On the Door On Monday

Not in a vase or in the house but rules go out the window at Christmas. 
I have a few bedraggled flowers and some greenery in the garden, I'll show some next week, but here is my Christmas Wreath:

  

I'm making a lot of traditional wreaths this week for other people but mine is a departure and evolved as it went along. 

I've made all the bases with twigs or prunings. Jasmine is good and also Elaeagnus. Willow too but I only use that when I make a half wreath and the willow will be on show. It's too lovely to cover up. 
It's easy to twist up the stems into a circle and tuck them in under each other. 

This shows how I did not prune the Elaeagnus this year!
I mostly don't add moss but I did with this one. It's from our shady lawn. 

Then I added some greenery and lots of brown plus a little pink and red. 

It includes - Lleylandii - green and variegated, Pittosporum, some other conifer, Sedum flower heads, poppy heads, Hydrangea flowers straight from the plant, Alder (probably), Rose hips, grass heads and another head possibly Echinacea, Buddlejia leaves, Caryopteris flower heads. 

I did use wire to wrap round at the end, as there were lots of small bits, but usually I use string and find it works fine on a traditional wreath. Here are my more traditional ones:

Thanks for visiting. Hop over to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see what everyone has found to put In a Vase on Monday.  Thanks Cathy. 

Time for twigs In a Vase on Monday

It's December so slim pickings in the garden in the UK. 
I still have a few Chrysanthemums flowering and some even outside. Avignon Pink has not liked the rain but another one, which might be Porto Purple, is still flowering valiantly. 
I recently pruned/ trimmed some willows and here are some of the prunings in my vase. 

Most of these have pretty red stems and I will have the name somewhere but it might take some searching to find it. 
These willows are not particularly tall and I hope that by pruning I'll encourage more growth. I brought a few in and saved the rest for weaving/construction/supports in the future. 

We had a comedy  moment when one of our cats had a little play with the trailing stems. Mr C dived across the room shrieking 'Is there water in that vase?' and saved the day! I thought it was funny but he didn't and I had to move it. 

Cathy at Rambling in the Garden is working along the same lines this week. Join in here.