Gone Gardenin’ – ‘Reinvent’ holiday arrangement for lasting pleasure

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/12/2011 (5352 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The excitement of Christmas Day has come and gone and we will soon be back to our everyday routines. After we take down the Christmas decorations, the house can look rather bare after the holiday decor has been removed.

One Christmas item that might be retained to add a bit of cheer to the indoors during our cold, dark January is the Christmas flower arrangement that decorated the holiday table or the mantle during the holiday season.

Your Christmas floral arrangement can be kept in good condition for quite some time, and in fact, with a bit of imagination and creativity, you can refurbish it a few times to allow you to get every last bit of enjoyment out of the arrangement.

Florist arrangements made specifically for the holiday season often have very long-lasting greens, usually stems of cedar or pine, or stems of broadleaf evergreen such as leather leaf, magnolia or mulberry. This foliage will last for weeks if the ends are kept in wet oasis and the oasis itself is never allowed to dry out.

To reinvent your arrangement, start by removing any artificial holiday items such as Christmas balls, a Merry Christmas sign on a stick, or a candle. If this leaves the arrangement looking a little sparse, replace the items you removed with other items that you have on hand, such as pieces of ting, driftwood, twigs, dried poppy seed heads, or other dried material.

If you like, add a bit of colour by spraying some of these items with floral spray before they are added to the arrangement. Leave the flowers in the arrangement as they will likely remain presentable for a while yet — well past New Year’s Day.

Carnation, statice and chrysanthemum blooms are particularly long lasting, but eventually the flowers will fade. One way to refurbish the arrangement is to simply purchase a few stems of flowers to replace those that go past — this time not in a typical holiday colour.

You might end up with an arrangement of pink carnations accompanied by a few poppy seed heads sprayed a contrasting burgundy colour, or a few bright yellow daisy mums combined with some brown or tan seed heads of some kind — the possibilities are endless.

If the container has a definite holiday theme, you can change that as well. Simply lift up firmly on the block of oasis, until it comes free from the container.

There is no need to remove the plant material from the oasis while you do this; simply place the whole thing, oasis and greenery, into a different, similarly sized container, one that is more suitable to the post-Christmas season.

Alternately, simply pop the whole arrangement, container and all, into a more suitable jardinière that you have on hand.

Over time, you might find some of the foliage will become yellow or bits of it might become rather unattractive. Don’t be afraid to pull such pieces out of the oasis, trim off any unattractive parts and reinsert the stems back into the oasis for another refurbishment — be sure to cut a bit off the bottom of each stem before it is reinserted into the oasis.

Your arrangement will have had some floral preservative in the water when you received it, and this will have kept the water from becoming smelly. This product will gradually lose its effectiveness and as some of the plant material decays, the water may develop an unpleasant odour. If this happens, take all of the plant material out of the oasis, flush the oasis still in the container – with water under a running tap. Be sure to remove any decayed material from the stems before reusing them, and add some floral preservative to the water to inhibit bacterial growth.

That holiday arrangement that you received from a loved one, that you purchased yourself, or perhaps that you got at a gift exchange can be “reinvented” a number of times before it must be discarded.

After the holiday season ends, this is a good activity to help you chase away the winter blues.

Albert Parsons is a consultant for garden design and landscaping who lives in Minnedosa.

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