Foraging for Wintergreen

On day 191 of 365 Days Wild I went out foraging for some winter greenery to bring inside the house ready for our Midwinter and Christmas celebrations.

Foraging for wintergreen is, in my opinion, the best type of Christmas shopping! The only payment required is a little time and effort, and as an added bonus I get to spend some time connecting with nature. My bags were filled with a random collection of holly, ivy, yew, and any other evergreens that I spotted as I wandered along the local lanes.

Most of the winter greenery that I’m now bringing into the house is out of our garden, but we’re sadly lacking in red berries. We have a lovely variegated holly that I’ve snipped some leafy growth from, but only a handful of its berries have actually ripened. We also have the yellow-berry holly, but we don’t tend to include those in our Midwinter / Christmas decorations so, again, that tree has just given me leaves. To add a few berries to my arrangements I thought I’d collect a handful of sprigs with berries from the little woodland area. There are enough down there this year that my foraging made practically no impact on their impressive display.

Whilst I was collecting the sprigs I noticed that many of the branches on one of the holly trees were really long, thin and flexible, with just a clump of leaves at the very end. I’m making my own wreath for the first time this year and I had planned to hunt out a willow tree whose branches I could use for the base. I thought I’d see whether it would work to use a few of the holly branches themselves. I ended up constructing the hoop whilst sitting in the woodland.

The rest of the wreath was made once I returned home. I added the top layer of foliage in lots of little bundles and attached them with thin wire. I watched far too many videos on YouTube before starting to see how it’s done!

As well as the wreath, I’ve also created some arrangements in cases and dishes for around the house. It’s highly likely that several more such arrangements are added over the next few days!