Grand Finale

My winter pots remind me of Friday nights. Why Friday nights you may ask? One word…leftovers. Also known as GYO, as in Get-Your-Own. I tell my kids to open the fridge and see what’s left and make something good out of it. And that’s what ends up happening for me when I am designing my winter pots sometime towards the middle of December.

My clients’ homes are all decked out for the holidays so I take stock of what greens, twigs and ornaments I have left and try to determine a cohesive way of tying all the remaining material together. Anyone who has heard me lecture knows that I often come up with some kind of a theme before starting the winter pots. This helps me make sure all my clients’ pots (and sometimes there are upwards of 20) reflect a cohesive look regardless of whether they are by the garage, pool or front door.

This year after looking through the leftovers of Winter 2016 I realized two things:

First, I am getting better at estimating how much material I will need. Gone are the days of six boxes of homeless greens; this year I was down to two.

Second, 2016 would be the Winter of the Antler, or WOTA for short. I had conducted a wreath-making workshop and found some neat small antlers which I really liked; I think they reminded me of the real antlers that my Dad would find in the woods and send to me, so I bought them all. Needless to say there were leftovers. I also had some fir tips, assorted spruce and a bit of cedar. I wanted to add a contrasting green so I splurged on some leucothoe. I have never used it and want to see how it will hold up.

Two bunches of curly willow leftover from a job would be perfect for the pots by the front door. Their brown stems would be a nice contrast to my white house.

I had some magnolia that I could add. Plus plenty of leftover red and white berries. I never use real berries which are too easily stripped by the birds but I would not be without their artificial look-alikes.

Finally, to continue the woodsy feel I added some lotus pods and extra-large pinecones. My house sits quite a way back from the street; regular size pinecones would have gotten lost.

The pot near the side door was truly a mish mash of leftovers, with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Using the same color scheme and a few of the same materials helped to make sure it complemented the front pots. It was a simple arrangement with an assortment of greens, some leftover birch branches, a few yellow-twig dogwood branches and some dried materials that I had foraged in the fall. Pods, magnolia, leucothoe and berries tied it all together.	click image to enlarge
click image to enlarge	Pots by the garage were similar in look. After removing the fall material around the evergreens in the center I noticed that the helichrysum (curry plant) and the bok choy still looked good. I thought it was worth trying to see if they would make it through the winter. They didn’t. If you look closely you can see them giving up the ghost.
Other pots in the driveway were filled with perennials or evergreens that never made it into the garden. Ever buy plants thinking that you’ll have plenty of time to install them and then winter sneaks up on you? The carex ‘Evergold’ never had a chance. Same with the cryptomeria ‘Little Dragon’.	click image to enlarge
click image to enlarge	There were also a few Alberta Spruce that never found a home. Everything was frozen solid. Including the soil in the pots which I had to move into the garage just to thaw out. After removing the fall material I left the plants in their pots and just jumbled them all together into the large containers and watered well. Their tight quarters will help them as they insulate each other from the winter cold. At the end of a long day fighting with frozen dirt I decided to just throw some greens on top of these frozen pots and add an iron sphere to the top – voila!
Containers on my back patio are important because I see them from the family room picture window; they are the pots I look at more than any other. But as I continued to use up leftovers I realized that those pots would need a different theme.	click image to enlarge
click image to enlarge	I had plenty of flocked fir and more carex ‘Evergold’ and arborvitae ‘Goldy’ that had not been planted so a “Silver and Gold” theme seemed an obvious conclusion. For the round pot I also added more fir tips for height and some cedar to soften the edge.
Artificial pinecones on wire were bent to fill out the arrangement. Because it had mostly green and silver I scrounged up some yellow berries to give the round pot some ”gold” and allow it to complement the adjacent box. I had to cut down some yellow twig dogwood for a client and ended up saving the bottoms. See them in the wooden box? I try not to waste anything.	click image to enlarge
click image to enlarge	One of the most exciting things I can see on my patio is not even a pot, however. Check out my new electric birdbath! I put it on the table, stuck a wreath around it and now I can watch the birds all winter long. Since my house backs up to conservation land, I am anticipating many visitors.
I had fun designing my winter pots this year. Of course I never seem to have enough time. Which is why, despite having bought this beautiful ribbon, I never did get to use it since I didn’t have time to make a wreath for the front door. I guess I should be glad that the birch wreath looks okay. I never did make a swag with pinecones and ribbon for the light post. Well, I guess there’s always next year.