Using evergreen boughs and a few wintry garden elements, let’s make a winter planter together. This post includes tips for making the evergreens stay green and last for the whole winter.
Collecting Evergreens for the Winter Planter
I clipped small branches from evergreens that we have planted around our property and hauled them around in my garden wagon until I had everything. We have a lot of spruces, so that will form the base of the winter planter.
I also collected plenty of juniper branches, some arborvitae, and a few yew sprigs.
Pine would be so lovely to have, but I didn’t get to cut any this year.
Along the way, I grabbed a few twisted stick wreaths I made this summer thinking I might use it.
If you have mature evergreens growing in your yard, or you have friends who wouldn’t mind letting you clip a few branches, I would encourage you to go forage and harvest your own boughs for your winter planter.
Here are some types of evergreens to look for.
- spruce
- pine
- juniper
- arborvitae
- yew
- boxwood
- holly
One year, a family member gave us lots of pine branches to use, but I wasn’t ready to create the planter yet.
I kept the cut end of the branches in a bucket full of water to keep them hydrated. The more hydrated your evergreens are, the better they will keep through winter.
So keep your cut branches in water until you’re ready to use them!
Getting the Planters Ready
After gathering a wagon full of evergreens, I cleaned out the planters I wanted to use for this project.
If you have any plants in your planters that you might want to use, leave them!
I decided to leave the Silver Falls Dichondra I had growing in there because it looked nice, and I wanted to wrap it around the arrangement. If I didn’t have the dichondra, I could’ve popped the stick wreaths on top of the soil to sort of make a nest for everything to sit in.
I also gathered the birch logs I save to use in these planters every year and stuck them in.
I like having tall elements like sticks and branches in my winter planters to add structure.
I worked on this planter in 50°F weather, so the soil is pretty soft and easy to work with.
Even so, it’s helpful to use a dibber, hori-hori knife, or small spade to dig holes to “plant” the branches into. This way you can get the branches stuck in securely.
Building a Base of Evergreens
Next, I added the spruce branches. Whenever I add in fresh evergreens, I try to strip off the bottom five or six inches to expose the main stem. This makes the branch easier to stick into the soil in the planter.
This year, I decided I wanted the evergreens to look like they were growing out of the planter, so I placed the branches upright.
I just kept adding evergreen branches in layers until the winter planter looked full and lush. You can see in the set of photos below how the arrangement keeps progressing with each type of evergreen added.
I felt satisfied with the way this planter was looking, and since I had another matching one to do, I decided to stop working on this one and build up the other to match.
I wanted to make sure I had enough branches to make both planters match. At the end, I added in a few extra evergreen boughs to fill in any gaps, but this was a good point to stop and add in a different element.
Adding Special Elements
Now that the evergreen base was established and had good structure and contrast from the birch branches, you can add special elements to complement the arrangement.
Look around your property (or a friend’s!) for interesting branches, berries, cones, dried flowers or leaves to add to your winter planter.
I like keeping my winter planters natural, but ornaments or floral picks would be great to make an evergreen planter look festive.
Here’s my planter from two years ago, where I added these red Noel signs. I think they may not have been meant for outdoor use, so they don’t really look that great after being outside for a whole winter, but I like the pop of red.
You can see that I also had added curly willow sticks in with the birch logs to beef up that vertical element.
Back to this year’s planter, I decided to add dried hydrangea flowers for more texture. These flowers had dried fully on the shrubs and had lost their fall color, so they are tan, which I think looks nice with the evergreens.
They are also big and fluffy and really help fill in the gaps between the evergreen branches. I actually had to pull off some of the lower branches of flowers on they hydrangea heads to make them a little bit smaller.
Don’t be afraid to remove parts of branches or flowers to make them fit better in your own arrangement.
The last element I added were these wired pinecones that I save from year to year. These pinecones were foraged as well several years ago and have held up nicely.
I used thick floral wire and wrapped it around the bottom of the pinecone and twisted it tight. That’s how I made my own pinecone picks to stick into the soil or wrap around branches in my winter planter.
I placed these randomly throughout the arrangement, wherever i felt like it needed a little pop of pinecones. You could cluster odd-numbered groups of cones together and place them, or even just put a few right in front as a focal piece.
Whatever looks good to you!
After placing the pinecones, I tucked my leftover sprigs and branches into the edges of the planter and anywhere I had an empty gap. I ended up using every last evergreen and didn’t have to go back to clip any more.
The Finished Winter Planters
Here are the two finished winter planters. They both live on the driveway on either side of our main garage door, so they are near one another, but not next to each other.
I’m happy with the way these two turned out this year.
I like the brown and green tones and the white birch logs contrast really nicely with the dark evergreens.
At the end of the season, I will save the birch logs and pinecones, but compost the evergreens and hydrangeas.
How to Keep Cut Evergreens Fresh All Winter
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My best tip for keeping fresh cut evergreens looking good all winter is to spray them with Wilt Stop by Bonide.
It will protect the evergreens from losing moisture and drying out so that they stay green and keep their needles for the season.
You can spray this product on fresh evergreen wreaths and fresh Christmas trees as well.
I just set the nozzle to spray, hold it a few inches away from the evergreens and spray until the branches are dripping wet. It has not harmed the planters themselves or the brick and concrete around the planters.
This year, I’m also testing out Wilt Pruf to see if it works just as well.
Apparently you can also use these products on live plants to reduce their water needs and protect them from wind burn and winter kill, but I have never tried this. Let me know if you have experience with this!
Thank you for reading this post, and I hope you enjoy creating your own winter planters this season.