Brilliant Homemade Wreaths.

These Simple Wreaths Look
Great!

On Tuesday of last week I was lucky enough to be able to try my hand at making some homemade wreaths. These were really fun, and surprisingly simple too make!

Building Up Leylandii Layers.

Using an oasis material base (Soaked First), we built up layers of Leylandii hedging to create the background, after this we added traditional holly and ivy, but then changed things up a little bit, we added Euonymus "Silver queen" which added interest and colour to the otherwise green werath and then Cotoneaster berries, to finish of the look. The Cotoneaster berries were used as a substitute for holly berries, as they last longer and are less attractive to wildlife and therefore are safer from being eaten!

Permitting you soaked the oasis throughly, and you used fresh plant material, the wreath will last easily through the christmas period and into the new year!

A Leylandii Conifer.

Plant Information!

x Cuprocyparis leylandii (Leylandii Hedging) - This is an extremely vigorous, evergreen conifer and one of the fastest growing conifers in existence! This dense plant is used mostly for hedges, to screen the nasty neighbours in some cases, and does a perfect job, but is also great for making topiary's and if cut correctly, usually twice a year, can be kept in different heights, shapes and sizes depending on what you need!

Ilex aquifolium (Holly) - A slow growing evergreen shrub with spiky leaves, bearing vivid red berries (drupes) in winter. A common Christmas plant ("The Holly And The Ivy!").

Euonymus 'Silver Queen'.

Hedera helix (Common Ivy) - A vigorous, fast growing plant, with evergreen foliage and adventitious roots which 'attach' themselves to other plants, walls etc... and can cause issues in extreme cases. Again a common Christmas plant ("The Holly And The Ivy!").

Euonymus fortunei 'Silver Queen' - A dense, medium sized evergreen shrub with variegated leaves of cream and green centres.

The red berries of Cotoneaster 'Cornubia'.

Cotoneaster frigidus 'Cornubia' - This is commonly known as the "Tree Cotoneaster" and can reach the dizzy heights of 8M (Well a dizzy height for a shrub anyway!) and is covered in white flowers in the summer which is followed by large clusters of vivid red berries. It is classed as a semi-evergreen as the leaves may fall during the winter, but equally may still be present.


So there you have it! Stunning, traditional, yet simple Christmas wreaths containing plants that all have winter interest as well as a practical use!

Jack.