There are many reasons to use fresh pine garland instead of artificial in your holiday decorating. Sure, the artificial stuff lasts for years and can look real from a distance. The real stuff however smells wonderful (except for those who detest the smell of pine), can be composted and allows you to give pine trees a bit of a pruning without it feeling like yard work.
Pine garland is expensive to buy. If you make your own, youll see why. It is a bit labor intensive. Jobs like this seem well worth the effort its Christmas, after all. Recruit the kids or grandkids. Things like sisal rope and florist wire are fascinating to them. Kids look better with pine sap all over them, too.
Things youll need:
Pine branches
Hedge trimmers
Sisal rope
Scissors
Florist's wire
Wire cutters
Chenille pipe cleaners
Gather fresh pine branches. Cut branches from the pine trees in your backyard or a wooded area. Make sure you have permission to cut the pine branches if they are not coming from your own trees. It is hunting season and you dont want your pruning shears or hedge trimmers to be misconstrued as a rack as you traipse through the woods. Dont cut too much out of one tree or you might damage the tree or leave bare spots. Cut a length of sisal or other natural rope. I like sisal rope the best plus I just like saying sisal and do so as often as possible. Your rope can be as short or as long as you like. Wire together pine branches to create bundles. Use about three branches per bundle, give or take a branch as you see fit. Attach pine branch groupings to the sisal rope. To make your pine garland, start at the left-hand end of the sisal rope, and wrap the wire from a bundle around the sisal rope. Wrap all the bundles around the rope. Once you have wrapped the initial grouping around the rope, wrap another pine garland grouping to the right and continue until the rope is covered in pine branches. Overlap your pine branch bundles. To create your pine garland, overlap all pine branch pieces to create a full arrangement and to eliminate any bare spots. Decorate your garland. You can embellish your garland with bows, pine cones, Christmas ornaments, fresh or dried flowers or berries by wrapping floral wire around the items and attaching them to your pine garland. Hang your fresh pine garland. Use store-bought plastic garland hooks or chenille pipe cleaners to hang your pine garland around doorways, fences, banisters, windows or anywhere you want holiday greenery. Mist your greenery with water if you are using it indoors. Put water in a spray bottle and mist your fresh pine garland arrangement every two days so your garland stays moist and fresh indoors for approximately two weeks. There is no need to mist the garland if it is to be hung outside.
When it is time to take down holiday decorations remember your pine garland can be composted. Remove any bows or decorations before placing it in your compost bin. Unlike artificial garland that can be used year after year, using real pine in garland is special. It may only last a few weeks but bringing a bit of the outdoors inside this holiday season will create memories that will last a lifetime.
