Winter & Holiday Container Ideas

As we move steadily toward December, the custom department at Hyannis Country Garden is gearing up for helping our customers fill their window boxes, pots and other outdoor containers. We’ll plant or fill just about any type of container, but we also love advising people who want to do it themselves. Here are some tips and ideas for how you can dress up outdoor containers for the winter season.

Oasis florist foam helps greens last longer.

Yes, you can stick greens into the dirt that remains in your containers, but they will stay fresh for longer periods if you use water-soaked Oasis. Some people sink a few blocks of Oasis into the dirt that remains in containers, and others line their boxes and pots with a plastic bag so that the Oasis stays well water-filled as it rains. Use waterproof tape to hold the blocks in so that even the strongest winds won’t blow your arrangement out of the container.

Fill a birdbath!

Our custom department makes birdbath toppers by taping Oasis in a plastic saucer, and adding greens. If you have a birdbath, you can either leave it in place, and add a topper, or move it onto a porch or deck for the winter.

Make it “Cape Cod.”

We love creating decorations with a sense of place, and for those on the Cape that means a nautical theme. Add shells, buoys, netting, or other objects that you associate with this region.

Consider using live plants!

Instead of cut greens, many people choose to use live plants in their pots and boxes. This has several advantages. First, your containers will look beautiful through the entire winter. Secondly, you can transplant those small evergreens into your yard and gardens. And finally, in future years, as those evergreens grow, they just might supply you with cut-greens of many colors for future holiday use.

Use sticks and twigs!

Filling containers with sticks and twigs is a simple and dramatic way to decorate.

Make a grinch tree!

Make a Grinch tree!

Feeling in a bah-humbug or cartoony mood? Fill your porch pot with a Grinch tree. Here’s how to you do it.

• Gather a group of tall branches, about four or five feet tall, and stick them in the center of a heavy container filled with wet Oasis. Note: if you have branches that have a natural curve to them, place them together so that they are all curving in the same direction. That makes it easier to curve the tree to one side.
• Put a several branches that are half that size around the tall ones.
• Take a heavy wire and wind it around all of the branches, coiling it up from the bottom to the top, while at the same time bending the branches toward one side. If you have a hard time getting the curved tree to stay in that shape, hang something heavy from the tip for a day or two.
• Stick some shorter evergreens around the base to make a bushier bottom of the tree.
• Wind garland – the tackier the better – in a spiral from top to bottom.
• Hang a larger ornament from the tip of the tree.