First Winter Greenery Arrangement - December 203

This Summer, I started to experiment with making my first few arrangements.  They were full of Disneyland Roses, Zinnias and whatever I could snip out of the garden.  I had a lot of fun experimenting with those countertop arrangements the last month-or-so of the growing season and is something that I'm already thinking about for 2024.  

With Winter here and everything dormant, I recently opted to try my hand at a winter greenery arrangement for the kitchen.  We had this Santa Claus Holt Howard planter on hand, so I grabbed it and started planning.  See below for the Santa planter:

One of the things that I learned this Summer was to try to use a grid in wider-mouth vases and planters to create some structure that the stems can be supported by instead of just being jammed into the mouth together.  I grabbed some of this green hardware cloth and cut a small section.  Below you can see it inserted in the back of the planter:

From there, I cut up some of the boughs from our Christmas trees, snipped some evergreen things from the yard - yews, boxwoods, thuja, junipers.  Wired-up a pinecone from Wisconsin.  And cut off a few Chanticlear Pear branches for height.  Tucked it all into the planter and this is what I ended up with:

For now, I'm calling this a success.  It sure smells nice and has a variety of textures and colors.  How long will it last?  I'm not sure, but I'll watch it closely.  Once I know that...I'm thinking that I'll make a few of these to bring with us to various Christmas parties in the next two weeks.  More to come on Winter-time arrangements as I get to them.