winter containers | Deborah Silver & Co.

Constructing The Winter Centerpieces

Setting the centerpieces in winter and holiday pots has the same procedure, whether we have small or big pots to fill. The centerpiece often involves fresh cut branches that have considerable weight. The vertical element in a winter pot needs to stay vertical all winter. This large bunch of red twig dogwood been secured with several zip ties, and some concrete wire.

Buried in the twigs is a stout bamboo pole. When we are ready to install, we cut a hole in the foam that holds the greens, large enough for the twigs to pass through and rest on the soil. The stake will be driven down as deep as possible into the soil. This pole anchors the twigs in the pot. Very large centerpieces will have short lengths of steel rebar inserted all around. The steel posts will be wired together. Once the soil freezes, these arrangements will not move, or go over. If this seems like a lot of work, it is. A beautiful centerpiece gets some of its beauty from the strength and integrity of the installation.

Any other materials that get added to the twigs can be secured with another layer of zip ties. For more height, we may wedge additional materials between the branches, or wire them to the branches. The method of choice is whatever method makes the arrangement strong and weather proof. Snow and ice on a winter arrangement can be gorgeous. Snow and ice that brings an arrangement down is a nuisance. Once the soil freezes, a centerpiece gone over can be difficult to fix.

All of the evidence of the construction at the bottom of the centerpiece will be buried in the greens. Florist’s wire is a dark green that recedes from view. Preserved eucalyptus is a versatile material for winter centerpieces. The color does not run or fade. It is flexible and pliant. Very heavy snow can be gently broomed off-the eucalyptus will spring back. The soft, loose and leafy texture is a great contrast to the twigs. It helps to cover the evidence of the construction. Though making a centerpiece like this is a considerable amount of work, it needs to look effortless.

There are so many materials available for winter centerpieces that are weatherproof. Winter berry will hold for a long time outdoors, provided it has been soaked in Vapor Gard, or some other antidessicant. It seals the moisture inside the berries. It also helps keep the berries attached to the stems. In these centerpieces, the faux berries are a believable symbol of the real thing. The centerpieces have been scaled to the size of the pots that will hold them. The bamboo is just as thick as for a large centerpiece, but shorter.

This client is interested in an expression of the holidays, in addition to their wintry look. The evergreen base to come will hide most of the stiff stalks of these glittered cone picks. A few more sprigs of eucalyptus will hide the rest. The holiday picks can be removed after New Year’s.

We do as much of the construction as we can in the garage. Each of the white tallow berry picks in this centerpiece came to us packed flat in a box. It is so much easier to fluff out a wired pick in the garage, than outdoors. Some of the work is very hard to do with anything other than bare hands. Once the basic form of the centerpiece is set, there is a lot of hand work to come. More than anything, unfriendly working conditions discourage expression.

I was glad for the two days we had in the shop to ready all of the materials for this holiday/winter installation. It will be cold today. Right now, it is 23 degrees with freezing fog. The high temperature will be 40. Having everything ready to install with a minimum of touch up work means we will not have to spend the entire day outdoors.

We make small centerpieces for our garlands, as well as our pots. A variety of materials get zip tied together, and wired to a branch in the garland. If we use pine cones in a garland, we wire them on separately, and loosely. Having a long wire lead means you can nestle that cone in the evergreens wherever it seems appropriate and natural. Wiring them too close to the garland makes for a stiff look.

Since a garland is primarily viewed from below, we don’t worry so much about hiding the evidence of the construction. This new LED lighting we have this year features black/green wires that is small. The tiny bulbs are mounted on wire stalks that approximate evergreen needles. It is so light weight and flexible it is simple to attach to the garland. And the light is warm. Based on what I have seen so far, this is holiday lighting that is simple to use, and very durable. I did not need to worry about dropping the strand on our concrete floor.

There are 4 of the LED bulbs barely visible in this picture. The wires will be just about invisible once the garland is hung.

We are as ready as we can be for today’s work.

Posted on: November 24, 2015 30 Comments

Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, Holiday, container planting, Winter, Deborah Silver and Co Inc Tagged With: winter containers, holiday containers, winter gardening, winter container materials, winter centerpieces

Constructing The Winter Pots

If my last post was convincing enough to make you entertain the notion of filling your pots for the winter, you might appreciate a description of our process. Every pot begins with dry floral foam. I cannot really explain how liberating it is to have foam, and not soil as a medium, except to say that that a soil base dictates the overall shape. We take the soil down in all of our pots 4 inches, and put a thick layer of foam in top. In big pots, we may anchor the foam with steel rebar driven down into the soil. A winter pot needs to stand in spite of winter wind and snow. I like greens that are much wider than the pot. That generously sized blanket of greens has warmth written all over it. No soil based construction can deliver much in the way of width. Constructing a winter pot on site in freezing weather is slow and uncomfortable. It is just about impossible to clean up. We make the mess in our garage, and only go on site to install. A garage heated to 50 or 60 degrees means you can concentrate on what looks beautiful, rather than the cold that is making you miserable.

We buy the dry floral foam by the case, in big sheets. But craft stores usually carry dry floral foam in bricks. The bricks will need to be glued up with hot melt glue. If you use bricks, floral picks or skewers can be used to further secure all of the pieces. Wedging the entire assembly into the top of the pot will also help keep it together.We use a giant wood compass to scribe the interior diameter of the pot on the foam. We glue 2 sheets together. The bottom sheet goes in the pot. The top sheet goes above the rim of the pot, and will have evergreens stuck all around the edge into it. The width of those greens all around the edge of the pot will determine the proportions of every other gesture. Ready to stick?

We sharpen our greens down to the wood with the blade side of a pair of pruners. Stuffing an evergreen stem with the needles still on it means the hole in the foam will eventually be too large. As the needles loose moisture, they will shrink. A heavy bough in a hole that is suddenly too large may fall out. We only insert sharpened wood into the foam. A tight fit is a fit that will last throughout the winter, no matter the weather. When we have a lot of pots to do, we have at least two people who sharpen evergreen stems. We buy evergreen tips that are 18″ long. Short evergreen stems suitable for wreaths and table arrangements are not long or hefty enough for what we do.

Stuffing the stems into the foam is an art. My landscape crew does an incredible job of it-better than I could. All their years planting means they have a feeling for how the cut stems should look in a winter pot. They need to have a loose and natural look. This is not to say that we do not do more contemporary pots that are more about design generated by the human hand than nature. This client prefers a more natural and traditional look.

A bamboo stake marks the approximate location of the center of the form. We leave a big empty space in the middle-that will be cut out to hold the centerpiece. Or perhaps the centerpiece is comprised of twigs or picks set individually. If we set a big centerpiece through the greens foam, we will have to go back and stick individual evergreen branches around that centerpiece to soften the transition from the horizontal plane to the vertical plane.

We have 2 very large pots to dress for winter on Monday. The outer layer is noble fir. The inner layer is mountain hemlock. What else will go in these greens to to be determined. It could be the large leaved German boxwood. It could be branchy twigs, or pine cones. It could be mini grapevine garlands. It could be no end of winter and holiday picks. The greens are the foundation upon which all else will be built.

All of the fir family branches hold up and sail through the winter. Even winters with heavy snow. The mountain hemlock is the toughest green I have ever used. The stems in my pots on my driveway were as green and lush the end of March as they were in November. For gardeners that live in northern climates, the longevity of cut greens is important. I stay away from cedar and white pine. They dry out and turn brown so fast.

Some winter and holiday pots begin with the centerpiece. These are some pots that need something other than a center of interest. They need a wider ranging area of interest. The floral foam is a perfect medium for this.

This arrangement will go in a rectangular pot. That rectangle is a strong geometric shape that asks for an answer that resonates. We set the center in some pots before the edges. Why? The foam will adequately hold a shorter centerpiece. A very tall centerpiece has a bamboo stake which gets driven down in to the soil for stability. It goes through the foam, it is not supported by the foam.

This center is diffuse., but roughly rectangular. The red berry picks and plum eucalyptus make for a mix of reds that is interesting. The port orford cedar is a strong contrast. We will finish the edges with mixed evergreens, with lots of port orford cedar in that mix. Anything else? I am not sure yet.

Winter and holiday pots are not all that we do. The place where today’s pots will go have a garland to go over the door. We buy garland, and then zip tie our evergreen boughs to it. This doubles the heft, and the places where other ornament can be attached. For winter, I like every gesture to be generous and warm. I would not want to be resigned to the coming of the cold and the gray skies. I would rather fend off the dark and dreary in whatever way I could. This garland gets set on an army of cardboard boxes, so the work is at a convenient height. Convenient to see and think over, and convenient to work on. I will so enjoy all the making that lies ahead.

Posted on: November 22, 2015 46 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Winter, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, Holiday, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: evergreen boughs, constructing winter pots., winter pot design, holiday containers, winter containers

A Quick Look At Some Stick Work

A client who calls for work after the holidays is unusual, but we were happy to oblige. We had materials, and there are months of winter yet to come. They had purchased these large scale contemporary birch faux bois concrete planters from Branch over a year ago. The landscape is dominated by a single river birch. An arrangement that would feature birch seemed natural. We had just enough 3″ caliper poles to fill the pair of planters. Bunches of white lepto came in handy for filling the gaps between the poles. Our last three cases of mixed evergreen boughs were just enough to soften the top of the pot with a thick blanket of green.

The ground plane of the landscape was done with groundcovers of various types in spaces dictated by a pattern of aluminum edger strip, and gravel. The pattern established is graphically strong. There were a few areas designated for a seasonal planting. The concrete boxes had been planted with chrysanthemums for the fall. What could be done in those areas that would have some height, volume and presence over the winter? Our solution was to cut up some 1″ and 2″ diameter birch poles into random short lengths. Each piece had a hole drilled all the way through each end. Each of the poles were loosely attached to its neighbor with heavy gauge aluminum wire. The end result-a giant birch garland.

In order to get some height and mass, rolls of grapevine were stretched out and pinning into the soil. The pinning was easy, as the ground was frozen.

We zip tied the birch garland to the grapevine where it seemed appropriate.

The large size bamboo poles was a vestige of a previous installation-not by us. The client wanted to leave them in. That was a good thing, as they were set into metal sleeves placed below ground. Water had completely filled the sleeves. The poles were solidly frozen into place by time we got there. I rather prefer the birch poles here. They look like they belong in a winter garden in Michigan. There is a certain authenticity to the materials used here.

In the background, the last of our big linden espaliers. At 9′ wide and 12′ tall each, they mean something in front of this large commercial building. Properly cared for, they will only get better looking as time goes on. Funny how some very large commercial spaces devour almost every bit of the land they sit on. It takes the right material and a very strong design to work in a space like this. I did not do the landscape design here, but I like it.

Hauling around four sets of fresh cut birch garland was the perfect installation for a 12 degree day. We warmed up in a hurry. Once we were done, all we needed was some snow. I wonder what it looks like now that we have a good snow cover.

Posted on: January 19, 2015 9 Comments

Filed Under: garden sculpture, Winter, container planting Tagged With: white birch poles, birch garland, birch poles, winter landscapes., winter containers

Home For The Holiday

I know my work season is coming to a close when I am able to do my pots and front door for winter. I had a chance to take Rob over there this morning to see them. My crews-busy with the year end details. The trip to the front door was a pleasure for me.