It’s beginning to look a lot like...

At my house, the traditional holiday lights go up the weekend following Thanksgiving, followed by pots of cut greenery, swags and wreaths. About the second week in December, vases or centerpieces of winter greenery appear on the tables inside, roping runs down the staircase, and more swags and wreaths are scattered around the house. The traditional tree follows about a week before Christmas. Although the indoor wreaths and roping are artificial for fire safety reasons, the things that decorate them, the greenery filling the vases and centerpieces, and the outdoor decorations are mostly collected from the yard and from the surrounding woods and roadsides.

At first glance it may not seem like there is much out in the garden, woods and roadsides with decorative value this time of year, but the closer you look, the more you will find. The easiest place to start is by collecting evergreen boughs. My favorite is Scotch pine, although white pine, blue spruce and hemlock branches work almost as well. Indoors, cut hemlock is relatively short-lived before losing its needles, but it’s not a lot of trouble to replace it from time to time, and outdoors it lasts as well as any other evergreen. Once the greens are stuck into a pot of soil outside, into a vase inside, tied into a swag or arranged on a mantle, they can be decorated with a wide variety of natural materials. Arborvitae and rhododendron have good contrasting textures and colors, and red rose hips, barberry berries and native winterberries add sparkle and are easy to find in the wood and fields. The hips of wild roses are a dull red, and have the familiar rose thorns along the stem. They grow in clumps at the ends of the stems of large, spreading shrubs, often along hedgerows and stone walls. Barberry fruits are a bright red. Being an invasive species, Japanese barberry can easily be found growing wild in many woods and fields. Winterberries are large native deciduous hollies that grow in open woods and fields. Their fruits are large, showy red berries that grow all along the stems of the tall shrubs. They are so pretty and shiny they almost look artificial in arrangements. Evergreen holly is a traditional holiday green, but unfortunately, I don’t have any growing in my yard, and I haven’t seen it growing wild in this area. Someday I’ll plant some, just so that I can cut it for winter decorating.

At this point, we’ll have to get a little more creative. Twiggy shrubs or trees can be pruned, and the fine branches spray-painted white. Voila, white birch twigs like you would buy at the florist! Goldenrod, cut and spray-painted either white or gold adds a nice fluffy texture to any arrangement. If the goldenrod will be left unpainted, spray it with hairspray to keep the seeds and fluff from flying all over. Pinecones from white pine trees are a nice shape and can be left natural or perhaps sprayed with flocking before grouping them on wreaths and swags. Or they can simply be piled on the mantle or in a large bowl or brandy snifter, alone or mixed with small glass Christmas balls or other types of pinecones.

I enjoy spending an afternoon or two driving around and tromping through the woods and fields, pruners in hand, to collect as much potential decorating material as I think I can use. Then, back at home, with the raw materials at hand, I let my imagination run wild. Why not, when so much holiday cheer comes free of charge?