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Shopping in Your Garden

From Garden to Vase

A day before the recent snowfall, I stepped into my garden to see what I could pick. The flowers are gone but the garden continues to be a source of material for indoor arrangements. A bouquet can be small—something for a kitchen countertop, a nightstand, or a windowsill. 

Add a few store-bought flowers and you can make charming bouquets with branches of holly, yews, boxwood or spruce if they grow in your garden. Stems of fresh herbs also add a punch of fragrance and color.

A trip to the floral department at the local grocery store provided the eye candy for my bouquets—baby’s breath, carnations and chrysanthemums. 

The fillers from my own harvest included small sprays of sedum, ornamental grasses, variegated yucca leaves, arborvitae, boxwood and false cypress. The last pots of herbs held rosemary, tricolor sage, and silver-leaved curry plants. Waiting in the vegetable garden were the last of the cold-hardy deep red bok choy leaves and Swiss chard.

 

Discover More

Holiday Crafts from the Garden

Forcing Branches to Bloom Indoors

Keep Cut Greenery Fresh Indoors

Fun Ideas for Hosting A Floral Centerpiece Gathering

Winter Pruning

 

arborvitae

Arborvitae

Baby's Breath

Baby's Breath

Boxwood

Boxwood

tricolor sage

Tricolor Sage

 

Gathering the Goods

When I’m ready to harvest, I take pruners, a small bucket filled with a few inches of warm water, and garden gloves. Scrapes and sap from evergreen branches can sometimes irritate the skin. By taking just a few short side stems from evergreens—arborvitae, yews and false cypress—they won’t be missed. The goal is to avoid cutting too far into the shrub and creating a hole.

Red-twig dogwood is another great plant for its colorful stems. And winterberry holly offers branches filled with red fruits. Dried hydrangea flowers can be used as is or spray painted gold or whatever color you prefer for winter holidays. Ditto for seed heads of sedum, coneflowers and yarrow. For an airy touch, look to ornamental grasses, like our native Pancium (switch grass) and prairie dropseed.

arrangements
arrangements
arrangements
arrangements

Tiny Tabletop Arrangements

Think small, but fun. Winter arrangements don’t have to be enormous. In England, my grandmother repurposed empty jam jars as vases. You can do the same. Tie a ribbon or raffia around the jar, or set it in a square of colorful fabric, secure it with twine, and assemble your stems.

Resale stores and antique shops are fun places to find an assortment of vases—funky, whimsical, classic, ceramic, crystal—to add to your flower-arranging stash or to give as a gift with flowers and stems this holiday season. Our gardens may be sleeping now, but they almost always have something to offer.

 

Nina Koziol is a garden writer and horticulturist who lives and gardens in Palos Park, Illinois