Autumn Wreath

Feeling inspired by the season I decided to collect some fresh and dried foliage to put a wreath together.  These are the material that I used.  Pruners, a wire wreath frame, floral wire and an abundance of autumns bounty.

Spreading everything out on the table and making small piles makes it easier to constructing the wreath. I basically like using material with a cool texture and autumn hues like... curly twigs from the Harry Lauder walking stick, evergreen foliage such as white pine, cherry laurel, inkberry holly, chamaecyparis, hydrangea, millet flowers, dried joe pye weed flower, baptisa seed pods, purple beauty berry, dried russian sage, the seed heads from grasses such as muhlenbergia, little bluestem, chasmanthum.  These things are really easy to find this time of year.

The next step is wrapping the wire around the frame to secure it.

Then gather an assortment of foliage and arrange them into bundles.

Then place the bundle on top of the frame and wire it on.  Wrap the wire around the branches about 3 times pulling the wire nice and snug.

Continue to gather bundles, layer them one on top of the other, and wrap the wire.

Cut the branches down to manageable lengths as you go.

After going all the way around the frame, secure the wire on the back of the wreath frame and make a loop.

Hang it up and enjoy!  The birds probably will too!

Harvest Topiary

We would love to share with you how we created our Harvest Topiary.
First we found a beautiful pot that would match the scale of the topiary.

We collected the materials.  Including grape vine, bittersweet vine, an assortment of gourds, cabbage, pansies, lotus pods, and branches from viburnum, clethra, Japanese maple.  We also needed some soil, moss, and a metal obelisk to create the topiary.

After prepping the pot with soil we began wrapping the grapevine around the metal obelisk.

We added moss to the inside of the grapevine and planted things as we worked our way up the topiary.

We continued to wrap the vine around and around.

We added soil along the way.  That way we could plant some living things like cabbage and pansies.

In order to keep the gourds from falling off of the topiary, we pierced them with small wooden stakes. 

Here is a close up of the gourds in the topiary.

We continued wrapping and planting until we got to the top.

We used a small amount of brown wire to attach the grapevine to the top of of the metal obelisk.  Finally we put the finishing touches on. Which included our branches and berries of fall color.