Maine is known for supplying wreaths and Christmas trees, but its woods and fields provide many more materials for decorating your home for the holidays.
You can find lots of ideas for making wreaths, swags, centerpieces and ornaments to make yourself just by exploring your own land or getting permission to forage on someone else’s.
It’s a free, creative and easy way to get ready for the holidays and enjoy the outdoors in winter. Plus, the careful observation that comes with the foraging process might teach you some new things about your land.
To get started, gather clippers and a bucket, basket or sled to transport what you find. Try changing how you think while you walk: instead of searching for specific plants, look for interesting shapes and colors. You might be surprised by what you discover.
As always, get permission if you want to look for materials on someone else’s land, and don’t take more than you need. A common rule of thumb for foragers is to harvest a third of a plant or less. If you don’t have access to private land, Maine’s public lands (but not state parks or historic sites) are open for gathering some materials, but you need a permit to collect fir tips or birch bark. Check in with your nearest public lands office first.
Seek out a range of elements: evergreens for background, interesting branches for color and structure, berries and flowers for intrigue. If you haven’t made arrangements before, or it doesn’t come naturally to you, check out principles of floral design online. Think about balance, proportion, contrast, color and texture with a focal point to draw the eye.
Gather what you like, then lay the materials out and play around with how they fit together. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Seed pods, leaves and dead flowers from common plants such as milkweed, asters, ferns, sweetfern and hydrangeas make striking shapes when they die in the winter. They often take on interesting orange shades, which contrast nicely with evergreens.
Some trees such as the red dogwood send out long, straight, red shoots that add movement and color to green arrangements. Native staghorn sumac spikes are out, and the velvety pink cones really draw the eye.
Rosehips and other berries help pull together an arrangement visually. (But don’t use Asiatic bittersweet or multiflora rose. Using these plants in wreaths can help them spread, and it’s illegal to sell them in Maine.)
Some wild blueberry plants and tree branches still have the colorful remains of blossoms or buds. If you have acidic soil, wintergreen (also known as teaberry, checkberry or boxberry) is likely abundant in its winter leaf colors of dark purple and green. Bayberries are another colorful option for leaves, and the branches split into elegant shapes.
Tree bark adds interesting texture. Birch is a popular choice, and can also be cut into shapes — but make sure you’re getting it from fallen branches, because peeling it harms living trees. For other woody embellishments, look for clusters of acorn caps, pine cones, curved branches or curly vines.
These plants are all decorative as-is, but they’re also easy to turn into simple ornaments. Smooth branches can be cut and glued into simple stars, trees or other shapes. Those curly vines stand alone as statement pieces, but they’re also easy to weave into globes.
Dead grasses or reeds are prime material to weave or cut into simple straw ornaments too. Online tutorials abound for designs like Scandinavian stars, geometric shapes, trees and angels.
For a full do-it-yourself Christmas, make ribbon for swags or wreaths by cutting lengths of scrap fabric or make colored twine at home with natural dye from ingredients such as beets, red cabbage or onion skins.
