In Australia, Christmas wreaths have typically been structured around European accoutrements, but did you know it is easy to make a wreath with produce from your own garden?<\/p>\n
Australians who want to add their own Christmas flair are embracing native flower wreaths, according to Candice Burger, a flower farmer at Bowral, in the southern highlands of NSW.<\/p>\n
“We’ve moved a long way from the traditional European wreath, with holly and berries and pine,” Ms Burger said.<\/p>\n
“We’re really slowly crossing a new frontier with Australian native wreaths taking shape here.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Billy buttons are a native Australian flower. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Ms Burger said native plants worked well in wreaths with other garden flowers.<\/p>\n
“If you take dried hydrangeas and put yellow billy button balls with them, then add any green foliage, you know, you’ve got the green and the gold,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Billy buttons grow beautifully in Australia, they’re native and add pops of colour. The stems are quite rigid so threading them one at a time is easier.<\/p>\n
“Then you could add in banksia, which is red for Christmas.<\/p>\n
“I think Australians are definitely putting their own take on the wreath and a lot of wreaths are beautiful sculptures.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Candice Burger grows vines to harvest for wreath bases. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Garden inspiration<\/p>\n
The wreath base is generally a circle constructed from plaited or twisted wood, which can be branches or vines from around your home.<\/p>\n
“Use an ornamental grapevine or even wisteria,” Ms Burger said.<\/p>\n
“Then using jute or copper wire, bend them into any shape you want and find a dry place to hang it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The base holds the wreath together and makes construction easy. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Making a wreath requires few tools but secateurs, wire, jute, a wreath base, floral ingredients and ribbon are a minimum.<\/p>\n
“Use sharp secateurs for cutting stems, leaves and wire and have both thick and thin wire on hand to hold items in place,” Ms Burger said.<\/p>\n
“Using twine makes your wreath compostable.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Vines are twisted into circles and then tied off with twine. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Tips for making a wreath<\/p>\n
Ms Burger said you should prepare to make a big mess that you can clean up later, and to just have fun and go crazy with it.<\/p>\n
“Prepare by stripping leaves and securing flowers as a group, cut wire lengths long enough to twist tightly at the back of the wreath,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Wreaths can get heavy so prepare a lot of wire or twine to secure it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A combination of dried and fresh flowers is perfect for inserting into wreaths.\u00a0 (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
She suggests mixing dry and fresh ingredients, bunching and overlapping it together including fresh banksias, leaves, branches, pine cones, rosemary and lavender.<\/p>\n
“To add textured coloured elements, mix the ingredients with dry and fresh produce, which will dry on the wreath.<\/p>\n
“We’ve also made wreaths with fresh cut paper daisies, pine and lavender, even fresh hydrangeas dry on the wreath, so you can just go into your garden and cut what’s there.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Candice Burger starts making a wreath with bunches of flowers. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Adding layers<\/p>\n
Ms Burger said there were no rules while constructing your wreath.<\/p>\n
“Let ingredients flop outside the circle, create texture by overlapping your ingredients, fill gaps and during construction hold the wreath any which way, it’s a work in progress, so don’t be shy.<\/p>\n
“It’s easy to work with one ingredient at a time and just keep adding and layering up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Creating a Christmas wreath is an exercise in imagination. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
“Hard petals, like a paper daisy, work well but there are flowering shrubs and trees that have interesting seed pods, and you can include those.<\/p>\n
“If you’ve got a fruiting tree like an ornamental cherry, that’s fun to do, so is dehydrating fruit,” she said.<\/p>\n
Tips include following the circle base and looking for spaces in the wood from behind.<\/p>\n
Hold the stems tightly, and using the wire, wind them around the wreath.<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry, you can keep adding to the wreath or finish quite minimally, there are no rules,” Ms Burger said.<\/p>\n
Finishing off<\/p>\n
Add ribbons to your wreath for pops of colour and texture.\u00a0 (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
Ms Burger suggests waiting until you have finished to tidy up the back, add bows and ribbons and test it in place.<\/p>\n
“Use beautiful vintage ribbon, wind that in and make it your own personality,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Wind stems into place so they’re not sticking out, you don’t want to see them; then twist the wire to finish it off.<\/p>\n
“Don’t secure strands and cut until you know you’ve finished,” she said.<\/p>\n
Alternately, you don’t need to cut the wire off, you can just go around keeping the tension quite tight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Candice Burger with a Christmas wreath she made. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n
“Then hang it and step back from it, don’t be shy to move things about,” Ms Burger said.<\/p>\n
“There’s so many things you can find in your garden, you can prep all year for it, or you can go out that day and harvest from your garden.<\/p>\n
“You’ll be surprised by how beautiful you can make a wreath.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Candice Burger recommends using fresh and dried flowers in Christmas wreaths. (ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Australia, Christmas wreaths have typically been structured around European accoutrements, but did you know it is easy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,172816,99,5503,172815,172814,172817,69351,13960,172818,66269],"class_list":["post-302709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bowral","tag-business","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-decoration","tag-christmas-wreath","tag-flower-farm","tag-flowers","tag-garden","tag-oxley-hill-flower-farm","tag-workshop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}