Fixing the wreath on the front door is the perfect festive finishing touch. And while there are some fabulous ready-made Christmas wreaths to buy in the shops right now, there’s nothing more satisfying than putting together your own creation with berries and greenery foraged from outdoors. For a bit of a festive twist this year, I tried my hand at putting together a ‘living’ wreath for the front door, and I’m super-pleased with how it’s turned out.
As the name suggests, a ‘living’ wreath is made using living plants like succulents, ivy, winter bulbs or smaller cold-loving flowering plants, set on a moss or wire frame. Unlike a traditional wreath decorated with dried foliage, using mini living plants in small pockets of compost should keep greenery looking fresh and the flowers in bloom for a longer period.
Choose a selection of plants for your living wreath, depending on the look you want to create. A Christmas wreath idea decorated entirely with mini succulents in various shapes and sizes can look striking, or go for a wreath with a culinary twist, using a selection of fragrant potted herbs. For mine, I've opted for festive colour with cheery mini cyclamens in pink and white, with trailing ivy to add lush greenery.
What you'll need
- a wire wreath ring, like this 12-inch wire ring wreath frame, £6.46 for two, Amazon
- selection of small flowering plants - I've gone for a cyclamen garden plant mix, £8.99 for three, B&Q; and trailing variegated ivy plants, £7.99 for five, Gardening Express
- length of hessian or linen - try this hessian fabric bolt, £6.45, Amazon
- scissors
- wire cutters - these precision sharp clippers, £7.99, Amazon get great reviews
- garden twine
- florist's wire - these pre-cut florist wire stems, £4.89, Amazon, are easy to work with
- ribbon to hang (optional) - I like these green shades of organza ribbon, £13.99 at Amazon
1. Make fabric pockets for the plants
To make your wreath look super-festive, opt for colourful winter flowering plants that bloom at Christmas, such as cyclamen and winter pansies. Start by cutting squares of fabric, which will be used to create mini bags to hold your plants. Use loosely woven fabric like hessian or linen, anything that you might have a few leftover pieces of. I used old dust sheets that were in the garden shed.
Then grab a plant, brush off some of the excess soil from around it and place your plant centrally on a square of fabric. Gather the fabric up around the plant to create a mini bag and tie the top of it with string to secure.
Do this with just a couple of your plants to start with, so you can work out how many you need and then add more as you go along.
2. Position your first plant in the wire ring
For how to make your Christmas wreath, start by taking one of your bagged-up plants and position it on the wire ring, pushing it inbetweeen the inner and outer ring so that it is held snugly in place between the two. If you are struggling, you might need to cut away some of the wire. Just use a pair of wire snips to carefully do this.
Once your first couple of plants are in place, trim away any excess fabric around the top of the bags and arrange the foliage so that the bags are concealed.
3. Add more plants around the ring
Then simply continue adding more plants into the ring and working your way around it. My aim was to create a cluster of colourful pink and white cyclamen to cover roughly one third of the wire ring, with festive evergreen plants like trailing ivy to cover the rest of it.
An alternative option would be to position cyclamen and ivy alternately all the way around, or mix it up with other small plants like winter pansies and violas. It’s a good idea to play around with different plants before you start, to give you a rough idea of the look you want to create.
4. Add trailing greenery
Once happy with the position of the cyclamen or flowering plants, add pockets of ivy until you are happy with the composition and coverage. Tease out strands of ivy if you can so that they trail down and cover any wire or fabric.
Keep standing back and looking at the wreath as you go, so that you can see if there are any areas that are looking a little sparse.
5. Use moss for extra coverage
Bear in mind that using lots of plants will make the finished wreath quite weighty. I decided to add a plainish area of sphagnum moss that is super-light, attaching it to the wire ring using green florist’s wire.
6. Finish with a fabric bow
For a pretty finishing touch, I decided to add an on-trend Christmas bow, tying a length of fabric ribbon around the moss section of the wreath and leaving long tails of ribbon to trail down. This selection of pretty green shades of organza ribbon, £13.99 at Amazon will look perfect.
7. Hang your wreath on the door
Once everything is in place and you are happy with the plants and greenery, then all that is needed is to hang your wreath on the door. When it comes to how to hang a wreath on the front door, I'm a big fan of sturdy metal over-the-door wreath hangers that are suitable for wreaths large or small, but you could also try Deputy Editor, Rebecca Knight's wreath hanging trick.
Keep your wreath hydrated by spritzing it with water regularly, gently spritzing the flowers and greenery at the front and then also spritzing the linen pockets on the back of the wreath to keep the soil moist.
I'm so happy with the finished result that I intend to make something similar come springtime with spring-flowering plants and then maybe do the same for summer and autumn too.
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Are there any DIY Christmas wreath ideas that you've gone for this year? Let me know.
