BOISE, Idaho — Making an attractive holiday wreath for your front door is easy: You just need your imagination, as well as some fresh evergreens and a few decorations.
'You Can Grow It' Garden Master Jim Duthie shows how to use trimmings from our own yards and gardens in creating festive holiday decorations.
About 50 people signed up recently to learn how to make Christmas wreaths at Payette Brewing, taught by Dacia Hill of Seasonal Floristry and Edwards Greenhouse.
“The materials tonight that I used for the forms are red twig dogwood,” Hill said.
Hill already provided each person with a pre-made wreath form, and the materials to make the wreath, including lots of fresh-cut evergreens. Festive ribbon and Christmassy pine cones add finishing touches.
Dacia instructs them on how to carefully wire each evergreen sprig onto the wreath form until they get the look that they want. Then everybody hustles to collect their greens and get started.
While some people had definite ideas of how they want their wreath to look, others just letting their imaginations go.
Class participant Holland Jolley was trying wreath-making for the first time.
“I have never made one before,” she said. “I’m just hoping that it doesn’t look worse than all of theirs.”
Even though Jolley is making a Christmas wreath, she’s hanging on to Thanksgiving as long as she can. She even wore her turkey hat that she named ‘Giblet.'"
“Midnight on Thanksgiving we listen to our first Christmas song of the season, then my family hears nothing but Christmas," she said. "It’s tradition.”
Farther down the table, Katy Campbell-West's wreath is coming along.
“Kinda going with my own thing, see how it goes. I guess a big part of it is being unique, and it has its own flair," she said. "Everyone’s doing it a little bit different."
Robert Nichols agreed.
"This, believe it or not, is going to be a wreath when it’s all done. After I get it so far, I’ll take it to my wife and go, ‘fix it,'" he said with a laugh.
For these first time wreath makers, their front doors will be just a little more festive during this holiday season.
And you can do it, too: Make your own holiday wreaths with clippings from plants in your own backyard, or you can get fresh evergreens from local nurseries and Christmas tree lots.
The wreaths stay fresh outside through the holidays and into the New Year.