The client asked for red – bright, bright red. We must admit, this wreath is the epitome of Christmas cheer, and can be hung indoors or outdoors. A bright bow such as this one also is appropriate for recessed doorways which are not top lit, since the wreath will really pop from the street.
There is something about the wreath below, with its gauzy cream bow, pale green and lavender hydrangea blossoms, deep burgundy roses, and spruce cones, that says love, courtship and romance. This indoor wreath, for a unit at The Ritz-Carlton, will look pretty well past the holiday season, as long as it’s not placed in an overly hot and dry spot.
Formal and gold – we do many wreaths in this vein, but having the touch of burgundy in the bow lifts this creation to an even higher level. Gilded magnolia leaves enhance the ribbon, and gold painted pine cones, some of them halved to look like flowers, further enrich the design.
One of our members brought in a bag of clippings from her newly planted variegated variety of shrub white pine – these needles actually had horizontal striping of yellow and green. We encouraged her to go home and plant a full hedge of them, since we want more to use next year. A client asked for a bright wreath, and these greens became the inspiration for the wreath below. The chartreuse color of the roses, pears, and glass balls complemented the greenery, which is the focal point of this wreath, so we kept it simple.
Every now and then a client asks for a wreath with no bow. We think our wreaths look best with one of our big, gorgeous, full bows – no one in town mistakes our wreaths with wreaths from any other source because of them. However, here is an example of intricate work which makes a statement without the use of ribbon, created for a client in Beacon Hill. Liberal use of magnolia leaves, lotus pods, pine cones and two types of eucalyptus makes this appropriate for outdoor use – eucalyptus indoors is just too pungent.
One of the options on our order forms for fully decorated wreaths is “all natural” for accents. Now to be absolutely truthful, our favorite client is the client who says “designer’s choice,” since that gives us free rein to indulge our personal fantasies, but when a client wants all natural, we comply. However, with a white bow, our natural materials can disappear in contrast to the sparkling ribbon. In this instance, shown below, the designer used white birch bark, white tipped white pine cones, milk weed pods, lotus pods, Russian statice, a touch of rose hips for color, and – here’s where she cheated a little – some white pine branches tipped in silver. We think the customer will forgive her.
Every year we purchase new ribbon, and try to acquire a variety of colors and styles to inspire our decorators and please our customers, who often are quite specific about their needs. In the past, many of our plaid ribbon choices were quite formal, with gold edging and gold threading in the pattern, which limited our ability to create a real “country” or rustic look. Since some of our wreaths migrate from the Back Bay to the doors of country homes in the Berkshires, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, we looked for ribbon which would work in those settings, and this year were lucky enough to find the charming plaid shown below. Every year, however, our supplies change, so don’t necessarily expect to be able to order this exact bow next season – we’ll do our best to find an equivalent.
A Garden Club of the Back Bay signature is the use of unusual natural materials in our wreaths. Below is a wreath festooned with lotus pods, poppy seeds, wisteria pods, rose hips, protea, sea grape leaves, cones, pheasant feathers, and some completely mysterious items scavenged in the fields. Some of the items, such as lotus pods, must be purchased, since we haven’t yet figured out how to grow these in our gardens in the Northeast, and the pheasant feathers come from a source in Minnesota who sells them on line to fishermen as material for exotic lures. We think the wreath is absolutely stunning.
We collect roses all year – we snatch them out of our centerpieces, we buy and dry from the deep discount bins at the flower market, we grow them, we take them from friends. Roses preserve their original color most successfully in warm, dry spots with circulating air and little sunlight, and the examples used in the wreath below are especially lovely. If you’d like to dry some at home, just bunch a few stems together with a rubber band (which will contract as the flowers and stems dry – much better than string) and hook the rubber band over a cabinet door handle or a nail. When they’re thoroughly dry, place them flat in an airtight plastic bin until you’re ready to use them.
Traditional. Understated. Those were the instructions which accompanied the order for this wreath, which adorns the front door of a certain Back Bay celebrity quarterback whose name we shouldn’t mention. However, we do think the wreath epitomizes the “red zone” where success is measured.
