Nature Provides The Décor Of The Season
Nature Provides The Décor Of The Season
By Kendra Bobowick
Winterâs frosty landscape harbors a bounty of decorative colors and scenes. âYou can do all of your [holiday] arrangements within 50 feet of your house â easily,â said Anthony Reelik, director of landscape operations at Shakespeareâs Garden. Firs, pines, spruce, cypress, and juniper greens alone create a nice layering and texture to arrangements, which garden center owner Steve Fancher noted Wednesday. âThe winter landscape has a lot to offer,â he said.
Standing near an outdoor display, Mr Fancher indicated the different shapes and colors of the evergreens. He suggests cutting, layering, and then fasting the greens with wire. Greens and berries from the backyard can be used to adorn birdhouses and feeders, stonewalls, front doors, and more. He said, âYou can get as creative as your imagination takes you.â
Resident, local conservationist, and artist Patricia Barkman said this week, âI use lots of lights and greens and bows.â She said she enjoys adding festive touches to her home both indoors and out for the cold season. She also mentions swags, which she described as âan easy wreath.â She uses branches of greens and ties them with wire, then adds a bow. âIt can land on a mantel or a door, especially with a nice bow.â
White pine and cedar branches âwill keep for months if theyâre kept moist.â She favors the cedar. âIt smells nice, it keeps, itâs lacey.â She likes to add roses to arrangements for color, too. âRed for Christmas is quite lovely,â she said.
Stealing tips from Europe, where she has traveled, Ms Barkman also learned to use ivy and moss as decoration.
Like Ms Barkman, many residents are dressing up their homes and tables for coming holidays.
Mentioning one of his favorite plants in this yearâs decorations, Mr Reelik pointed out the evergreen cryptomeria, which is in the cypress family. It offers a rusty gold color, short bursts of bunched green, and clusters of berrylike cones. Yellow or variegated boxwoods offer compact little leaves that draw the eye in a centerpiece. Twigs of birch offer a mahogany color, while reds and yellows come from varieties of dogwood.
âMost landscapes have more in them than people realize,â Mr Reelik said. âThere is a lot out there.â Certain varieties of plants already have next yearâs buds on them, which can add âfabulousâ color to arrangements, he said. âA well landscaped residence is a haven for Christmas pickings.â
For residents inclined to walk through the yard and clip greens and branches, or venture into Newtownâs abundant forests for evergreens and native berries, he said, âThe same principles apply to landscapes as interior design, contrasts of colors, placements and scale â¦â
With a final thought, he said, âBlue spruce is a good accent; everyone has blue spruce.â
A Decorating History Of Newtown
The town was not always dressed in festive ribbons and sparkling holiday lights, as Town Historian Dan Cruson explains.
In some parts of New England in the mid-1600s, he said, âThe law stated that you could be fined three shillings if you celebrated Christmas.â The act was considered pagan, he said. An âinflux of the German and Irishâ brought changes to the holiday season roughly 200 years later. Although Christmas decorations started in the mid-1800s, Mr Cruson said, âThere was not an indoor Christmas tree yet.â
Based on journals and past accounts he has found in town, he said Christmas celebrations were similar to Thanksgiving. âPeople would meet for a feast, go to church, and that was decorated with pine bows and greens.â Based on his research, âTrinity [Episcopal] Church was the first mention of a tree.â
Santa did not arrive in Newtown until the late 1800s, years after the poem âA Visit From St Nicholas,â which is generally attributed to American Clement Moore, introduces âjolly old Saint Nicholasâ in the early 1800s. The poem begins, â âTwas the night before Christmasâ¦â
Mr Cruson notes how Santa has changed. âHe was originally only 20 inches tall. He was an elf and he drove a miniature sleigh.â
Before the holiday became as âcommercial and fierceâ as it is today, Mr Cruson said it was often a time for family, as he has learned from early journals. Decorating was not part of the original holiday, and was âsubduedâ in the 19th Century.
Christmas trees did not appear in the townâs history until the late 1800s, and reach back to a Victorian past, he said. Before trees became traditional, decorations of the time were âgenerally found outside and brought in.â
Conifers, holly, or âwhatever was greenâ came in the house for wreaths, etc. âIt was a matter of using what was around the house â again, a Victorian custom,â Mr Cruson said.
As recently as the 1940s and 1950s he said The Newtown Bee âran a contest for lights and door decorations.â
Offering âan interesting sidelight,â Mr Cruson noted that Christmas and holiday lights did not arrive in town until after electricity came in 1914. âBefore then, people would have used candles.â