There’s nothing like the scent of fresh evergreens to make you take a deep breath and remember why Christmas is the best time of the year. Our team has been busy cutting and arranging fresh-cut wintergreen boughs into an astounding number of indoor and outdoor containers, centerpieces, and more.
We’d love to share how our team works to bring that wonderful fragrance to your home during the holidays. And whether you’re creating your own or you’d like us to design something for you, we invite you to stop by our fresh-cut wintergreens market for everything you need to welcome the season back to your doorstep.
Starting with the Greens
The fragrant boughs that fill our wintergreens market come primarily from coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest. Conifers from this area have the kind of soft, fragrant foliage that floral designers all over the country prize in their work.
After being cut, the boughs are quickly and carefully packed into boxes and shipped by refrigerated truck straight to the door of our own climate-controlled cooler. There, our team unpacks the boughs, sorts them, then bundles and tags the single- and mixed-variety bunches that you find at the store. We also prepare to transform a large portion of the boughs into thousands of beautiful premade planters – all while keeping the greens at the perfect chilly temperature needed to maintain their beauty and fragrance.
The Excitement Behind It All
If you think it’s a treat to breathe in the fresh evergreen scent emanating from a doorstep planter, just imagine how much our Farms team enjoys being engulfed in it as we create each one. It’s a process we’ve perfected over the years – with team members past and present contributing their own talents and perspectives to its success. Team leader Sheldon Garcia looks forward to this time of year. Despite working in temperatures that require a coat and gloves, he finds the colder temperatures refreshing and says working with the wintergreens is an exciting project that spurs everyone’s anticipation for the coming holidays.
It all starts as we fill the fiber slip pots with moistened potting mix. Then we gather the clippers, line up the team, and start cutting, poking, and arranging the boughs into planters, one after the other, in an assembly line that’s fast-paced and exciting. Then each planter gets a spray of natural, biodegradable pine oil emulsion – called Wilt-Pruf – to help keep their moisture and extend their beauty for several weeks.
Our Completed Designs
Next, using natural twigs, ornaments, and other decorations – many of the planters are transformed into a completed design ready to drop into your doorstep planter. This year’s assortment includes three different recipes using combinations of colorful shatterproof ornaments – in shiny or matte finish – plus birch poles or twigs, outdoor-friendly berries, and natural or frosted cones. You’ll find this festive selection filling the tables in our plaza in our three most popular drop-in fiber pot sizes – 12-, 15-, and 18-inch – plus our 14-inch black planters too.
Sheldon says it’s a great feeling to see so many of you enjoying all the planters filling the store – he just wishes everyone could take a big, deep breath of the incredible fragrance the team gets to experience while they work.
Everything for the DIY Designer
Of course, if you’d rather do the decorating or clipping yourself, we completely understand. So, we leave plenty of pots filled with just fresh-cut boughs for you to have fun embellishing yourself. Plus you’ll find all the beautiful varieties of spruce, pine, cedar, and fir in single-variety and mixed-variety bundles – as well as fresh stems of oregonia, red huckleberry, and redtwig dogwood, birch poles, weather-resistant berries, and more. You’ll find everything you need to add to your premade arrangement or start one completely from scratch.
Custom Designs
And if your plans for your container include something else entirely – additional varieties of wintergreens, maybe another type of twig, favorite ornaments, or lights – just stop by the Container Design desk in our Greenhouse. We’d be happy to put together a combination that matches your vision for your space.
Holiday Planters for Your Doorstep
Fragrant, fresh-cut wintergreens are the perfect way to celebrate the season at your doorstep. If an instant holiday welcome is what you need, grab one of our decorated or undecorated, premade doorstep planters, starting at $49.99. But if you’re looking for something custom-designed or maybe love wielding those clippers yourself, we can help with that too. To get in contact with a team member or for directions to our store, click here.
