May your day be merry and bright.  Presidents Jackie Blombach and Jolinda Taylor, along with our members, wish each of you the happiest of holidays.

Golden pears and pomegranates, lotus pods and cranberries, French horns and lutes – we’re ready for Revels.

Some of our wreaths go to Cape Cod, or the Berkshires, or into homes decorated with rustic style.  One of our decorators has a flair for using ornamental grasses, which are tricky to attach and can’t be used outside in the wind.  This order was for an indoor  matched pair of fully decorated wreaths with plaid bows and all natural and red accents.

We ended up with an extra 24″ diameter wreath this year, a very large size suitable for offices or large buildings, and decided to add a big red bow and hang it on the Clarendon Street Playground Fence.  Little children playing there with a local school group were so excited to see the wreath as they marched out to return to their classroom. Our volunteers who were hanging the wreath said the kids actually squealed with delight.  We didn’t clear this action with any governmental agency, so if there are complaints, just contact The Garden Club.  Thank you to Penny Cherubino for the photo of the wreath.

Today, and in upcoming posts, you will see a variety of ribbons.  Our fearless leader Margaret Pokorny insists we have enough ribbon in storage to get us through the entire 2016 wreath season without buying another yard.  While that may be technically true, committee members can’t resist buying some unusual and fabulous ribbons they come upon during the year.  The gleaming ribbon pictured below has a Japanese textile look.  There is no more of it, so don’t try asking for it in the future.  What you may order, however, is “designer’s choice – wild and unusual.”

Last year we simply ran out of pine cones at the end of our four day workshop.  Usually we have extras to store, but our decorators use a lot of pine cones.  The call went out early in the fall – please collect fallen cones and bring them to wreath making.  Other items on our annual wish list are unusual greens and holly.  Thanks to our wonderful members, we had beautiful variegated holly, lush white pine and black pine, cedar, juniper, rose hips, and some greens we just couldn’t identify but used anyway.  For a Christmas look, nothing beats holly and pine cones!

We are a Club that welcomes all – we don’t care where you live, or if you work full time and can’t make meetings, or if you don’t know a petunia from a petiolaris.  Supporting our mission through membership dues is the way to our heart.  Of course, when past members come back for wreath week because they know how much fun working on wreaths can be, we are doubly grateful.  The wreath below was done by a neighbor, an architect who recently retired and may rejoin the Club now that she has more time. She certainly did a fabulous job with this design!

Most of our wreaths are composed of all natural materials, much of which is collected in our gardens or in friends’ gardens.  We’re known for this.  Sometimes, however, a designer decides to focus on sparkle and jazz, provided the client is someone we know will like it.  In this case the wreath was intended for a kitchen door in Cambridge – the front door wreath was a more sedate one with red bow with natural materials.  We will post that wreath on our Facebook page.  However, when the wreaths were picked up, the client chose to hang it on her front door.  One of our members asked if Cambridge was zoned for this.  We love it!

We are rightly known for our fabulous bows, and while most bows are made on the spot for decorators after they receive their assignments and choose their ribbon, some are made up in advance, “on spec” so to speak.  This year we had a number of them and decided to bring them upstairs to the Church courtyard to sell.  Our order form allows customers to purchase just a bow for $15, but somehow this year no one was looking, and we got it into our heads that extra bows were $10, so that’s what we sold them for.  All you lucky buyers out there beware – the price will not stay at that level in 2016!