Decorating with natural berries for  fresh Winter color!

Keep a winter decorating theme in your home using the cozy color of natural twigs, pine cones, boughs and colorful berries.  Use fresh cut flowers and foliage for a winter floral arrangement and learn what plants to grow that produce the berries you can use year after year.

Before and after the holidays, I like to decorate my house in a fresh new way sometimes. I bring out my favorite cobalt blue and aqua glass combination and if it’s wintery and cold, I lay the furry sheepskin over the back of the couch.  For more on the use of teal or aqua in or out of the garden see  ‘A Touch of Teal‘   This year I’m using the insulators that I found last spring at a yard sale and bringing the garden inside by mixing them with a new color,.. red!

Bowl of berries
These Pyracantha coccinea or Firethorn berries are a bright spot on the steep bank to the south of the house. Why not bring some inside, I thought? I put on gloves and gathered a few sprigs along with some cedar and a bit of blue to match the Rainbow pattern California pottery bowl used as a low vase. I also spotted some myrtle berries I could try and some rosemary blooming this month!

The painting here was done by my grandmother. It goes, doesn’t it?

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Create a cool centerpiece

Down the center of the redwood table over a plaid blanket, I placed an old barn board to hold the insulators, each with a small light inside from a string of battery powered lights not used last month. The light string has 16 lights and I placed the insulators over every other one. The cedar branches and the berries were arranged between and this color pleases me next to the lit aqua glass.  Simple and refreshing!

Cobalt and myrtle

The myrtle berries fill a cobalt blue vase of my Grandmother’s, perfect for a small corner somewhere. The myrtle, M. communis ‘Compacta’ is evergreen here and just now big enough to produce berries for the first time.

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Brighten up a window

Then I spied my large glass canister which had held terrarium plants until recently. Filled with the berries displayed like a fine work of art, it will jazz up the windowsill this month.  The brass deer and the tapestry pillow add richness.

Here are more berries for decorating:

Christmas berry or Toyon
Nandina
Holly
Redberry
Rose hips
Madrone
Snowberry
Cotoneaster

It is said that every room should have a bit of red in it and I agree!  ~~ Sue