Foraging for Holiday Décor
Emily Ellis
Across continents and centuries, people have turned to plants to bring color and life to their homes and celebrations during the coldest, darkest time of the year. We’re no different here at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. For decades, the estate’s gardeners have gathered branches from the property’s many evergreen trees and bushes in order to create beautiful wreaths to place on the estate’s doors and gates, as well as on the Mellon family plot in the Trinity Episcopal Church cemetery in Upperville, VA.
Interested in foraging for your own holiday décor this year? Scroll down to read about some of the plants you’re likely to come across in the Virginia woodlands, and how they have been used by people of the past. To see a short video of how Oak Spring’s gardening team used many of the listed plants in winter wreaths this year, click on the image below. Happy decorating!
Holly
Holly illustration from Collection du Regne Vegetal, 1790-1813, by Francois Pierre Ledoulx, Jean Charles Verbrugge, and Joseph Francois Ducq.
While English Holly (Ilex aquifolium), with its spiky green leaves and clusters of crimson berries, is the species we most often associate with Christmas, Virginia is home to several native holly species, including American, inkberry, winterberry, and yaupon hollies. (Fun fact: yaupon holly is the only native American plant that contains caffeine.)
Whichever variety you choose to deck your halls with, you’re carrying on an ages-old tradition. The earliest documentations of holly being used in mid-winter celebrations dates back to ancient Rome, when it decorated festivals for the God Saturn; ancient druids also associated the plant with fertility and eternal life, hanging it in their homes to ward off bad luck. The use of holly for winter decorations continued with the rise of Christianity, which associated the bright red berries and jagged leaves with Christ’s shed blood and crown of thorns.
While English holly is a beautiful addition to the landscape and its berries are a good food source for birds, it’s not welcome everywhere. The tree is listed as an invasive species in some states, particularly in the northwest, due to its tendency to spread rapidly through forests and crowd out native species. If you’re concerned about English holly spreading in your area, dispose of your decorations in the garbage rather than tossing them outside.
Bittersweet
Photo credit: Richard Rowley via Wikimedia Commons.
The aggressive, non-native Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) can be twisted into a wreath just as easily as it winds itself around the branches and trunks of trees. A parasitic vine that was introduced to the U.S. in the late 1800s as an ornamental plant, oriental bittersweet, with its red berries nestled in golden casings, quickly made its way into holiday décor. By the 1970s, it was labeled as an invasive species due to its rapid spread through native landscapes and its tendency to strangle and smother even large, mature trees.
While many of us are guilty of using bittersweet in holiday arrangements, cutting it for this use has helped facilitate its spread throughout U.S. forests over the decades (it is even illegal to sell and cultivate in some states). If you do use bittersweet in your décor this year, try to at least do some eradication while you’re at it. When it’s time to throw away your decorations, make sure the bittersweet vines and berries ends up in a trash bag and not in a compost pile, as a way to avoid further spread.
If you want to select a less problematic vine to deck your halls with, Oriental bittersweet’s native cousin, American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens), is just as pretty and doesn’t have the same destructive tendencies.
Mistletoe
Illustration from A catalogue of English plants drawn after nature, 1762–66, by Lady Frances Howard.
The romantic catalyst for sappy Christmas TV movies is actually a poisonous parasitic evergreen. You can find both native and non-native mistletoe species topping trees in the U.S., where they suck water and nutrients from their unfortunate hosts; in Virginia, search the tops of oaks for balls of Eastern mistletoe (Phoradendron leucarpum).
While not great for the trees it preys on, mistletoe has fascinated people for millennia, partly due to its medicinal properties. It has been used to treat everything from skin ulcers to epilepsy, and in some European countries, drugs made from mistletoe extracts are widely prescribed for cancer patients. Because the plant was so vibrant and lush even in the dead of winter, many ancient peoples, including Romans and Celtic druids, associated it with long life and fertility, symbolism that eventually gave way to the present-day kissing tradition. If you decide to tack a sprig of mistletoe over your doorway this year in order to sneak a smooch from someone, just make sure to keep pets and children away from it - those shiny white berries are poisonous.
Magnolia
Illustration from A catalogue of American trees and shrubs that will endure the climate of England (c. 1740) by Christopher Gray
Although not a plant as intrinsically linked to the holiday season as holly or mistletoe, evergreen magnolia species can be put to stunning use in winter decor. Both the shiny leaves and the seed cones, which begin dropping from the trees in autumn, are favorite holiday wreath additions at Oak Spring. Magnolia virginiana in particular is a great choice for those wanting to deck their halls with a true Virginia native species.
Aside from being beautiful throughout the seasons, magnolias have an interesting history. Fossil records show that the trees once existed in Europe, North America and Asia over 100 million years ago; today, they are indigenous only in Southern China and the Southern United States. Magnolias were also granted special attention by European explorers and naturalists, who hastened to bring the beautiful trees to their own countries after coming across them in the U.S. They were highly popular as ornamental plants in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the name magnolia comes from French botanist Pierre Magnol (1638-1715), a particular fan of the tree.
Common Hazel
Unlike the other plants on this list, hazel species aren’t evergreen; however, the charming catkins that sprout from the common hazel (Corylus avellana) are a fun and unusual addition to winter wreaths. Although they resemble little dangling lamb’s tails, catkins are actually the male flowers of the hazel tree and typically first appear around November. If you’re looking for winter decor beyond Christmastime, witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) puts out gorgeous, dangling yellow flowers later in the winter months.
While the name comes from the old English word wiche (meaning “to bend”) and not a magic-wielding woman, witch hazel, which is native to the U.S., has carried an aura of mystery for centuries due to its healing properties and its surprising winter blooms. Historically, the plant has been used as a dowsing rod to find water, as well as to cleanse and heal irritated skin; today, it is it is currently one of the only medicinal plants approved by the FDA as a non-prescription drug ingredient.
Eastern Red Cedar
Eastern red cedar or Virginia Juniper (Juniperus virginiana), with its pretty blue “berries”, is another stunning native species perfect for tucking into winter wreaths. A hardy tree which holds the distinction of being the most widely distributed conifer in eastern North America, it is pretty easy to find, and is even considered invasive in some grassland areas due to how quickly and voraciously it can spread.
People have found plenty of other uses for eastern red cedar apart from decorations; its fragrant reddish heartwood has been used to make everything from longbows and canoes to coffins and pencils, and many Native American tribes used the twigs, leaves and berry-like seed cones medicinally. It also makes a great insect repellent: try tucking a few chunks of the wood into your closet to prevent moths from gnawing on your clothes.
Pine Trees
Illustration from Collection du Regne Vegetal, 1790-1813, by Francois Pierre Ledoulx, Jean Charles Verbrugge, and Joseph Francois Ducq. (According to Oak Spring Garden Library staff, OSGF founder Bunny Mellon liked to show this illustration to visitors during the holidays!)
What natural holiday bauble could be more charming than a pinecone? Whether you daub it with glitter and stick it on your Christmas tree, or smear it with peanut butter and seeds for overwintering birds to feast on, pinecones are a versatile and easily foraged decoration. Although all conifers have cones, pinecones come from trees in the family Pincaceae; in Virginia, some of the species you’re likely to come across include the Eastern white, Virginia, and Longleaf pines.
Pinecones also have a rich symbolic history. Like other evergreen plants, ancient peoples associated them with fertility and long life; in religious iconography, the ubiquitous sticky seed-protector has appeared on top of the staff of the Egyptian God Osiris, in the hands of the Mayan God, Chicomecoatl, and on the Pope’s sacred papal staff.
Pinecones are also associated with extrasensory perception: the part of our brain that governs our body’s perception of light and, according to some, our “third eye” is called the the Pineal Gland due to its resemblance to the pinecone - a great fun fact to share with anyone who admires your seasonal pinecone decor.
Want to learn more about the plants that get us through the winter months? Check out these posts on Plants of the Winter Solstice and The Plants We Use to Celebrate.