath.  I added Leucaspermum Scarlet Ribbons, some wild foraged Ozothamnus (white Rice Flower)  Tasmanian Myrtle foliage, Leucadendron Safari Sunset, Christmas Cones, and Goldstrike, and of course, some of the gum nuts.  Knowing it was my own wreath I probably tried to pack too many things onto the one wreath, but I'm glad I made the time to make a wreath for our own table.


It was a beautiful summer day in Tasmania on December 25th.  We had Christmas brunch on the deck in the open air.


It was a memorable day.  As I write this, the wreath is still relatively fresh and sitting on the table beside me.  I love to enjoy the flowers I grow in my own home!

I'm looking forward to 2014 - it promises to be a very exciting year.  In the meantime, we are still working to pick the rest of the summer crops as they bloom.  I'm looking forward to doing some wedding flowers this week, and then maybe getting a short break toward the end of January before the year really begins in earnest.  I hope 2014 is happy one for you - enjoy!!


Farewell until next year.


The Christmas Rush


I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have Christmas in winter.  Summer is such a busy season here.  There is so much to do around the farm - the grass seems to grow while you watch it.  The leucaspermums all seems to flower at once, and everyone wants flowers for Christmas.  Add to all this the normal end of year activities and you end up with a great long list of things that need to be done!  But in amongst it all, there are some fun jobs.  I've been designing christmas arrangements and wreaths and I love the creative side of it. 

The potted arrangement above has three types of Leucosermum - Cordifolium (the orange one) Scarlet Ribbons (the red) and Mardi Gras (the yellow and orange).  I've also included some Berzelia or button bush - the creamy white little pom poms, and a selection of leucadendrons.  


This Christmas wreath includes our newest planting of leucaspermums - Scarlet Ribbons.  They've been in the ground just over 2 years and we've had a great crop of them this year.  They are a relatively early flowering variety for us, and they look so cheery on the hillside where they grow.  I love the way they change colour from pink and greyish purple and red when they are just opening, to rich red with orange and tinges of pink as they mature.  

The wreath also has our leucadendron Christmas Cones - the little purplish red cones that you can see peeping out of the foliage.  They are such a great Christmas time plant.  The beautiful swelling cones are so vibrant on the end of the stems, and even look good when they are aged and dry.  They end up looking like miniature pinecones on the end of the stems.  What a useful Christmas plant!!  

I have added some of our Tasmanian Myrtle foliage too, which is looking so spectacular after its growth season in spring.  It's botanical name is Nothofagus Cunninghamii.  It is a beautiful Tasmanian tree that is highly prized for its pinkish toned timber which makes wonderful furniture and wood products.  I love to pick it, because it has a wonderful resinous smell that lingers on your hands. 
You might also be able to see some Geraldton Wax flowers, and some Eucalyptus foliage.  I just love the way the colours and textures of the different plants blend together when I'm creating different bunches and arrangements. 

I think sometimes the busyness of the season can get the creative juices flowing!


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Wondering what style of flower bouquets you'll choose for your big day?
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