Deck the Halls with Nature: Holiday Decorating Ideas from The Webster Arboretum

Bring the Outdoors Inside this Christmas

With the holidays coming up, why not try decorating naturally? Instead of only purchasing decorations, you can find inspiration and materials right in your own backyard or garden. Nature provides plenty of beautiful options, like foliage, berries, dried flowers, and seedpods that can make your decor both festive and original. You can always add a few store-bought touches if you'd like, but don't forget—there is beauty just outside your window.

Natural Elements for Festive Arrangements

Enhance your holiday decorations with natural items such as hollies, red osier dogwood, winterberry, paper birch, and conifer boughs. By this time of year, herbs like artemisia, santolina, lavender, and sage have usually dried on the stem, making them perfect for arrangements. Euonymus can add vibrant color, while dried sprays of ornamental grass bring texture and interest. Arborvitae is an excellent choice for greenery that lasts without shedding needles.

For additional pops of color, seek out red sumac heads, rose hips, winterberry, or viburnum berries to enliven wreaths and greenery displays. Unique seed pods from plants like milkweed, iris, daylily, peony, rue, nigella, and poppy can serve as focal points. Mosses, lichens, and strips of birch bark add a rustic touch to any arrangement. The possibilities are endless when working with nature’s bounty.

Rustic and Aromatic Touches

For a cozy, aromatic setting, use fresh or dried branches, cinnamon sticks, rosemary, and fragrant herbs. Add dried hydrangeas, roses, astilbes, ornamental grasses, citrus slices, or foraged twigs and berries for rustic color. Spray-paint these cuttings to preserve them and enhance vibrancy or use dried blossoms as natural Christmas tree decorations.

Creative Ways to Decorate

• Create table decor, wreaths, swags, centerpieces, or decorate your Christmas tree using materials found outdoors.

• Enhance arrangements with citrus fruits, cranberries, and candles for a warm, festive glow.

• Use pieces of wood, birch bark, and moss as accents for tables or mantels.

• Make dried orange slices to use as ornaments, garlands, or centerpieces.

• Gather pinecones, twigs, and seed pods from milkweed, peonies, or lilies to highlight your decor. Attach them to branches or wreaths with floral wire or spray-paint them for added color.

• Add sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme to your holiday table for fragrance and greenery.

• Use grapevine, artemisia, red twig dogwood, and aromatic herb stems to make wreath bases. Wrap bunches of evergreens around the base with twine, then add your natural finds.

• Fill vases with lush evergreen branches and festive ornaments for an easy, elegant display.

• Decorate your tree or vases with dried hydrangea blossoms, spray-painted red, silver, or gold for a pop of color.

Simple Table Runners and Accents

To assemble an elegant natural table runner, trim stems of eucalyptus or similar greenery and arrange them along the length of the table so they meet at the center. Add smaller greens to achieve fullness and place pomegranates atop the foliage for added color. Create clove-studded orange pomander balls to enhance visual interest while imparting a subtle, spicy fragrance to your table setting or tree.

Encircle tea lights with natural evergreens and pinecones, utilizing this arrangement either as a table runner or as decorative accents for mantels and side tables. For an additional touch of color, position bright cranberries around candles or tea lights. Fill clear jars with greenery and pinecones to provide simple yet attractive accent pieces.

Fruit and Spice Accents

Slices of apples, oranges, lemons, and limes can be dried in a low oven or dehydrator for quick, colorful ornaments or garlands. Whole nutmegs and cinnamon sticks add both visual appeal and a festive aroma. Feel free to improvise with the materials you have on hand.

Design Tips for Natural Beauty

Keep your arrangements simple to highlight the natural beauty of the plants. Focus on combining different textures—smooth with rough, round with spiky—to create visual interest. Make the most of nature’s gifts and enjoy a fresh, organic approach to holiday decorating this season.