Unique Door Wreaths

Easter has arrived at least to my front door with this unique door wreath. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Unique Door Wreaths

With all of us staying home longer and more often, making our spaces pretty and appealing is important - well, it is for me. And what better place to easily update your home decor than your front door.

You can spend hundreds of dollars buying something online or you can have fun making your own, which is what I do, and save myself a pretty penny.

When I think of Easter, I tend to think about Flopsy Bunnies and the Beatrix Potter characters. The unique Easter door wreath on my front door is a good reminder that you can have an Easter vibe without a rabbit in sight.

The metal bee was a Christmas gift that I now add to all of my seasonal door wreaths. That easily makes my door wreaths unique and reflects that I live in the middle of a bee garden.

The door wreaths themselves have been the bounty from my garden, I have made a number of wild grapevine wreaths. They also come from treasure hunt shopping at local thrift and consignment stores. If you don’t know this already, you can find some great bargains at these stores and often you will find unique, vintage and hard to find items not available elsewhere. And if you shop sales, you save even more.

This particular Easter-themed wreath came from my favorite local resale and consignment store Three Sisters at 713 Pine Street, Rolla, Mo. You will find most communities have similar stores, some benefitting charities like Goodwill and Salvation Army, where I also have found some of my other unique home decor finds. In addition to finding something unique and helping a good cause, you are also repurposing items and getting a good value for your money. I’m all into recycling, from kitchen scraps to clothing and home decor, it’s kinder to our world.

The blue ribbon on top came from a Christmas gift bag exchange delivered late February due to COVID concerns. When I look at that ribbon I am reminded that good friends remain good, caring friends, world pandemic or not, regardless of the time of year. We sometimes need that reminder.

I happen to know Three Sisters Resale and Consignment had some wreaths last week but no guarantees, their inventory turns over quickly and regularly. Which is a good reminder to stop in frequently, who knows what you may find!

Charlotte

Add Color to Front Door

This simple white door gets an upgrade with potted flowers. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Add Color to Front Door

If you don’t know where to start with adding color to your home, start with the front door. Or the door where you go in and out of the most; the idea is to add color where you can see it every time you go in and out. And there is no painting involved.

In this example, it’s an apartment door in the community where I live. It’s a great example of how potted flowering plants can easily upgrade and enliven a door entrance, making it very welcoming.

In the hanging baskets, petunias and sweet potato vines, both easy to care for annual flowering plants.

In front on the ground, marigolds, also annuals, which help deter bugs.

The rest of the flowers are also annuals, mostly petunias, which will continue to bloom the rest of summer and are easy to grow. The key to growing potted flowering plants is to add a fertilizer once a week

The plants are located right off the steps for easy watering.

This is a great example of how to easily update an entrance with plants.

Charlotte

Wildflowers Bouquet

Wildflowers bouquet out of my garden for a neighbor. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Wildflowers Bouquet

This is more the kind of bouquet we think of adding to brighten a room. Although we often grow specific flower varieties for cut flowers, these wildflowers all have long stems so they can easily be added to a center table flower vase. They are also long lasting in the vase.

What may be surprising is that all of these flowers are wildflowers. Can you name the flowers?

There are two orange daylilies, the single variety and the doubles. Both of these flowers are entirely edible.

The yellow tickseed coreopsis can easily be used as a filler flower.

The tiny purple flowers are Dames’ Rocket, usually fading out mid-June.

The light purple flowers are Bee Balm, also known as Monarda.

And the last flower is Queen Anne’s Lace, basically a wild carrot.

By themselves someone might look at each and say weeds. Together they are going to brighten someone’s home decor and make their day!

Charlotte

Pussy Willow Blooms

White or maybe soft pink pussy willow branches now in bloom. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Pussy Willow Branches

Every once in awhile I come across articles and posts about cutting tree and shrub branches for home decor. The idea is enticing, especially mid-winter when I’m getting tired of the cold weather and starting to pine for spring. It certainly is an easy way to bring a piece of nature into a room.

This year, we’ve barely had winter in mid-Missouri. It has been more of an extended fall, short cold periods dotted with temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Which has me a little worried about what is happening to my plants, I have iris leaves up and fruit trees budding. But I’m still expecting cold weather, at least off and off over the next couple of months.

In between, I have been doing some work in the garden, primarily mulching. Some others have also been out in their gardens trimming bushes. In particular, pussy willow bushes, one of the plants I’ve had on my list to add to my garden. In addition to the charm and versatility of the unusual-looking plant, it also happens to be an excellent source of pollen for bees.

This is how I originally found the pussy willow branches, cut and discarded.

This is how they started, discarded pussy willow branches. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I found a similar stash of cut pussy willow branches late November, now rooting in pots in my basement. Those gave me a delightful surprise, burgundy-colored flowers that reminded me of Magnolia blooms. They are now springing new leaves, which hopefully will become new plants later this year I can move out into my hillside garden.

The new pussy willow branches have been carefully cut. Some are in soil; another collection is in water in a vase in my kitchen. These are now starting to bloom and may be a different pussy willow variety. These latest ones have a lighter flower bud than the darker, burgundy ones that bloom before Christmas.

After four days in water, the pussy willows are starting to bloom. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I love having the branches in water in my kitchen and office. What’s even more fun is walking in every morning to see something new popping out, in this case flowers.

White pussy willow blooms from cut branches blooming in my kitchen. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Other cut winter tree branches that easily produce flowers in water inside include yellow Forsythia, Witch Hazel, Magnolia, Eastern Redbuds, Crab Apple, flowering Quince and flowering Cherry.

Charlotte