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Gorgeous Greens

So many of the materials used at the holidays are harvested from the landscape.  Not my landscape, mind you.  My evergreens grow much too slowly to be trimmed for holiday greens;  the one spruce on my property was limbed up at least 12 feet before I moved in.  But there are places where the boxwood flushes several times a season, and the magnolia grows lushly.  Thank heavens for all the fir-Noble, Frazier, Douglas, Balsam, Silver, Concolor-fir boughs are so beautiful, long lasting, and fragrant at the holidays.  And of course, the iconic boxwood. Cut magnolia-this a a subject worthy of a post soon to come.   We have true variegated English boxwood branches for the first time this season.  Would that I could grow this gorgeous evergreen in my garden!  That aside, I plan to enjoy all of the cut greens available during the holiday and winter season.

Noble fir-so aptly named.  The short needles grow densely along each branch. They shrug off the worst of the winter weather; the cut branches stay green for months.  Evergreen needles have evolved to survive long periods when the roots cannot obtain water, when the soil is frozen.  The needles have very little in the way of surface area.  This means water evaporates at a lower and slower rate than say a maple leaf.  A big surface area means rapid evaporation.  Their formal shape and gorgeous blue green color makes them a green of choice for winter arrangements.  Noble fir-the mainstay of my winter container arrangements.      

Berried juniper is not my most favorite green, but the blue berries are very persistent.  I like mixing this green with other blue hued greens.

Long needle pine-just exactly what species is this?  This is not a common name that I know.  Should you recognize this evergreen, will you write me?  The long needled pines-as in white pine, have gracefully curving stems.  This makes them great for informal arrangements.  Curvy is a good look, for the winter.

I love the texture and the fragrance of cedar.  This is an evergreen with flat needles.  Those flat needles present more surface area to all of those elements that dry out cut greens.  I use Port Orford cedar, a lax and luscious variety distantly related to my thujas, outside only.  Cedar roping and branches dry out very quickly indoors.  Even outdoors, they dry, brown out, and drop needles too soon to make them a cut green of choice.  I use cedar as an accent in my holiday decor projects.  Long lasting gets lots of votes.  That aside,  I like any seasonalexpression.  Cut cedar for that one moment brings the holidays to mind. Cedar branches-so fragrant, and so fleeting.

Douglas fir is perhaps the least showy of all of the specialty holiday greens, but its longevity is legendary.  I have been known to cut up Douglas fir Christmas trees after Christmas for winter pots.  Douglas fir will stay green well into April.  I am impressed by this. 

Boxwood is an evergreen so close to my heart-I like them wild, I love them trimmed.  Broad leaved evergreens are a great foil to the needled evergreens.  This is the perfect cut material for clipped topiaries, and formal wreaths.  Any arrangement of needled evergreen boughs gets a visual boost from any boxwood companionship.  I like the reference in my holiday decor to the boxwood in my garden.

Princess pine-I have never planted one.  I do not know the species.  But these branches look great in winter containers and garlands.  The long needles are presented in short tufts.  Where would this work for you?

German boxwood is a very big leaved boxwood.  The very large leaved branches are striking in winter or holiday arrangements. 

Oregonia is a name of choice in the florist trade for boxwood-but this boxwood is much more subtle, and smaller leaved than our English variegated boxwood.  I will not debate the differences.  I can only say that there are so many choices in cut greens for the holidays. 


Every bale of greens that came in this week -beautiful.  Those fresh materials-they smell great.  I hold them in my hands, and imagine.   They keep me going.  They keep me going strong.

Posted on: November 17, 2011 4 Comments
Filed Under: Holiday, Detroit Garden Works, Landscape Design Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

In Case You Missed It

My heart goes out to all of those people on the east coast who are up their proverbial armpits in snow.  I have never experienced 20 plus inches of snow at one time; this I cannot imagine.  I remember a storm in the late seventies while I was living in Ann Arbor.  I was young, unprepared, and had few options except to go home.  It took a week for me to be able to get there.  I still remember the 6 inch thick ice patches on I-94; the trip home was very, very slow, and very bumpy.  Not so many years ago we got a foot of snow in one fell swoop.  I stayed at the shop, ordered in pizza, and worked on a project during the five days it took for the neighborhood to get shovelled out.      

The snow that just buried New York and New Jersey goes far beyond imposing an enforced time out on the people who live there. They have serious trouble out there.   I am only lucky that weather that threatens lives comes my way only once in a blue moon.  Most of the time, should I be forced to change my schedule to accommodate the weather, I have enjoyed the show.  The winter holiday of 2005 was one of my favorites.  This is not to say that I did not work hard on my end.  The giant grapevine spheres and hickory bark strips Rob brought back from Europe needed a home.  He has this idea that I will figure out what to do with materials he likes.  I can be challenged by this, but I am not shy about taking on trouble.  Four thick 10 foot long bamboo poles buried in the concrete pots captured those spheres.  I cannot remember now how we managed it, but each grapevine sphere had a starlight embedded within. The hickory bark strips were stiff and ornery-they had to be wired on with concrete wire. They may look graceful, but the installation was anything but.  A finishing and thick nest of white pine at the bottom; we had a winter holiday going on.   

Rob had lit all the trunks of the lindens with garland lights. Light strings that have the bulbs spaced close-we like these.  More light, less wire-this makes for a very good winter look.  He always hangs something in the trees.  Who doesn’t have a tree in their yard that could use a winter outfit?  Simple flat gold stars, and red plastic sputnik ornaments-jazzy. 

We looked good at night-which means we looked good at 4:30 in the afternoon.  All the winter blue sky and snow and black trunks were just asking for a little electricity.  Among other things, Rob is incredibly good at designing with light and dark.  2005 was no exception.   

Upon reflection, I think these three dimensional lighted north stars had plastic arms that could be unscrewed. Once the light knob was inside the sphere, we could reattach the arms.  Any material that I can break down is a material that gets my attention.  I may only need half of it, or a wisp of it.  When in doubt about any material, cut it up, and put it back together in your own way. 

The front of the shop was subtly lit; the lights on either side of the front door did the lion’s share of the work.  The warm yellow of the spotlights on the pots-the resulting blue and yellow-we were pleased. 

 I was not much prepared for what nature thought to deliver- a substantial snowstorm.  The snow fall was fast and steady.  I went to bed in one world, and woke up in another, ala JB Priestly.  I think we had 10 inches in all of a wet snow that stuck fast to every surface it touched.

What I thought was a fine holiday display was transformed overnight in a way that took my breath away.  I had no hand in this whatsoever.  I was nonetheless thrilled it came my way, for me to see.   

My shop has never looked like it did this day-not before.  Not since. Very few photographs do justice to an experience, but this is the best record I have for that night.  Moments like this account entirely for my belief that nature rules my roost.  


Don’t be fooled by this picture-it took hours to dig out the front door to the shop. This branchy linden roof of snow-the finest it has ever been my privilege to witness.  My advice?  Be convinced by what you witness.  Once you have done that,  enjoy.

Posted on: December 29, 2010 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Holiday, Detroit Garden Works, The Natural World Tagged With: , ,

Keep The Lights On, Please

The only thing warm about my garden this late December afternoon are the lights. Some years I think to skip putting them up; I am invariably glad that I don’t give in to that idea.  I cannot imagine what it must have felt like, seeing a city street or home lit with electric lights for the first time. Though in 1882 the first commercial power station ever built supplied light and electric power to 59 customers on Pearl St. in lower Manhattan, the widespread availability of electricity is a 20th century phenomenon. The landscape lighting permits me some interaction with my garden, at a time when there are more dark hours than light.   The magnolia garland does a good job of concealing the substantial light cords.  My glassed in front porch is a winter home to a pair of Italian terra cotta urns on plinths.  Just having them where I can see them , and lighting them, helps drive away the winter blues.  Though hand made terra cotta is vastly stronger than machine made, I would not leave these pots out over the winter.  Our winter weather is predictably vicious.  Luckily, this pot is beautiful in its empty state.   Though these pots appear to be terra cotta, they are actually fiber reinforced concrete.  I like the look; I like even better that I can leave them out all winter.  I left a double ball taxus topiary in the pot; I am hoping it will successfully survive the winter.  The volume of soil in this pot is huge, compared to the rootball in question.  I think that gives me better than decent odds of survival.  I watered right up until the ground froze.  Adequate water both late into the fall, and early in the spring, helps improve your chances of wintering evergreens in pots.  I wound lighted mixed evergreen garland on top of the soil. 

The yellow twig in the pots is a pale color, but it does not read well at night.  The lights in the evergreens helps light them considerably.  But once it is completely dark, a well placed andscape spotlight does a better job of rescuing them from the gloom.  The yellow twig does stand out against the dominant blue grey of the winter. 

The view into my side yard from the street would be bleak indeed without my lit evergreen tree. This large Italian style square concrete pot looks good planted for the winter.  A short statured cut Christmas tree is vastly less expensive than a live dwarf or topiary evergreen.  I really don’t mind being free of the responsibility to keep plants alive for a few months.  I have no plants inside my house-for exactly this reason.  Having 2 live topiaries in pots to worry through the winter was enough. Though I think my untrimmed Limelight flower heads look great over the winter, they are not much to look at in the dark.  

From inside the garden, the side yard gets to be tough to navigate, unless you are a corgi.  My lit tree not only lights up the entire side yard, it provides me with something bright to look at out of all of the south side windows.  I have no thought to pull the plug after New Years.  It is my plan to let the light shine until March first.  Though March is a winter month, but it is vastly better than January and February.  By that time, the days will be much longer than they are now; I will be ready to do without the lights.

I only have landscape lighting in the front of my house.  In the summer, it is light so late, I do not feel the need.  I am thinking it might be a good idea to plan for some lighting here for next winter, but in any event,  I do not have any plans to give up this lighted tree. 

Rob put these pots together for me.  I see them first thing when I come home at night, and when I leave for work in the morning.  He cut a disk of floral foam that fit each urn, and frosted them with strings of C-7 white lights.  Then he stuck umpteen dozen stems of dried rose hips, and several bunches of copper curly willow into each disk, taking care not to puncture a cord.  This pair of pots are giant night lights; they glow.  This construction would be great for those places in the garden that could stand to have the lights switched on. 

This cheers me as much as a fire in the fireplace-maybe more. I like that this winter pot uses no evergreens whatsoever-just sticks, and lights.  The rose hips dried and are stuck fast on the stems, making them an ideal material for a winter pot.  All you need is the patience to collect lots of sticks, and stick them.  I like the big old fashioned C-7 lights.    

A neighbor behind and several doors down from me stuffed a giant yew in his front yard with lights for the holiday.  This is one of the better parts of living in an urban community; the good lighting works of others make my winter better.

Posted on: December 28, 2010 2 Comments
Filed Under: Landscape Design Tagged With: , , ,

Messing About

A good client whom I really like from Ypsilanti drove up this afternoon with his Mom.  He was after materials for both of their winter pots.  In the course of our conversation he told me he not only liked reading Dirt Simple, he was surprised and appreciative that I explain how I do things. No doubt how I do things is based on many years of experience with what does not work so well, interspersed now and then with a few good ideas.  My thought process, my construction process-I have no reason not to share that.   Should anyone decide to take on assembling their own winter pots based on my advice-this makes me feel like a useful human being.  Most people share and teach at one time or another in their lives-their kids, their friends, their family-doing this means something.  It means something to me too, and it feels great.  Gardening is a messy, dirty, exhausting business; should you be game, I am more than happy to coach.

I like selecting a palette of materials with a client.  We have a discussion-a relationship.  A little bit of me, and a lot of them makes for a good cocktail.  Whatever I have inside that prompts me to suggest putting this with that-I am happy to share that. Having a shop full of possibilities makes the process fun.  

The reality of beautifully constructed winter containers can be daunting.  To follow are the facts.  I construct everything in my studio-garage; putting an arrangement together on site in freezing temperatures and late fall winds is tough to do promptly, and impossible to clean.  The mess of the green discards is enormous. We have giant surfaces set up for the season to hold all the materials; the concrete floor obligingly holds no end of trash-it can be knee deep by the end of the day.      

We whittle down every evergreen stem. This takes lots of time and effort. The big idea here?  The above ground representation is vastly more showy than the below ground anchoring.  How we anchor, and prepare a winter pot to last the six months until April requires what I would call work.  For a tight fit, we sharpen the stems.       

Everyone on my crews has a job. Forms, centerpiece construction, the stuffing of the greens-my two crews are 8 people.  They produce work astonishingly fast. They spend a lot of time planting shrubs; this knowledge furnishes their construction with cut greens with a finished product that looks natural and believable.    

This mixed evergreen winter blanket destined to warm a large round pot-It is beautiful, is it not?  Should you have a mind to do it yourself, we observe these gweneral rules.  We buy greens that are boughs, not the short pieces that are great for holiday floral arrangements.  We aim for a low and wide overall shape-the greens are anywhere from 8-16 wider than the container all the way around. We green the edges of the form first, and work towards the center.  

Materials chosen for a centerpiece-our process is to collect materials, and tag them with a name.  The amounts needed for each element is based not only on the size, but the location of the container.    

The actual construction involves the numbers of bunches, the placement of picks, the overall shape. Relevant to the construction- great evergreen material, concrete wire, bamboo stakes, big zip ties, mini zip ties, foam forms.  A conterpiece of this size has a stout bamboo stake which goes deep into the container.  Additional anchoring with bamboo or steel is done during the installation.  


These boxwood sculptures have a lush look.  Once they are dropped into their winter pots, there will be not hint of all the mess and hard work-just a graceful reminder of the garden that will be handsome to look at during the winter months.

Posted on: November 22, 2010 9 Comments
Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Holiday Tagged With: ,