A few good snips
THE obsession began as I thumbed through glossy holiday catalogs featuring evergreen garlands, balls of eucalyptus and wreaths made from herbs I had in my garden. I wondered: How difficult could it be to roll my own?
As Jamie Inashima, a landscape designer and arborist whose handmade wreaths are a waiting-list-only status symbol in Pasadena, put it: “Very tricky.”
Apparently, I needed to find native plant material that was flexible and could withstand drying and shrinkage without crumbling or turning an ugly color.
Would the ivy overrunning my fence do? “Algerian ivy?” she asked incredulously.
“I have a pepper tree with really nice red berries,” I offered weakly. “Brazilian or Californian?” Jamie inquired.
Time for Plan B. Rather than faking it with wire and a hot-glue gun -- turning my inner Martha Stewart into Mary Shelley, author of the Christmas horror classic “Wreathenstein” -- I lowered my sights. If I couldn’t weave a masterpiece wreath, at least I could create a centerpiece worthy of admiration not only for its beauty, but also for its use of California greenery.
Looking at the garden at this time of year, when the last stubborn roses and cosmos have bloomed, yields some surprises. The first was that there were red berries hanging off all kinds of plants, from asparagus ferns to pepper branches. A quick snip and they could be stuck into a glass frog at the bottom of a water-filled cereal bowl surrounding a cranberry-scented candle.
That was easy enough. But what about all that crunchy tree detritus littering the driveway?
Whatever its virtues, the common blue gum eucalyptus is a messy shedder. At this time of year, however, its espresso-colored, pod-laden twigs can be piled like knobby pickup sticks in an antique silver dish to create a modernist candelabrum or an abstract menorah. The key is to emulate the randomness of nature while crossing the stems to create spaces to hold candles.
This is where a little Zen might’ve come in handy. Using a curved dish made the thin tapers list and topple. If you don’t have steady nerves, try sturdier pillar candles on flat trays.
Now, what could be done with those last remaining bougainvillea blooms?
The magenta blossoms were too insubstantial to stand tall in the holes of a frog and too papery to be anywhere near a lighted candle.
A friend came up with an ingenious solution: Put a small glass bowl filled with water and floating tea lights inside a larger glass bowl, then place the bougainvillea stems asymmetrically between the bowls with the flowers tucked between the glass or over the outer edge. The floating candles make the flowers glow, an effect that is magical, but also ephemeral, as cut bougainvillea rarely lasts longer than a day.
Jade, however, seems almost as indestructible as the gem. Long considered an ugly stepchild of the L.A. garden, this slow-growing succulent is in bloom now, its tiny white flowers creating the appearance of being dusted with snow. Clipped from their dull brown trunks, jade stalks look like jeweled bonsai and can be set in a frog, floated in water or even stuck in stones for a display as minimal or as lush as you wish.
Though the flowers, like snow, will eventually disappear, the plant itself remains stubbornly beautiful, with little care. Long after the dishes have been cleared and your New Year’s resolutions broken, the jade will be patiently waiting to be replanted in the garden.
