DIY Network

Garden Wreath and Garland From "Syndicated DIY" episode SDIY-304

A garden wreath is at home on your front door or your garden gate.

Q: I'd like to make a wreath for my garden gate. What sort of plants and other materials should I use?

A: (from DIY gardening expert Jessie Mack Burns) A wreath is a great way to enhance your garden. Here are suggestions for making a natural wreath using dried garden materials and shrub clippings.

advertisement

	Figure A
	Figure B
	Figure C
	Figure D
	Figure E
	Figure F
	Figure G
	Figure H

Materials:

Wire wreath-frames
Evergreen branches (e.g., pine, cedar, holly)
Florist wire
Wire cutters
Dried flowers and berries
Jute twine

Steps:

1. Begin with a wire wreath frame. These are available in a variety of sizes from craft stores (figure A). We opted for a larger one to fill the large area of our garden gate.

2. Collect some evergreen shrub clippings (e.g., pine, cedar, holly), and bunch their stems together.

3. Use fine-gauge florist wire ( or paddle-wire) to gather the assembled bunches at their bases.

4. Lay the first wired bunch onto the wreath frame, and use a heavier gauge florist wire to secure the bunch onto the frame (figure B). (We used 22-gauge florist wire.)

5. Repeat the steps, and add the second bunch onto the frame so that it's top overlaps and conceals the base of the previous bunch (figure C).

6. Continue this process, overlapping and moving in the same direction, until you've covered the frame with foliage and branches.

7. Once you have your basic wreath prepared, you can augment it with decorative items such as bunches of dried flowers and berries (figure D). Use florist wire to secure these as well.

8. If you like, you can add other decorative accents such as artificial birds (figure E), butterflies, etc.

9. You may want to consider creating a garland to complement your wreath (figure F).

10. The technique for making the garland is similar to that used to make the wreath. Bunches of branches and foliage are overlapped and connected. We opted to add magnolia leaves and holly berries to augment our garland (figure G).

11. As with the wreath, secure the gathered bunches at the base using florist wire. To connect the individual bunches in the garland, we used jute twine (figure H).