Ideas For Holiday Pots & Boxes

Ideas For Holiday Pots & Boxes

As our design staff works on custom pots and boxes for our customers, it’s sometimes hard to choose from the myriad of materials available. Today’s post shows just a few of the options available for supplies and styles. It’s just a taste of what you can create to decorate your porches, decks and the outside of your home.

Supplies we have available in the store: Oasis blocks to keep cut greens fresh; twigs in red, white, or natural golden colors; silk holly, berry sprays, frosted twigs and flowers; living topiary, small evergreens, and hellebores; pinecones, lights and artificial fruit; cut greens, foliage sprays, and birch poles; wire, floral tape and other materials to hold your creations in their containers despite the Cape Cod winter sea breeze.

Although you can poke your greens in the old soil in pots or urns, they will last longer if you put soaked Oasis floral foam in the containers. This urn contains some of our favorite materials: dark, round lotus pods, green and rust Magnolia leave, silk hydrangea flowers, and the light gold Pinion pine cones.
Whether you make your box arrangements in a plastic liner, as this is, or create them right in the window boxes that are attached to your house, be sure to use three to six different types of greens, making a fresh cut on their stems and sticking them in wet oasis.
To be sure your birch poles stay upright in a container, use waterproof florist’s tape to attach some short bamboo stakes to the bottom of the poles. Those stakes will go into soil or Oasis much more easily than the larger pole, and they will hold the birch more firmly.
A rich looking container should contain at least three different types of greens that have different colors and textures. Don’t hesitate to mix stick colors as well! Here the red painted birch branches were combined with the golden curly willow. Greens include holly, white pine, balsam, and magnolia leaves. Large cones are especially good for big containers.
At Country Garden we stock branches that are painted white, natural curly willow, and natural red-twig dogwood, in addition to the birch poles.
Don’t be shy about combining artificial foliage and flowers with fresh greens. When this variegated holly is mixed in with cut greens it not only provides contrast, but looks quite natural.
Whether you prefer a natural look or sprays that offer a bit of glitz, there are several to choose from.
Instead of using cut greens in your containers, consider planting them with small evergreens. Many of these will not only live though the winter, but can be planted out in your yard or garden in the spring.
Pink or white hellebores flower through the winter in pots and boxes, and can be transferred into a shade garden in April, where they will bloom again next winter.
Need something large that will look great in a snowfall? These topiaries that grace the front of our store are for sale! Ask our cashiers for details.
Got some old tomato cages kicking around your vegetable garden? Paint them, turn them upside down and use them to hold a string of lights over pots of cut greens. You can also create a similar look with bamboo stakes. Four or five stakes in a pot can be tied at the top with a ribbon, or topped by a small upside-down flower pot that has an ornament glued over the drainage hole. Wind a string of lights around the stakes for an enchanted look through the long nights of December.

Supplies that are likely to be available on your property: cut greens such as Leyland Cypress or Eastern red cedar; lichen-covered branches; shells you’ve gathered at the beach over the summer; flower pots or metal watering cans.

Spray finished cut arrangements with Wiltpruf to help the greens stay fresh into January. Water your oasis once a week if it doesn’t rain.

Posted in

Leave a Comment





Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Sign up for our weekly email about sales and events.