Many of my friends talked about not decorating for the holidays this year. But, as the festivities approach I notice more and more cheery accents being added to everyone’s home and garden. Despite their initial motives for holding back, few gardeners can resist the urge to bedeck the halls when so much of the holiday focus is on the beauty of the winter season.
I am convinced that a gardener came up with the idea of decorating our homes and gardens for the holidays. Some enterprising gardener from way back when must have found himself with nothing to do for a week or two when the garden went into a state of dormancy. He cut down a tree and brought it into the house.
My scenario may not be historically correct, it was the Druids and Celts who began many of our seasonal traditions based on the winter solstice, but there is no doubt that gardeners have their hand in the tradition of holiday decorating. We fill our homes with the scent of Douglas fir boughs. A fire crackles over aged cedar logs in the fireplace as we create holiday centerpieces with plant material in bloom or berry. Who better than a plant person to pick the finest greenery for the holiday home?
I can picture the energetic gardener, longing for the color of flowers in winter, encircling his house in multicolored lights in order to bring a little life into the still, snow-white picture. Then, along comes his neighbor, the refined gardener, who happens to have planted an all-white garden last spring. She hangs only white lights on three equidistant trees in the center of a spacious lawn. The battle is under way.
Out of kilter
There are businesses that market the holiday season for the sole purpose of making money. They do their best to convince us we are emulating nature in our decorating endeavors by developing lights that imitate icicles hanging from the eaves of the house. Who knows what’s next; snow machines that hang over the front door and coat the shoulders of our holidays guests with a dusting of “real natural man-made snow”?
Perhaps my gardening friends were hesitant to decorate this year because the hype of the season seemed to be out of kilter with the state of things. On the other hand, is it simply the fact that every home improvement project has a tendency to become more work and more time intensive than we expect (or want) it to be? When we decorate for the holidays, we are aware from the start that putting up the decorations is only half of the job. After the celebrating is over, everything has to come down again.
My suggestion for hesitant decorators this year is to view the job as an extension of the gardening experience. Snip small branches of cedar, pine, salal and cotoneaster to fill outdoor window boxes or plunge them into loose soil in a large outdoor planter. Choose plant material that fits the season rather than a specific holiday. With cold weather ahead, the color and scent will stay fresh and welcoming throughout New Year celebrations.
Holly, cedar, juniper
The perfect garden ornament for the winter home is evergreen plant material. Plants that remain green during the winter months, such as holly, cedar and juniper, have been used as decorations in the home since ancient times. During the dead of winter, the green boughs, branches and leaves served as poignant reminders that spring would return.
If you are lucky enough to have an established garden with sufficient plant material to cut and bring inside, you will want to fill your home with swags of assorted needle and broadleaf evergreens. Try a large vase with whole sasanqua camellia branches in early winter bloom. Few berries are as bright a holiday red as those of Skimmia japonica. Holly will continue to be the standard for shiny, deep green, serrated leaves juxtaposed with bright red berries.
The best gift a gardener can give or receive is one of nature or at least a reminder of the beauty inherent in every garden. Add sound to a friend’s garden with an array of bells or wind chimes that jingle in the slightest breeze. Give your friends and family the gift of lavender sachets, scented candles and glass ornaments in the shape of a hyacinth, amaryllis, pinecone or frog. Leave it to a gardener to find a way to keep the garden alive and to share its bountiful gifts through every season of the year.
Robb Rosser is a WSU-certified Master Gardener. Reach him at Write2Robb@aol.com.
