Daily Archives: December 21, 2020


Wreath of the Day, From the Archives – Pine Tar

When you work with fresh greens for an hour or for a day, your hands acquire a coating of black tar which is difficult to get off. Many members find working in gloves cumbersome, but it takes a lot of scrubbing and soaking to rid yourself of the evidence of wreath making once you get home. We won’t even discuss how to de-glitter your hair, skin, and clothes – that is an impossibility and you will sparkle well into February. The pine tar, however, can be dealt with through a thorough rub with vegetable shortening, like Crisco, followed by handwashing with liquid dish detergent like Joy. A nail brush helps too, but the grease plus the detergent is pretty magical. You could use butter, we suppose, but that would be wasteful. A beautiful, all natural wreath like the one below would have deposited a fair amount of stickiness onto the decorator, but isn’t it gorgeous?

Noted floral arranger and Garden Club of the Back Bay member Donna Morrissey sponsored today’s Wreath of the Day post. Donna frequently represents the Club at Art in Bloom at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. We sincerely hope Art in Bloom will be back in 2021.


Video Tour of the Gardens at Anglesey Abbey

Though the Abbey has medieval roots, the gardens date mainly from the 20th Century and were designed by owner, Lord Fairhaven and his friend Major Vernon Daniel. Take a five minute online garden tour with the Royal Oak Foundation by visiting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a83FFAMPfZc&feature=youtu.be

Lord Fairhaven designed his Cambridgeshire garden around personal taste and his regular routine of entertaining guests, with something to show them each and every season. Today, the gardens still follow the same seasonal pattern. In this video, Garden and Outdoors Manager Tom Fradd takes us on an exclusive tour, including the working areas not normally seen by the public, to show you how he and his team keep it looking so good.