Celebrate summer with fresh-flower wreaths

Sunset, July, 1996 by Lauren Bonar Swezey

USE YOUR GARDEN'S ABUNDANT BLOOMS AND A GRAPEVINE BASE TO CREATE A WREATH IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS

Fresh flowers make every event more special. And hanging a fresh floral wreath on a garden gate or front door is a delightful way to welcome guests to a summer garden party. These quick and easy wreaths make use of grapevine bases and little bouquets of flowers in water-filled tubes. Bud Stuckey, Sunset's test garden coordinator, was inspired to make them after seeing garden catalog photographs of wreaths made from brightly colored freeze-dried flowers. Fresh flowers may not last as long as freeze-dried ones, but if you choose fragrant flowers such as 'Stargazer' or 'Casablanca' Oriental hybrid lilies, they can perfume the air around them for days.

make your own wreath in four steps

Start with the foliage, then add the flowers

1 COLLECT MATERIALS AND TOOLS TO GET STARTED

At a craft or floral supply store, buy:

* 17-inch to 19-inch grapevine wreath base (tightly woven)

* 10 to 15 water picks (green plastic water tubes with snap-on rubber tops and pointed bottoms)

* Large (3 1/2-inch) clear water tube

* Floral wire

* Wreath hanger (optional)

* Pruning shears

2 CHOOSE A COLOR SCHEME

Flower colors that complement each other - whether pastels, hot summer colors, or even pure whites - are key to an attractive wreath. "Choose flowers as you would if arranging them in a vase," says Stuckey. He usually picks his largest flower - the wreath's dominant element - first, then builds a color scheme around it. (Lilies, roses, and large sunflowers make good accents.) Then he collects 16 to 20 other long-lasting flowers and 20 to 24 snippets of foliage, from either the garden or the store.

The flowers and foliage will last longer if they're conditioned in deep water overnight. Strip off lower leaves on stems, recut stems underwater, and immerse in deep water up to the bases of the flower heads or the leaves.

3 MAKE A FRAMEWORK OF FOLIAGE

Prop the wreath base against a wall in an upright position (unless you're building a wreath to be displayed on a table; then keep it flat). Select one type of foliage, such as variegated pittosporum, for the background and stuff two or three stems in each of 7 to 10 water-filled water picks (depending on how full you want the wreath to be); push each pick into the wreath base so it lies almost flat against the base. For color contrast, combine pittosporum with colored foliage, such as gray-green Eucalyptus cinerea shown in the in-progress wreath at right, or use the eucalyptus separately and alternate it with the pittosporum. Cover about a third of the wreath with foliage.

4 BUILD MINIBOUQUETS

Select about three flowers and insert the stems into a water-filled pick. Stuckey varies the mix of flowers in each minibouquet so the wreath doesn't look symmetrical - for example, using Zinnia haageana Old Mexico, coreopsis, and German statice (Limonium tartaricum) in one bouquet, strawflowers and gloriosa daisies in another, and sunflowers and German statice in a third. Save a spot for the accent flower; insert the stem in the large water tube and set it in the wreath.

Finally, fill in the wreath with more foliage to hide bare spots or water picks.

MAINTENANCE

These wreaths will last a couple of days - long enough for a garden party or special event. But if you want them to last as long as a week or so, refill the water picks regularly. Check them the day after constructing the wreath and again every couple of days. Some flowers drink up water fast. If necessary, slide the picks out from the wreath and dunk them in a bucket of water. Bend plant stems a bit to allow water to seep through the hole in the rubber top. Always transport the wreath in the same position in which it was built (usually upright) so water doesn't flow out of the picks. Display it out of direct sunlight.