Do you have a favorite winter container combination?

How are you pricing your containers?

Any advice on putting the containers together?

I'll be contacting local christmas tree farmers for prices on evergreen tips and bales this week. I have already started drying hydrangea blooms, seed pods and sedum stems.

Where do you get your red twig dogwood stems, winterberry stems?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Walk the field ditches for grasses. If it goes big, plant patches of perennial grass. Doesn't take much of a patch to provide a lot of seed head bouquets.

Dogwood normally is found on the edge of poplar stands here, or near the edges of sloughs. It's another one that is easy to grow if you have a patch of moist soil. Cut to the ground every two years if you want straight stems. Prune knee high if you want branched stems.

Cattails are another easily harvested one, but it's too late this year. (November) You want to get the heads before they dry enough to fall apart. If they are marginal, spray with hair spray. Catch them just as the rushes are turning brown.

Teasles are another interested dried seed head. Note they are considered noxious weeds in some areas.

If you are wreath making, you may be able to preserve fall leaves by using a plant press, then spraying them with a mix of glycerin and a carrier. Either water, or alchohol. You will need to experiment. Depending on your use you may want some curl.

Lot of this stuff is available in bulk from floral wholesalers, but after looking at their prices you may want to harvest for them instead of buying from them.