Rustic Ranch Decorations

by Tri-State Livestock News - Farmer & Rancher Exchange

Christmas Around the World at Home

This wagon wheel is decorated with a Limonium wreath with texture from other foraged elements. PHOTO BY CECILIA GRYDE

Wagon garland- Gryde decorates this wagon with a simple garland and adds purchased red berries for color. PHOTO BY CECILIA GRYDE

Rustic ranch decorations fit their environment

BY RACHEL GABEL

Cecilia Gryde lives on a her keen eye for original details. historic ranch south of The inside of the red barn that Castle Rock. Nestled has welcomed visitors for a cennear a creek with hay tury has been transformed as well fields that attract herds of elk in and serves as part of Gryde’s Twin the cold months, the original Creek Blooms business, an outlet home has been renovated with for her extensive flower crop.

Now that the growing season is over and the nights are cold, the red barn is filled with drying elements Gryde will use in her winter and Christmas decorations, all foraged from her garden, pastures, and the nearby creek. With so much attention to the natural beauty around her, it only makes sense that her holiday decorations also pay homage to their surroundings.

With high winds and lack of access to electrical outlets a consideration for many, bringing Christmas décor to the ranch gate and beyond can be challenging, but Gryde said sticking to basic elements, many from the ranch, can make simple decorations fit their environment and be beautiful.

Gryde said her most recent fascination is foraging all of the design elements for her wreaths, including the base itself. Using hops vine, dried in her barn, to make the base, Gryde then adds other found elements including juniper branches, eucalyptus (she grows it in her garden), cattails (cut early and then sprayed with hair spray), Artemisia, goldenrod, Limonium, wormwood sage, and prairie cord grass. Some plants, like the eucalyptus and Limonium, must be preserved in a solution of glycerin and water for five days, she said, and others are simply dried in her barn.

“This is what is so appealing to me right now because I like the natural, heavy

Cecilia Gryde adorns the historic barn with lights and keeps the ranch’s other decorations rustic and organic to match the beauty of the ranch itself. PHOTO BY CECILIA GRYDE.

Gryde used all materials found on the ranch to assemble this wreath and then added a simple ribbon to add color. PHOTO BY CECILIA GRYDE.

Purchased red berries add color to this garland. PHOTO BY CECILIA GRYDE

textural look,” she said. “For out here, you can get a wreath from the Christmas tree lot and add to it and it makes it so much more dimensional, and cool than the flat evergreen with a bow.”

This is the direction Gryde has been taking with her decorations but said purchased and simple elements can be added as well, to create an elevated decorative piece. Whether a garland is purchased or handmade, she recommends adding dimension to it. Simple red berries purchased at the craft store and a bow are an option. To add other elements, she said she makes small bouquets or bundles of dried plants and grasses and wires them to the wreath, each overlapping the previous one, making her way around until the look is full of dimension and interest. Grapevine wreaths available for purchase can also be cut apart and used to add texture.

“I like the look of rustic, organic, with lots of texture,” she said. “It’s nothing spectacular but it looks odd if things are out of keeping with its environment. There’s so much you can gather and add it with the evergreen or juniper and it’s beautiful.”

Other places to add festive decorations include a window box beneath a barn window or a wagon that is decked with garland. Burlap bows or a bow fashioned from a particularly pretty ribbon can add texture, color, or both. Gryde recommends replacing bows on purchased wreaths to freshen the look.

With the wreaths, garlands, and other organic elements, the only other touch is lights on the hay barn. Gryde’s husband, Stan, created a star from PVC that is also lighted, and she uses the large, warm white bulbs on the outline of the barn and a few icicle lights on the cupola.

Festive, simple, and foraged decorations, she said, can fit with the environment, be beautiful, and withstand the weather on the ranch.

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