Make your own welcome wreaths for a beautiful, festive home

Just like flowers in a pot or a bouquet, an easy-to-make wreath of fresh flowers can be used to decorate your home and welcome your guests. Here are some tips for success with this decorative piece.

• Wreaths are loaded with meaning: their shape symbolises infinity, without beginning or end. They represent unity, perfection, and the cycles of nature and life. In ancient Greece, they were used to reward scholars, artists, soldiers and exceptional athletes. In Rome, they were given to military leaders.
• Today, they can be either simply decorative or full of meaning; depending on the flowers chosen, they can decorate a birthday table or can be brought to a wedding celebration. But they can also reflect the season. So for instance, berries and rose hips are used to create a beautiful autumnal wreath.
• This type of decoration is clearly not made to last, but its frame can be used time and time again and it isn't hard to make; when it wilts, start planning a new one.

• Awreath can be simple, such as the example shown here, or have multiple layers. Try different compositions by mixing fresh and dried plants, but remember that once cut, some of them will have a shorter life-span than others. The flowers can be of one colour, several shades or contrasting colors.
• You can buy the frames ready-made, in raffia, polystyrene foam, wire, dried grass or tree branches, or make them yourself, using branches of dogwood or honeysuckle (without leaves). Whatever the material, it must be flexible enough to make into a wreath, but also strong enough to hold the flowers and foliage without losing its shape. One more thing: fixing the flowers and leaves should be easy.

Which plants to choose?

That is the big question when designing a wreath. The following information on the meanings attributed to plants, will help you to make your selection.

• Olive: peace, prosperity, purification, strength, victory and reward
• Laurel: victory and excellence
• Evergreen: eternal life and resurrection
• Violet: loyalty

How to make it

• If using a ribbon, attach it from the start, because it will be difficult to add it later on without damaging or hiding the foliage.
• Attach a length of iron florist wire to form the wreath's hanger.
• At the end of each stage, hang the wreath to get a sense of the full effect. When it's laid flat, there's no way of seeing if it is overloaded or unbalanced.

  Here are the materials you'll need and the steps to follow.

• Frame, bought from the florist or hobbyist stores
• Green wire, cut into short lengths
• Secateurs
• Ribbon to hang the wreath or as a decoration
• Olive branches
• Laurel sprigs
• Violets and other flowers (lavender, roses without thorns, carnations, jasmine)

1. Place the frame flat on a table. Using the metal wire, attach the olive branches around the whole circumference, ensuring that they overlap.
2. Add a few sprigs of laurel, attaching them firmly. These should be short to avoid an excessively bushy end result.
3. Add small bunches of violets and other flowers. If the chosen flower has particularly beautiful leaves, add them too (here, the broad leaves of violets contrast with the narrow foliage of the olive and laurel).
4. The final impression shouldn't be too elaborate. When it comes to wreaths, natural-looking is beautiful.

These few ideas will help you to make an inviting welcome wreath!