Learn how to green ｜ Design & Bloom ｜ Free Lesson

Hi my name is Dee and I'm going to show you how to green for Christmas. One of those things that people find very hard a lot of times it's it seems like the most simple thing but the hard thing is to put all the accessories in and I actually look at that totally opposite. I think the greening part is the important part especially for Christmas because we have so many beautiful evergreens that we use and they should really be seen and the greening shouldn't just be all over the place it is definitely a way to do the greening. So that's why I'm going to show you I'm going to make a very small one here and then afterwards I made a bigger one and we can compare and see that it's actually exactly the same techniques that's used for a small one like this or like a big long centerpiece for a table. So let's try this out I have a piece of oasis about an inch a little less than an inch a couple of centimeters higher than the pot that gives us the chance to put things in this way compared to if it's totally flush here we only can put things in that way. So that's the reason for that I curved the edge off because nothing in nature is round and it's square so it's always it never has the edge like this so that's why I curve it and then do it so that there's room for water never fill your whole container with oasis because then there's no room for water. So make it secure in two sides like here I have a little piece in both sides so that it's sturdy and then leave room so people can water because otherwise if you put flowers in if there's no room for water it's just going to look bad on us that we didn't do a good job. So I have a pine gold tip cedar this is Oregonia or looks like a boxwood too and then I have a dianthus magnolia a few different things we'll use and let's do this here together. I this is such a good green it's nice and I just really like using this one here for Christmas arrangements and it's very strong too trim that a little bit a little too much and then I start with something coming up a little bit and then I'll kind of take a line through and have it come out on the other side too and don't make it too straight because we don't want it to look too perfect like that and then I will use a little bit of this silver fir and see how all the greens go in this way this way not really so much that way because we don't want to have sort of a big mountain of green coming up we just want to have a little bit of green so then I put it in little groupings so we'll see there's a little grouping there and then there's a little bit of this and then I have this come through on the other side too and I would say I work with a knife don't do that if you're not used to it it's just what I'm used to and it's faster for me to work with a knife you don't want to lose there we go a couple of groupings then I have a little pine find a nice one here going up there we go want to keep a little opening in the middle for some pine cones and then I have the pine come through on the other side so it goes like this a line coming through and with with so many people that have taught how to do the Christmas greening everybody always says that that is one of the things they have the hardest time with getting right is the greening part so I hope you can get inspired here and you can do this here so grouping of pine and let's see what do we want to put in next put some magnolia in this is always so beautiful because of the velvet on the back side and I like to use both sides like the green end these are too long to put in full on the stem so I just cut them off use the leaf and I think I'll have a leaf come in right there and if let's say I if I find that they're too long the leaf I just cut it the edge up here actually and do this here with a pair of scissors if you feel more comfortable with that I'll show you another one let's see how nice they this is and then if we cut it like this and then you have the stem here too and if you if you do this here just for yourself at home not to worry too much about it but sometimes if it has to go on delivery this year can you could actually break these here you know how people handle their arrangement so you could wire it like this just around the spine down and then like this and then you know that it won't you won't break off have a little bit come out here like that we'll do one more there we go and maybe on get a little green leaf in too thank you then I will take a couple of these dianthus here my favorite bottom it's like moss so it is it's just the best thing ever to use in Christmas because look how that just fills that up and makes it really really calming to look in there and that's what it is is that balance always so I talk a lot about the balance and in the in the design obviously you have something really busy here but then it's very calm here and then this is calming but that's okay because this is busy and that's how we want to have it all the way around you can see right now like just these greens here there's not much in here but it's it's sort of a arrangement all on its own just because that the greens are grouped they the greens are seen more and and they're this way more interesting like a piece of pine all of a sudden and actually looks really nice little yellow then I could just I don't like to put too much I just want to show you how it looks like in the middle here I don't want to fill that up with too much greens in there because that could make it really busy I could take a little sprig of this here to put in over where that is on that side with this here and then I'm going to use a little bit of this orgonia and I'm going to use it really really low so it's there but you're not seeing it very much because if I put it up here I just want to show you if I put it up here it would sort of make it way too busy to have that sitting up here I want to put just a couple of cones here so that's why I do this here really low almost covered and if you have a couple of little holes somewhere holes meaning where you can see the foam could put a little bit of this in you put a little green moss in just to cover it up so that's our base and then I'll put in some pine cones some of these cigar cones here and let's see this should be a little a little bit too much the same height it shouldn't really be the same height so I'll tuck this here in a little bit more there we go and put a couple of cones on one side how that looks I'll wire a couple for you you can see how they're done just put it in here about halfway in take it down like this and then this this is a thick wire for this cone it's easier for you to see twist it around cut it and then we have like a perfectly wire that we can very easily put in so it sits exactly where we want it to sit there so I put three in maybe I just see I just want to show you how I thought I want it can actually be fun to put a cone so it sits halfway down the pot like this so then you just put the wire in the middle and then put it in right down here looks a little harder to do here on the other side where I can't see but I want you to see how it looks like yeah it's kind of cute how it sits halfway down the pot right just a little different thing you can do okay I think we have most of our greens in and this is really the base this gives you you can see all the greens and I always find like the greens are so nice like I don't like to just put them in as a filler and then we just put a whole bunch of flowers in to cover up a lot of the greens with I want to put a couple of these berries in put them here maybe and then I take some of this green off here so that it's not in the way for those cones see the cones I think to me it's all like it's all about these natural things and then it's about that we take a piece of nature in for Christmas and the smell of it is so nice really nice to have in your house yeah I think this is all we need this is like as basic and a small little arrangement but I really hope you would try this here and see how it looks like when you make it and try to group your greens have them come in lines I'm going to tip it here so you can see it a little bit inside it's um let me hold it like this see it here see how the pine comes through and how this here comes through and the dianthus just adds that balance of where there's a little place that the eye can rest right in here and it makes it very peaceful like I said before it's like you want to sit in there and just enjoy this little greenery so have fun with that I'm just going to get my bigger arrangement out and then we'll try to compare and see how they look like it's getting