Nothing says more for the holidays than to find your dinning room table or front door decked out with fresh greenery.  Certainly, the smell of fresh pine boughs used in decorations will help elevate your holiday experience.

Today for my fresh greenery arrangement, I used a red Waechtersbach holiday mug imprinted with white berry holly.

Always, feel free to use non traditional containers to hold your fresh greenery.  It’s nice to experiment with an unexpected container.  A teacup with a matching saucer also works nicely for small areas.

You can build your fresh arrangement on a cutting board and add unshelled walnuts, fresh cranberries, mini white and orange pumpkins, garlic cloves, etc.  Also, for a fun look make a fresh greenery hor d’oevres tree.  Add cherry tomatoes on wooden skewers and place into the tree.  Place a dip along side the hor d’oevres tree.

Candles are also nice to include in your greenery decorations.  One beware is if you use real candles make sure none of the greenery will catch fire.  Artificial candles can also be used in your arrangements and are safe to use.

Fresh Boxwood Arrangement

This photograph shows the completed greenery project in which I used boxwood clippings, red clip on cardinal birds and a bright red ribbon.

Harvesting from Boxwood Shrubs Boxwood Clippings in Warm Water

After harvesting your greenery, the first thing to do is to condition your greens by placing the stems in a bucket of lukewarm water for an hour or longer.

This will keep your greenery from drying out in a warm house.

To keep the arrangement fresh, use an Oasis foam block.  This is a type of green foam material that holds in water. You will need to carve the Oasis block to fit your container.

Cut the Oasis block slightly taller than your container so you can add greenery to the sides.

You will also need to soak the Oasis foam in water for a couple of minutes to get it nice and moist.

Since you never want to damage your furniture with water marks, many florists sell round cork disks to place under flower or greenery arrangements.

Setting Width and Height of Arrangement

The first thing to do after you insert the Oasis into your container is to set the width and height of your arrangement.

With the tallest branches you have, put in the top and sides.  Measure if you have to to keep things even.

Then begin to fill in with the smaller branches.

You can add sticks or twigs from your garden.  Also, small pine cones or dried lotus blooms can be added to the arrangement by using a 18-inch gauge wire.

If you want to add bows, use a 26 to 28 inch gauge wire.

Pine cones can also be sprayed with either a gold or clear spray.  Design Master makes a nice clear and gold spray.  Design Master sprays an ultra-fine mist which is delicate enough to use to color flowers, etc.

Mini Red Cardinal Birds Fresh Boxwood Arrangement on Top of Toilet Tank

You can also buy a greenery preservative solution called Prolong which is nice to use in fresh greenery and also to place in fresh Christmas tree containers.  It allows the plants to take in more water and stay green also kills the bacteria in the water.  This will make arrangements last longer.

Since greenery can be hard on hands, use soft work gloves.

Be sure to water your completed greenery project every two to three days from the top.

This last photograph shows the completed greenery arrangement.  To pick up the colors in the mug, I also added two small clip on cardinals and a red wire bow.

Harvest greenery, twigs, and pine cones from your yard.