DIY Simple Rosemary wreath

This morning, while wandering through my new back garden, I was trying to work out what to do with it. It is fairly large with established fruit trees, hedges and shrubs. We bought the house because of the garden, we wanted a little slice of the countryside while still being near enough to civilisation to fulfil life commitments. Before we moved, nearly a month ago, I was so excited to have this big garden, to have a bit of privacy, to enjoy sipping cups of tea under the weeping willow watching the leaves sway in the morning breeze. But, on the day we moved I walked down to the end of the garden and was filled with dread. What the hell had I done? I am not a gardener, I know nothing about gardening. I could name about three of the 10s of species of plant and tree in the garden.

                   



So here I was this morning, meandering through the dewy grass with cat in toe chasing a football, wondering how I can possibly make this garden work for us without it turning into a jungle. The plan so far are to make jams and chutneys from the fruit trees, try and make a fence out of the willow and use the greenery to decorate the house at christmas.

                       



Out of the corner of my eye I spotted what I thought was a dead climbing plat that was so pretty with its twisted stems and long limbs. I decided to try and make some wreaths out of the plant. Looking back I should have probably checked what it was incase it was poisonous but hey ho, hindsight is a wonderful thing. So with the 'help' of the cat I pulled the plant down out of the tree and gathered it up to take inside. I have never made the base for a wreath before but these twigs and stems wound together relatively easily and they look so great I am so pleased.

                         

Now, what to do with them?? I have decided to put together some tutorials on how to put some wreaths together and what to do with them. This first one is the very basic of basic. I chose to use rosemary, mainly because there is a lot of it in the garden but the same method can be used with any greenery. You don't need to have made the base either, you can buy one. I didn't use any oasis or moss to provide moisture for the wreath so it will not last long. However, if you want to use moss on a metal ring the same principal of decorating and securing the greenery is the same and the wreath will last a little longer.





For this basic Rosemary Wreath you will need:

• Wreath base (homemade or bought)
• Floristry wire
• Wire clippers and secetures / scissors
• Rosemary (or other greenery, whatever you can find) - about 2 shopping carrier bags full

Remember you will always need more greenery then you think. 

Take a sprig of Rosemary and place it onto the frame base. My rosemary was flowering so I separated the green from the purple flowering sprigs and put the purple ones aside.

Take the wire and cut of a length around 15 cm long and was around the base of the sprig. Take the next sprig and place further around the frame anti-clockwise so the ends of the sprig covers the base of first sprig and wire on as before.

Repeat this until the whole wreath is covered. I then wound  a long length of wire around the whole wreath for extra security. Now repeat the process again to add fullness.

Keeping it plain with just greenery would be beautiful but I was lucky to have lots of sprigs with tiny purple flowers so, I added them over the top. Check out this quick video on how I made it...........

This wreath is absolutely beautiful on it's own and dent need anything else but it would look great with extra greenery, flowers and bows. In my next few blog posts I will be showing you how to make different wreaths and how to display them. So why not subscribe and get the latest blog post and Approved news on how to create your perfect handmade christmas.