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

How to Make a Fresh Native Christmas Wreath


Christmas is over for another year, but my Christmas wreath is still looking good!  In the pre-christmas rush, I took a little time to photograph the steps to making a simple, native wreath.  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to blog … but better late than never, I thought I'd sneak it in before the New Year!


For this simple fresh wreath, I start with a 12" floral foam wreath.  They are available from floral supplies stores, usually under $10.  I soak the floral foam so that it is completely full of water before I begin.  


I like to begin by selecting all the materials I want to use and have them on the table around my work space.  I love to create combinations of foliage - subtle colours and textures that really give the wreath a special something!  For this wreath, I start with some sprigs of Tasmanian myrtle beech foliage.  It is really fresh at this time of year.  The new seasons growth has changed from red to rich glossy green. 
I cut sprigs the right length, and remove the leaves from the bottom few centimetres of the stem.  I cut the stems on an angle so that they are sharp and firm to press into the floral foam.  I work my way around the wreath until all the sprigs are evenly spaced.  I don't worry too much about neatness at this stage - its good to work quickly to build up the layers. 


Next, I add some fir that I've foraged from the garden.  I like the contrast between it and the myrtle beech.  I also like the structure of the fir and the way it provides a fuller look to the wreath.  It's important to remove the small needles from the stems of the fir sprigs before they are pressed into the foam, otherwise they won't hold firmly. This can be a little fiddly.   I add a small amount of  myrtle to the centre of the wreath at this stage too.  


Next, I add some sprigs of wax flower.  They add another dimension of green but also provide beautiful little highlights with the flowers that peep out.  The wax flower adds a beautiful honey scent too.  


With each layer of green, I try to balance the wreath, filling gaps and creating a nice shape but also thinking about covering the outer and inner edges of the floral foam so that they don't stand out and detract from the finished product.  


Next, I added some Leucadendron Maui Sunset.  They are a light fresh green at this time of year, with pink tips.  In this picture you can see that all the sprigs and flowers are pressed into the foam in the same direction, sweeping around the arc of the wreath.  This is important for the design of the wreath.  If things are added in different directions, the wreath can get really untidy and doesn't come together harmoniously. 


With this wreath, I decided to use just the one main flower to bring the design together.  Leucospermum Scarlet Ribbons is a great christmas flower.  The 12" wreath fits 5 of these flowers really well in s sort of star shape.  Odd numbers are generally more pleasing, visually.  4 flowers would detract from the circle shape of the wreath, making it look too square.  I cut the stems quite short, and remove all the leaves before pressing the first flower firmly into the centre of the band of floral foam. 


The placement of the 5 Leucospermums or Pincushions is quite important because they really stand out as the main feature of the design.  The first flower is placed and then the others are added carefully to create the 5 points of an invisible star. 


Adjust the flowers carefully until they are well spaced and sitting evenly. 


The final stages of the wreath involve adding the special touches and filling the gaps, adjusting until everything sings! This year I really enjoyed adding little sprigs of holly to my wreaths.  I have a holly bush that is slowly getting big enough to pick from.  Wear gloves when picking and preparing it though as it is really prickly!  Again, the springs are cut on a sharp diagonal and the bottom leaves are removed.  I press the holly sprigs into the wreath in relation to the 5 main flowers now, emphasising the design.


Another of my favourite additions to fresh native wreaths are gum nuts.  These are dried ones that I have left over from projects through the year.  They have short stems so are suited to wreaths.  Again, once those 5 main flowers have gone in, everything that is added has to be in harmony with them.   I add the gum nuts in between each flower.  I find that sprinkling them is better than placing them too neatly, because they look more natural.

In the above picture, you can also see a white rice-flower like bloom.  These are a native that grow wild on my farm and flower in summer.  I have a few different varieties, commonly known as Dolly Bush.  I am unsure if they are a Cassinia or an Ozothamnus - I think there is an overlapping there.  But if they are picked at exactly the right time, the lovely bright flower heads don't droop and and really useful to brighten up summer arrangements.  You can see a gap on the wreath where the floral foam is showing. Dolly Bush is one of the things I've used to fill in these gaps.  More little sprigs of foliage are good too.


Another of the final touches is to add Leucadendron Jubilee Crown.  These are often called "Christmas Cones" and look particularly festive.  The cheery red cones are great little highlights that add an extra dimension to the wreath.  Again, I remove all the fine needle-like leaves and cut the stems sharply before sprinkling them throughout the wreath.


Eventually, all the gaps are filled and the highlights are added.  I stand back and make sure the wreath is looking balanced.


These wreaths are lovely addition to a festive table.  Add a nice fat candle to the centre and use them as a table centrepiece.  If you remember to add a little water each day, the wreath will outlast even the typical Christmas leftovers of ham and turkey!  

I hope you all had a happy Christmas season and wish you all the best for a productive and happy New Year, with plenty of time to seek out the beauty in each day.  Thanks so much for all your support and kind comments throughout the year.

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.


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