Bundles of spruce tips — that winter perennial — are now plentiful at garden centers and supermarkets. Many of us plunge the evergreen branches into planters, then stick in a few red dogwood twigs, nest a couple of pine cones, and call it a day.
This year, try dressing up your pot like it's the centerpiece at a holiday party. To give you ideas, we enlisted two designers to craft creative containers mixing eye-pleasing textures, colors and shapes — to decorate your front door or patio for the holidays and through the winter months.
"It feels good to see a beautiful pot welcoming you home in the winter," said Paula Thrall, Gertens designer. You can copy these creations or borrow ideas to design your own. For the how-to recipes, go to H8.
VINTAGE NOSTALGIA
Designer: Paula Thrall, Gertens, 5500 Blaine Av., Inver Grove Heights, gertens.com.
Design tips: Red, brown and green hues are repeated throughout the arrangement.
Recipe for success:
• Half a whiskey barrel filled with soil.
• Bundle of 10 spruce tips; place the tallest in the center. Leave space for a small metal truck in front.
• Vibrant Cardinal dogwood branches.
• Vintage-look red metal pickup truck. Use a size that best fits your pot. Place a metal lighted tree in the truck bed. "If it's exposed to the elements, spray it with an acrylic seal coat or just let it get rusty," said Thrall.
• Three different varieties of textured evergreens — she used shore pine, blueberry juniper and oregonia — tucked around the edge.
• Frosted medium pine-cone picks.
• Dried red-tinted grevillea .
• Dried and dyed milo berries .
• "Believe" tin letters on twine tied around the barrel.
• Black and red buffalo plaid ribbon, a popular print this year.
• If you wish to illuminate your creation, add an LED-lit red cranberry branch.
BIRCH BEAUTY
Designer: Paula Thrall, Gertens.
Design tips: Earth-tone color scheme is repeated in the birch, lotus seed pods and magnolia leaves.
Recipe for success:
• Concrete planter filled with soil.
• Bundle of 10 spruce tips; place the tallest in the center.
• Birch poles.
• Curly willow tips.
• Layer princess pine, eucalyptus, Carolina sapphire cypress and incense cedar.
• Eucalyptus "bell" seed pods.
• Frosted lotus seed pods.
• Magnolia foliage.
• Artificial white/brown poinsettia picks.
• Drape silver snowflake ornaments around the birch poles.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Designer: Kris Schreder, Otten Bros. Garden Center, 2350 W. Wayzata Blvd., Long Lake, ottenbros.com.
Design tips: Use three different-height materials (thriller, filler and spiller), three different textures and three different colors as a rule of thumb. Break the pot down in sections, design one section and then repeat it.
Recipe for success:
• Bundle of 10 spruce tips. Arrange to resemble a mini-Christmas tree.
• Plastic container that can be placed in another decorative container. Schreder fills it with sand, which is less expensive than soil, and holds stems in place until they freeze.
• Layer greens along the base — Norway pine, incense cedar and oregonia.
• Red faux rose-hip picks.
• Red birch branches.
• Frosted sugar cones.
• White and black buffalo plaid wired ribbon.
• Shiny red cardinal picks.
• Sparkly white snowflakes.
WOODSY WHIMSY
Designer: Kris Schreder, Otten Bros.Garden Center.
Design tips: Forage materials from your yard, such as white pine and hydrangeas for this muted pink and mauve arrangement.
Recipe for success:
• Bundle of 10 spruce tips. Arrange to resemble a mini-Christmas tree.
• Layer Western red cedar, white pine, burgundy dried sedum.
• Dried hydrangeas.
• Dyed mauve seeded eucalyptus.
• Green seeded eucalyptus with blue-green foliage.
• Brown curly willow branches.
HOW TO BUILD A WINTER CONTAINER
A well-designed winter planter can brighten a dreary landscape until the snow melts.
• Choose a weather-resistant container, such as a whiskey barrel, cast iron, heavy plastic, resin, metal or concrete with drain holes.
• Use a pruner to cut the ends of the fresh greens at an angle before placing in the pot.
• Use the excess spruce-tip cuttings to tuck in the arrangement at the end.
• Select greens and accents with different heights, colors, textures and forms.
• Add materials slowly, making sure the arrangement is balanced.
• Spray Wilt Stop to help greens last longer over the winter.
• After the arrangement is done, water the pot so the pieces freeze in place.
• "Don't skimp," said Paula Thrall, Gertens designer. "You want your pot to look bountiful and overflowing."
