Making Small Evergreen Trees for an Outdoor Winter Centerpiece! 🦌🌲❄️ // Garden Answer

hey guys how's it going so today i would like to try to create a winter centerpiece for this table right behind us so we walk by this table a lot throughout the day it's right by our back kitchen door which is the one that we use the most to go in and out of our house and so i always like to have something kind of pretty sitting here on the table but since it's winter time uh it's got to be something that can handle the cold i actually had this sitting here this summer with some plectranthus in there there's some something in lime i can't remember the exact variety name anyway it was really pretty and simple and it was easy to move on and off the table because erin and i do use this table for projects and for flower arrangements and things so that's the thing with this winter arrangement we won't be using this table quite as much because it's just so darn cold out here but i just want something pretty the whole rest of the area is looking a little stark compared to what it usually looks like because one we did remove the japanese maple finally that was sitting here in this pot it had languished for part of last year and then this year i tried to see if we could get it to do something and it just never came out of whatever had happened to it so we removed that and then these trellises here they're gorgeous just on their own but they're typically covered with pink meat clematis that just kind of they don't like 100 cover it so you can still see the structure but they do add some softness that is now gone anyway i mean i do like the tidy look but it'll be pretty to have something here as well i picked up some fairy lights that we might use in this project so when i was at the craft store recently i was looking through their holiday stuff and i saw a really cute little mini evergreen tree that they had made it was artificial of course and this one won't be i have real greens to try to make this but what it looked like was a little log base and then they had made a hole in that log and put a branch in it and then lashed some artificial like evergreen picks to it making it look like an evergreen tree it was so cute and i thought you know what i could forage around our neighbors had this brush pile that they said we could go pick some stuff out of i thought i could go get some logs and branches we can grab some greens and just see what we can come up with here if i could create a little grouping of those inside a container with some moss and pine cones and i do have a little deer figurine i think that'd be really cute so we're here in the studio i want to show you kind of what i'm thinking so i did mess around with this just a little bit to see if it was possible and i do think it is i have this metal container from it was from the garden center i picked it up a long time ago we've done several gardens in this anything low i think would work really well for this nothing that i'm planning on using in this garden needs to be watered which is so nice this is going to be something we can stick outside nothing is tender to the cold nothing has to be watered it's just one of those things we can just let up sit out there and be pretty so i'm not concerned about the vessel or the container being watertight i think this one is but it doesn't have to be necessarily so you can see the base here and then i just used a spade bit to cut the middle out and then here's my branch and i've got some evergreens outside but i do need to go get more like this isn't going to do well it might it kind of gets straight it would give it character right i'm thinking of making three trees at differing heights but we need to go grab a few more supplies this is what i've got out so far we've got a drill there's the spade bit i was using i think it'll depend on the size of branch this is a three quarter inch here and then a reciprocating saw to cut my stuff which you wouldn't need you could just use a hand saw it wouldn't take that long these are actually leftover supplies from when i was working on benjamin's butterfly garden and i wasn't really thinking about this project when i was doing that one so i didn't get exactly what i needed that's why i need to run back over and see if i can find some straight branches um for the uprights yeah already seeing some good contenders out here that's a pretty easy pile right there yeah there's some nice straight sticks in there perfect this is exactly the type that i'm looking for right in here see how straight that is something without a curve in it will be really nice so i'm going to gather a few that look just like this probably like there's a good one right here with a smaller diameter i just need a handful yeah it's perfect okay i think i've got everything i need for the project now you could go with a branch or a log that's much wider than this and it's heavier this is a really dense branch i'm not sure what kind of tree this came off of but it's pretty heavy so i'm i'm hopeful that it'll stay upright once we get all the greens attached to the branch the vertical branch that we're going to put in here so i've got my safety glasses here we're going to put these on and get one of these cut i think i'm going to cut two because the one one of the ones i cut before is a little bit wonky so anyway reciprocating saw you could use a hand saw for this and i'm just going to cut it about here so it's not like four or five inches or so here we go [Applause] huh that's perfect perfect one more [Applause] i think most normal people would do this step outside i'm pretty sure okay that looks great i'm going to clean this up a little well actually you know what no cleaning not necessary until our next step is done which is using the spade bit to make our hole in the middle here i'm going to swap batteries this is why we have all dewalt tools because i i can swap batteries from tool to tool really easily okay so in this one here i'm thinking this branch would be good and i'm going to start with the three-quarter inch spade bit here because i think that that'll be nice i might have to trim up these little knots on the side but i do want it to be kind of a snug fit i don't want it to be super loose so anyway so i'm just going to find a spot right here in the center and i'm going to try to make the hole fairly deep because the deeper the branches the more stability it has okay before we get too far i'm just going to test this it's looking like it's not going to be yeah i might have to go up a size hang on let me change out my bit this is a 15 16. even though i had that size okay let's test that you know what that one's a little bit too big i don't have anything in between though so what i think i'll do is still use this and i've got a little bit of putty that i can just kind of put down in the hole to help stabilize it and you could stick anything in there i mean you could stick a little branch down in there on either side just to kind of help support it okay i got the first hole done now it looks to be a little bit off-center i don't know how i did that but this is reminiscent of when i made those birch candle stick holders a long long time ago i had to use a little bit of a bigger spade bit but this is essentially the same thing you just kind of ream out a hole and put your tea light down in there and then you've got some really neat wood candle sticks so let's test this out yep it's a little bit loose but what you can do is you get it positioned actually that looks really good so you can see i've got some space on this side so i'm just going to take some branches i'll just skip the putty just take some branches and start filling up that hole right there and we'll get it nice and tight in there that'll work out perfect just little wedges like that now i don't think i actually want my tree to be this tall so i'm going to cut it a little ways down here about here it's hanging on by a thread there we go that's perfect okay let's get the hole done in this one real quick so that we've got them both prepped and ready to roll and i think i'm just going to start this one down on the ground in between my feet it's just easier oh so much faster oh yeah still a tiny bit loose so again we are just gonna find a little stick here we'll wedge it in there there perfect and then i'm going to cut this one down about where it forks nope perfect so now that i have the structure of these kind of complete i'm going to clear all of this stuff off bring in my evergreens and wire and we're just going to put these together i don't think this is going to take very long it's really not that involved of a project honestly okay i'm going to start with my tallest one first so i've got my base structure i've got paddle wire which is 22 gauge paddle wire and then my pruners and then i've got some spring grove arbor vita here so what i think i'm gonna do is just cause like this is essentially what we're going for right here i mean just a thicker version so i'm just gonna select a few branches and wire them to the top of this branch i think that's all there is to this project so i'm going to go ahead and cut a few pieces of paddle wire just to have off to the side and ready to go i think the main thing just kind of like when you're making wreaths or swags you want to make sure to tie them on with the wire really tight because the greens will desiccate they will dry and when they do that they shrink up a little bit so if you don't have that wire tight they can tend to want to fall out of wherever you've got them attached to so let's see i might have to trim some up a little bit but this one's nice and forked at the top i don't know if i should do them individually or all at the same time maybe individually that way we make sure we've got the wire tight so i've got my wire here i'm going to go ahead and go around the top of this one and attach it like this i've got my wire attached and then around and around kind of manipulating the branch making sure i like the way it looks this is a nice big one nice and fluffy i think that's another beautiful thing about this project is it doesn't seem to take a lot of evergreens just a few stems i'm going to cut this one it was sticking out a little bit far and because i'm going to be putting three of these together in the same container i need them to be kind of slim i'm just going to slide a few pieces in like if you look at this side right here you can see it's a little bit empty so i'm going to slide a piece right up in here and just kind of fuss with this a little bit to where i like the shape of it that looks really cute okay let's move on to the next one for the next tree here i've got the smallest actually of the three base structures i'm gonna use this noble fur for this one i thought it would be pretty to use a different evergreen for every tree because that's what you do find in a woodland forest type situation but the shortest one i think will be the best for this type of evergreen because it tends to be a little bit more squat and wide like even the longer pieces here they have a little bit more width it's not as like wispy as the arbor vita was to work with so i'm thinking something like this might be nice let me get all of my wire set first i cut more than i did last time i have a feeling i'm going to be fussing with this once it's in its garden too like if one of the trees is a little too wide i think you can kind of wire the branch in a little bit kind of fun so the same way i just have my piece of wire attached to this we're just going to wire it on and keep building until we like the way it looks oh i don't like how this one's turning out at all i'm going to tear this one apart i think that this one was already kind of my wonky one so i'm going to try cutting this one down to size so that i'm not dealing with a branch that is bent that's part of my problem see that this type of green just might not lay the same we'll see [Music] [Music] there turned out pretty cute look okay now the last one i'm going to use a princess pine which looks like this this is going to be interesting though because this is much more airy of an evergreen it's going to take a lot more here we go [Music] oh my gosh they turned out so cute a little bit bigger than i had anticipated though so i think i'm gonna only be able to fit two in this container rather than all three look at him though so simple so simple i can't even believe it now i kind of worked out by the last one that it's better to lash some on in the middle and create a bottom layer first and then work your way up kind of like you do with a garland or a wreath you know you start on one end and then kind of build from there it worked out perfectly now i did pop a little bit of hot glue right toward the top just to kind of hold the ends together and then hide the ends of this one because they were a little bit more blunt i kind of like the little top not on that one i don't know we'll see i also like put together a little star kind of looks like a sand dollar though maybe it's the middle thing i don't know i was thinking of maybe putting it like that but i don't think i'm going to i don't know that i like that but i did think it would be cute to put a few little cones in there possibly tuck some winter berry holly in for some color i do have fairy lights i've got my little deer here i could put in and then i need to grab some moss and things so anyway i'm super happy with how it turned out though this was the uh probably the hardest one right here the fur because they're so thick and kind of stubby compared to kind of the graceful branches that are a little bit longer like the uh there's arbavida in here spring grove and there's also incense cedar and that's when it has little yellow pods there and then that's princess pine so now i'm just gonna work on putting together the arrangement i'm going to grab my moss probably some larger pine cones and it just feels good to use things that were laying around in a brush pile or just you know things that we already have on hand minus a few of the greens here which i could have harvested out of my own garden um anyway yeah super fun the next step is to put moss around all of these things now i have this bag of royal pool moss it's a super moss brand i really like it because it comes out in these big pieces which look really interesting but i don't think one bag will actually fill up this whole container so i have a box of bulk kind of cheaper moss that i've reused throughout the years that i'm going to put at the base of this container to be more of a filler and then i'll use this as a decorative top let me grab that moss see this moss used to be green but i've had it for so long and have used it in so many projects that it's now kind of brown which still that's kind of natural looking might be kind of nice to have a little bit of variation so i am just kind of spreading it out here right at the base kind of a nice color break from all the green maybe on top maybe it's a the way i should go okay now let's see what it looks like when i add some of these in i like the variation right here i think that's really pretty i've got really sap covered fingers right now that pine okay i just changed it i had all of the evergreens in kind of a trio with a bunch of moss at the base and it just kind of looked like a blob to me there was no differentiation between like what my eye was looking at i really wanted to see some of the base here uh and it just like i really needed a space like this a resting space for your eye uh so i thought let's see i think adding stuff like this in will be really nice too and some pine cones a little bit of um kind of uh structural things rather than just a bunch of fluff so anyway i still have the pine back here and the fur and the arborvitae just kind of squish together a little bit more so i'm just going to fuss with it a little bit and i'm going to do most of this from the well all of it from the front because i can't see anything of what's going on at this point [Music] and there it is with lights which i really like i think that that's going to be kind of a necessary thing and so sweet to see as you walk by the table i love it and it's really the only unnatural i guess kind of touch in there it felt the little red even though like that looks festive it felt a little bit too much for this garden i mean you could keep adding and adding and adding you could put little christmas ornaments hanging off of these trees you could do whatever you want with these and it would be really fun just even do a single tree or to line these trees up like in a mantle sort of situation i think that would be really cute anyway i think the last thing to do is just go set this where it's going to live and here it is done sitting on the table where it will live so long as it can hold up to the wind right here this isn't a tremendously windy spot because it is blocked by the back shade porch which oh my word there's so much stuff in here right now this is some of my christmas stuff that i am just still trying to work through look at this oh my goodness our stuff lives in the loft in the barn but it comes to the back shade porch until i'm done going through all the tub so everything gets moved here i go through it decorate and then all the tubs get moved back to the barn until we're ready to undecorate so right now it's just kind of like it's a little bit of chaos all over the place i have five trees up so far uh with plans of doing one or two more maybe um and then of course table tops and things like that so soon the shade porch will be cleaned out anyway back to our garden i could tack these down because i can still lift these right up out of here i could tack these down with a little bit of putty or even hot glue well i don't know if the hot glue would stick though with it being so cold back here i don't know anyway i'm not too stressed about it i think it's really pretty right here if we have any issues with these toppling over we will probably just move this to the front porch where it's way more protected or even back in here closer to the door i'm just really thrilled with how these turned out given the fact that i'd never made one before and i usually uh like i never know how to attack these sorts of projects like how to film them i'm hoping we got enough footage that you were able to see how i was actually able to get these done they're pretty simple though you guys won't have any issue if you try to put these together getting them to look really good because it's just they're pretty straightforward but i never really know how to attack it when i really don't know the steps myself until i actually get into the project so i'm just really thrilled with how this turned out i might even tackle a few maybe smaller ones if i could go back and do it again i would probably scale the trees down just a little bit but i think they turned out pretty either way so anyway thank you guys so much for watching and hanging out with me today and we will see you in the next video bye i gotta go wash all the sap off my hands now

Channel: Garden Answer

Views: 219,665

Keywords: Garden, Answer, Laura, Flower, gardening, gardener, beautiful, succulents, diy, grow, green, Proven, Winners, Fall, Winter, summer, spring, plant, planting, growing, plants, succulent, shrubs, shrub, bush, soil, dirt, earth

Id: D6h8Py8uz4w

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021