Bring Your Landscape Indoors for the Holidays

We at Southern Lawns spend most of our year working alongside you to keep your yard healthy and beautiful with our lawn care programs. Now, as temperatures drop and many plants become dormant, we’re all spending less time out in those landscapes we’ve painstakingly nurtured. Why not create a natural feel for the holidays by bringing some of the outdoors inside? We’re all accustomed to the indoor tree (although some of us prefer a little less shedding and a little more plastic in that department).  Here are some ways to expand on that particular tradition.

Turn Evergreen Branches into a Miniature Tree

If you time the seasonal pruning of your evergreens right, you’ll have a bunch of beautiful branches to repurpose. With a basic green Styrofoam cone as the “trunk,” you can create a smaller sibling for your main tree to brighten up another room, or even a substitute if a Christmas “sapling” is more compatible with your holiday arrangements.

Combine Natural Materials into Wreaths

Take a stroll around your yard and make your front door, mantle, or dining table even more festive using these materials.

• Willow and pine branches can be soaked in water until they’re flexible enough to bend into a ring. (Alternatively, give yourself a head start by using a ring base from your local craft store. You might also pick up some florist’s wire while you’re there for the next step.)
• Attach more of the evergreen foliage you collected to make the tree above.
• Add contrast with some red berries. Holly is definitely seasonally appropriate, but it’s also toxic to people and pets. Non-seizure-inducing alternatives include barberries, nandina berries, winterberries, and currants (which can also be pink or white).
• Accent with some pinecones as a finishing touch.

Create an Aromatic Potpourri

This project will require a bit more time, to allow the herbs, flowers, and pinecones to dry out, but very little effort. Combine the materials with your favorite seasonal essential oils in a decorative bowl or jar.

More Ideas for Repurposing

• If you’re fortunate enough to have access to magnolia leaves, you might use them to make visually dramatic wreaths or garlands. Alternatively, use them as place cards or gift tags. You can write on them with paint pens, and, if your favorite seasonal color isn’t green, consider spray-painting them first. 

• Where one pinecone can be found, a few thousand more are never far away. Spray-paint them or coat them with glitter and put them… well, all over the place. 
• More creative uses for those red berries: Fill transparent ornaments with them, or float a votive candle in a clear glass container filled with water and add sprigs of berries around it.

These ideas only scratch the surface of the possibilities of holiday decorating from your own yard and neighborhood. Bring the outside in this holiday season and enjoy nature’s beauty alongside your family!

_{wreath photo credit: https://www.apieceofrainbow.com/easy-free-diy-magnolia-wreath/}