MASTER CLASS ON WINTER CONTAINER CONSTRUCTION

I’m a late Christmas decorator. At least it seems late, since I usually finish it up a couple weeks before Christmas, which is apparently late these days. But I like to take advantage of milder weather to do my outdoor containers, which is easily my favorite holiday project.

I’m busy gathering materials now. I picked up some $6 wreaths at Home Depot on Black Friday. They look like $6 wreaths, which is to say rather plain and uninspired, but by the time I’m done filling them out with other greens and nice bows, you’ll never know. I also cut a mound of red twig dogwood over the weekend and I’m hoping to score the branch cut-offs from people’s Christmas trees at a few places like I did last year.

Deborah Silver photo

As usual, the best place for inspiration when it comes to holiday containers is Deborah Silver’s blog, and this year she treated her readers with step-by-step articles on how those works of art come to life. I’ve been using foam to stick branches in for a couple years now and it makes such a difference, and not just because the soil in a lot of containers is frozen already. I highly recommend spending a little extra to get foam for containers.

The crew at Detroit Garden Works creating the bases for winter containers. Deborah Silver photo

Here are Deborah’s tips:

• Constructing the base of the containers
• How to make the centerpieces
• Putting it all together

Deborah Silver photo

Bleached pinecones on garland. Deborah Silver photo