Native Winter Wreath: It's all in your garden!

Northern white cedar, Virginia creeper and some fluff.

Some say it's nuts; some say superb. For better or worse, I planted Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) along the 300 feet of fence that surrounds the two sides of our corner lot. As you may know, Virginia creeper is a very vigorous vine. Understatement! It also has three seasons of interest, flowers, berries and fall color, and adds oodles of wildlife value to your garden.

I planted very small plants every thirty feet or so and pruned each small plant back to one stem. As the plant grew, I pruned away side shoots until each single stem reached the top of the three foot fence. Then I let each plant spread out in either direction at the top. It's not entirely contiguous yet but getting there.

There is a reason this plant is called Virginia creeper! The vine I am training along the top of the fence grows robustly each summer. It also sends out a few sneaky runners from the base of the original plants. Sometimes I don't see them until they are going places! This year, as I pruned those back after the leaves finally fell, I kept rolling the cut pieces up as I went along and then realized I practically had a wreath or two. If you have Virginia creeper, the bare stems are as good as the grape vine forms you can buy at craft stores.

These photos show how I got started but really what I ended up with was exactly what I had as I rolled the bare vines up as I pruned. I made this wreath with regular twine, wanting to be able to compost it easily when I am finished with it. The vine coils so nicely, I almost didn't need to bind it together but since the wreath is on a very active door, I tied the vines with twine in two places to keep it tight.

I made bundles of northern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) -- a large piece, a medium piece and then a small piece of the cedar or a few other cuttings - southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), blue spruce (Picea pungens), not native to the east coast, and eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana). Traditionally wreaths are bound with that green paddle wire, but I am trying the twine this time around.

Once the bundles were done, I shortened the stems and began layering them to the wreath form. I cut a longer piece of twine and wrapped the bases of the bundles to the wreath as I went.

When I ran out of bundles I stopped but you could easily do a full wreath. I trimmed some of the branches from the interior of the wreath to open it up a bit.

It seemed to need something more so I headed into the garden to find some fluffy things. I ended up cutting sprigs of coralberries (Symphoricarpus orbiculatas) from a very young shrub and I also had some passion fruits still hanging on the maypop vine (Passiflora incarnata). Made a couple of bundles of those and added a twine bow. Simple, entirely compostable and no errands required! The best kind of decor.

A few extra northern white cedar pieces left over made a simple swag for the shed door.

Happy foraging!