DIY Festive Winter Containers When It’s Too Cold for Plants

Imagine bold red berries and cabernet-colored branches mingling with forest green foliage and ghostly white tree trunks, all standing guard over a fairy land of moss and lichen. The fluffy seed heads of dried grasses, decorated with flakes of drifting snow, are twinkling in the moonlight.

These compositions would be difficult to achieve in a small container garden with live plants, but can be created in under an hour as part of a winter display on the front porch or backyard patio. By working with the parts of plants that show their best face during the coldest time of year, you can build striking arrangements that showcase the quiet beauty of the season.

Miniature Winter Wonderland

LET’S GET STARTED!

Install limbs cut from birches or other trees with whitish bark as vertical anchors in the largest pots. Use pieces about 2 inches in diameter and up to four times the height of the pot. Push several into each container, tapping them with a hammer as deep as possible into the soil so they don’t wobble.

Add sprays of red-twig dogwood branches, arranging them in front of birches so they show up well against the white. These need to be pushed just a few inches into the soil to be steady.

Carpet the base of the pots with moss, lichen or straw, allowing the materials to spill freely over the edge of the containers. Alternatively you could use a second group of evergreen branches to spill over the edges

Mix small branches of pine, cedar, spruce or other trees with needle-like foliage below the level of the dogwood branches at varying heights for fullness and contrast.

Clusters of pine cones nestled into this base are a nice additional touch. Place clusters of berries amongst the branches. Holly, highbush cranberry, Virginia creeper and chinaberry all colorful have fruits that persist through the winter.