Jennifer Kirschnick: Hello! I am Jennifer Kirschnick with Baltimore Garden Company and
today we are talking about how to decorate the outside of your house for
the holidays. We are going to be using mostly natural materials today.
Materials that you can find in your garden or in a friend s garden or if you
just happen to be walking somewhere and you see something nice and it s
just a careful way you get it from -- do not get it from private property but
-- the easiest way to get it is, is to get it from your garden or from a friend
s house. I will tell you the names of some of these plants because what I
like to do is have these plants that I grow in my garden and then every
year, I can cut pieces of them and use them for Christmas decorations.
What we are going to be doing right now is making a window decoration;
it is something that you can put at the bottom of your window, outside,
just something a little bit different than the usual lights and artificial
decorations that you see. What you start with is cage like this they call it,
you can get them at most craft stores and it is just plastic and it has this
piece of floral foam inside of it, it is around $7. You can also just use a
plain brick of floral foam and just wrap it with some burlap and then tie it
with some floral tape and that is another way that you can make your
frame, you just basically wrap the burlap around and then tie the tape on it
and that holds it together, like that. Then you can start sticking your greens
in.
But I am going to be doing it today with this cage, it is a little bit easier to
use and what you do first is you take some greens, some nice ones to use
are --I love to use Fraser Fir, or you can use Balsam and where I got this
fir, actually, you can go to pick your own Christmas tree farms and a lot of
times they will give you the leftovers from the trees that they sell there. If
you do though and cut them off of trees in your gardens, the best way to
prune the shrubs when you are getting the greens, just see you do not hurt
the plants, is -- for instance, you always want to prune it, where another
branch is growing out. You do not want to prune it right in the middle of
the branch if possible; you want to prune it closer to where another branch
is like that.
Then, the pieces that you want to use, you do not really want to use one
this big, you might want to prune it down a little bit, so it is easier to work
with, you do not want it much longer than 12 inches. I am going to prune
it down a little bit more and you just start filling around the edges. Now, I
haven t done it today because it makes it really makes it wet to work with,
but you are supposed to soak the foam for about two minutes before you
use it, that just helps to keep the greens fresher. You just put it in a dish of
water and let it sit there for two or three minutes. Then just try to get most
of the running water out of that before you start, so you do not make a
total mess.
Basically you just stick the greens in, like I said, you even got maybe 10 inches to
12 inches of the greens, sticking out on either side, you may have to pull off little
pieces to make it easier to work with and just keep sticking it around the edge
again, that is fir, this is pine. I am going to put in right now. You do not have to be
real careful about what you do, I just shrub it in there and you just want to make it
look as full as possible. Once you go around the edges and you have filled in with
these greens all around the edges, you just keep going and then you keep in mind,
this one has hooks on either side that you can attach it with, you can either attach
it this way or you can attach it horizontally.
So, just keep in mind what the orientation of your final decoration is going to be
as you are doing this. Mine is going to be horizontal. I am going to stick it on a
window horizontally. What I am going to do now is make a little bit of space, so
you can see better and then I am going to start pinning in the front part, which is
our accent pieces. I am going to be using fruit, you can use any bright colored
fruit, you can use apples, lemons, Clementine and this is something fun to use
card, it is Osage orange, you will see these in November or December, laying at
the base of Osage orange trees, they are pretty heavy though.
But what I am going to use today, I am going to use some lemons for my
centerpiece. So, this is what we are going to talk about safety, we do not want to
impaling your in hand, so we are going to you have to put these sticks in to attach
the lemons to your decoration, so just make sure you do not hold it like this as you
are doing it. Try to hold it, so you do not puncture your hand and you just twist it
in, if it is difficult, you can take a nail, this is really monster nail and make little
pilot hole we call it, inside and then you can stick your fruit in. It smells really
good and then when you are placing it, say, this is the top of my decoration, you
want to place it not straight in, but kind of angled up a little bit, it helps it from
falling out.
Now that we have put our lemon centerpieces in, when we come back, I will have
finished putting the greens in and we will show you how to make the rest of the
decoration.
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