Occasionally something stops us in our tracks on Instagram. And so it was on an icy late November evening when we spied Anna Potter’s enormous wreath of dried grasses, hydrangeas, rosehips, and iridescent lunaria seedpods. Destined for a local café in Sheffield where the floral designer’s store, Swallows & Damsons is based, the wreath was a supersize reminder of how effective grasses can be in a festive design.
For Potter, using dried materials in wreaths is an opportunity to create movement and structure. But it also reflects shifting attitudes about the winter garden, in which the dried grasses, exposed seedpods, and faded stems are celebrated rather than consigned to the compost heap. “There’s so much beauty to be found,” says Potter. “Overlooked tangled vines, weathered seed heads and grasses are so wonderful to weave with and can be combined to create unexpectedly ethereal sculptures.”
This new style of everlasting wreath is staging a challenge to traditional foliage and evergreens, replacing fir and holly with burnished golden grasses and wildflowers. Here are a few of our favorites.
Above: Potter’s wreath uses a custom-made 4.5 ft forged steel hoop, which is recycled seasonally as the design and ingredients change. Here, she has used long stems of pampas grass and bear grass to create sculptural, swirling tails and loops. Pennisetum, panicum, as well as different varieties of dried hydrangea add additional texture while hips and lunaria bring contrast. Photograph courtesy of Anna Potter. Above: Nikki Kuwayama of California-based studio Velvet Curation Co—which sells dried foliage and flowers— uses dried grass to create similar swirls in this wreath design, adding color with branches of asparagus fern, red berries, and dried cress stems. Her asymmetric design is built onto a simple vine base. Photograph courtesy of Nikki Kuwayama. Above: Kitten Grayson’s Christmas shop has Zingara flower baubles as well as exquisite wreaths, including the pictured Meadow Mountain design. Available in three sizes (from £120), each on a wicker base, the wreath combines delicate bracken fronds with birch twigs, wild clematis, statice, and strawflowers to echo the soft burnished colors of a winter woodland. Photograph by Hana Snow. Above: Dried flower guru and author of Everlastings Bex Partridge has given her collection of seasonal wreaths enigmatic names, including the “Bones of Winter” and the pictured “Wild Wreath” (both from £75), which uses curling grasses along with nicandra seedheads and dried Ammobium alutum. Partridge has also authored an e-guide to a natural Christmas, downloadable from her online store, Botanical Tales. Photograph courtesy of Bex Partridge. Above: Gather your wreath materials on a weekend walk. Studio Mim’s wild woodland wreath uses a vine base topped with bracken fronds, wild clematis seedheads, and dried beech leaves along with a contrasting, crumpled silk ribbon. Photograph courtesy of Studio Mim. Above: Jade Schol is the Wiltshire-based designer behind Arie and Vine’s ethereal installations, including botanical clouds of light-as-feather ferns and wreaths named after Santa’s reindeer. The Comet, pictured, combines bracken with asparagus fern, pampas grass, lunaria, statice, and foraged stems and is finished with velvet and satin ribbons. Photograph courtesy of Jade Schol.
When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.
Access 10 archived posts (older than one year) per month on each site
Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
Unlimited access to the Product Catalogs, Design Travel sources, and Architect & Designer Directory listings
Choose from our ten newsletters to keep up with the latest on the sites
Or Subscribe for Maximum Value!
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Sorry! As a registered member you get 10 free posts from our archive (posts more than a year old) every 30 days. You have reached your limit for this 30-day period. If you would like to access unlimited posts from the archive (ad free, too), become a subscriber today, and keep reading as many articles as you want.
Full Access Individual Subscription
Benefits include:
Unlimited access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home sites
Ad-free browsing environment
Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
Receive the full-text daily newsletters
All features that Members have access to
Annual subscribers pay just 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
Sorry! You have reached your limit of three (3) free posts from our archive every 30 days. You can increase this to 10 posts by joining as a free Member, or read unlimited posts with no ads by becoming a paid Subscriber.
Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites
For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.
Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
Become a Member at no charge
When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.
Congratulations on becoming a Subscriber to Remodelista, Gardenista and The Organized Home! You now have access to many great features across the sites:
Unlimited access to all three sites
Ad-free browsing environment
Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
Receive any of the newsletters, including the the full-text daily Remodelista and Gardenista newsletters
Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
Congratulations on joining as a free Member of Remodelista, Gardenista and The Organized Home! You now have access to many great features across the sites:
Access to all posts published in the past year
Access 10 archived posts (older than one year) per month on each site
Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
Unlimited access to the Product Catalogs, Design Travel sources, and Architect & Designer Directory listings
Choose from our ten newsletters to keep up with the latest on the sites
If at any time you want to become a Subscriber and enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to all our content, just go to the My Account link and choose Subscribe.
Advertising funds our work at Gardenista and helps us provide you with a daily dose of garden inspiration & design. We hope you’ll consider disabling your adblocker for Gardenista so we can continue our mission: a well-designed garden for all.
Have a Question or Comment About This Post?
Join the conversation (0)