3 minute read
Backyard Christmas Beauty
By Jan Cashman
It might surprise you how many of nature’s Christmas decorations are right in you own backyard. Take a walk around with your pruners and clip come of these to use for decorating in your home this holiday season: GREENS The boughs of Douglas fir, a common tree found in the surrounding mountains, are one of the best to use for decorating. Fir boughs stay fresh a long time and have that evergreen aroma you love in your home at Christmastime. Some of you may be lucky enough to have native Douglas fir on your property. Otherwise balsam and grand fir boughs, not grown here, but available to purchase, provide wonderful fragrance when brought into your home. Branches of Colorado spruce, commonly found in yards around here, are prickly and don’t last as long when cut and brought inside. But add a few blue spruce boughs to your centerpiece or wreath for a nice contrast in color and texture. Blue-toned junipers with powdery blue berries, forest green arborvitae, and long-needled pine branches also add contrast. Many of these you will find by walking out your back door—your trees and shrubs might even benefit from a little pruning. CONES The Ponderosa pines we planted in 1985 to block the view of the road from our house now provide us with large brown cones great for decorating. As our spruce trees mature, they drop light-brown elongated cones. Even our larch tree has small cones that work well in a centerpiece or wreath. Tiny cones can be found on native alder shrubs that grow near rivers and streams. TWIGS Red twig dogwood stems
Jan Cashman has operated Cashman Nursery in Bozeman with her husband, Jerry, since 1975.
are bright and Christmassy used in combination with evergreens. You probably have this shrub in your yard. There are plenty in the wild in low, wet spots. Sagebrush twigs and cultivated varieties of artemisia retain some of their grayish-green leaves through the winter. They provide a nice color contrast to greens and have a sagey fragrance. GRASSES We don’t cut back our ornamental grasses in the fall because we enjoy seeing them sticking up out of the snow swaying in the winter wind. But cut off a few grass stems to give your arrangements a Western flair. DRIED FLOWERS Almost all annual and perennial flowers dry easily by just hanging in a dry basement. They add interesting colors and shapes to your Christmas decorating. Some of the flowers that work well to dry for Christmas arrangements include globe blue thistle, baby’s breath, hydrangea, and yarrows. Try using the dark brown seed-pods of coneflower, monarda, and rudbeckia. The fragrance and muted colors of oregano, lavender, and other herbs can also add to your arrangements. BERRIES Holly grows in the coastal, humid climates of Washington and Oregon and the mid-Atlantic states, but not here. Rose hips can be used instead of holly for red berries for Christmas decorating. We have wild roses growing near our house full of small, red-orange hips. And we have a mature red leaf rose right outside the back door that provides us with lots of plump rose hips. If you can get them before the birds do, mountain ash berries, high bush cranberries, and even native snowberries can be cut and dried for decorating at Christmas. If your yard doesn’t have any of these evergreens, shrubs, or flowers and grasses for drying, put a reminder on your calendar to plant them in the spring; next Christmas season you will be glad you did!
christmas at cashmaN’s
WReaths • ChRistmas tRees • FResh Boughs
