Gardeners have varied opinions about the cutting of Christmas trees and the creation of holiday wreaths, and I understand not wanting to cut down a conifer in its youth just to ring in the New Year. But, that said, I thoroughly enjoy all the greenery that is a part of the holiday season. There is nothing that helps me more to get through the shortest day of the year than the site of a winterberry wreath on the front door of a house, pine ropery festooning a Greek revival house on Main Street in Ashley Falls, or a towering spruce in a front yard or town center covered with Christmas lights. And when I see birds swiping a winterberry from a wreath or taking a rest on a piece of pine roping, I think there is nothing wrong with a little holiday decorating in their opinion either.
I know that each year millions of trees are cut for the holiday season and transported great lengths in gas-guzzling trucks that contribute to global warming and this can be disturbing to people interested in reforesting our landscape. The rationale that tree farms prevent land from being developed assuages some misgivings about Christmas trees, but not all. However, this left me to wonder if, just like with the local flower movement, there is a way to have our holiday greens and not wreak havoc on the landscape?
It appears that I am not alone in thinking about this. My friend Elisabeth Cary, whose Cooper Hill Flower Farm (on Silver Street in Sheffield) offers local seasonal flower bouquets all summer long, is creating wreaths that take their inspiration from locally collected and sourced materials. Elisabeth has collected seedheads of milkweeds and asters and other materials from her own farm and from the land of friends, being careful to sustainably source materials (leaving behind a fair share of seedheads and fruits for birds and other wildlife, while also hoping that the wreaths may feed a few birds along the way as well). Elisabeth also advises people that they can create wreath forms from grapevine or other local vines instead of using greenery or metal forms. She is careful to not include the seedheads of invasives such as multiflora rose or bittersweet, though she has used a few less-than-local seedpods, such as those of the lotus, in some of her wreaths because of their beauty. Buying one of her wreaths also serves another purpose—a percentage of the sales is going to a preservation fund to purchase a piece of farmland in Sheffield that was in danger of development.
Elisabeth is not the only one sourcing local materials. Windy Hill Farm offers wreaths of winterberry, hydrangea, and other locally sourced materials at their nursery in Great Barrington. And up in Pittsfield, Anastasia Drayton (83 East Street, Pittsfield, foragedandfound.com) has opened a pop-up shop, Foraged and Found at 83 East Street, that is offering holiday items and some wreaths highlighting locally foraged greens and materials, as well as some wreaths made from dried everlastings. And while I have not yet seen what they have on offer, the Berkshire Botanical Garden (berkshirebotanical.org) will have wreaths for sale at their annual holiday marketplace this coming weekend and some of the materials used will have come directly out of the Garden. Hopefully, these wreaths will make the way onto the homes and doors of neighbors, to be enjoyed by passersby and the occasional bird in search of a nutritious snack.
For years I lived in Connecticut where gardeners left their wreaths up until Easter and the joke was that these parsimonious folk wanted to get the most for their money by keeping these wreaths up as long as possible, but now, as I watch birds swipe seedheads and greenery from the wreaths and nibble on the winterberry we added to our urns outside, I realize that this observation was false and that the residents of Connecticut were on to something. Wreaths really can be for the birds.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
