So there I was innocently living my life, knowing deep in my heart it was only one day ’til wreath class, when suddenly the call came. The glue gun call.
I — perhaps the last person in crafty America not to own a glue gun — was caught empty-handed. The sweet soul on the other end of the line, someone from the Chicago Botanic Garden making sure I’d be ready for wreath class, was letting me know I needed to bring a glue gun.
“But I don’t have one,” I stammered, ashamed to be found out.
“Could you buy one?” she asked, innocently enough.
Indeed, by the time I wandered into Annex #2, a once-mobile home off to the south of the parking lots, a building so, um, user-friendly not even a glue-gun virgin could wreak lasting damage, I was armed and probably dangerous.
There I stood, me and my glue gun still in its plastic packaging, when the warm and wonderful, and nearly famous, Nancy Clifton, Botanic Garden horticulturist (and author of Home&Garden’s gardening Q&A column), walked up and made me feel not quite so out of my element.
You see, I love crafty things. Admire the heck out of those who can do ’em. But I am not what you call a crafty girl. Heck, once when I was sewing a salmon shimmery sheath for Turnabout (a high school phenomenon in which the girls ask the boys to the dance), I forgot o let up on the pedal at the end of the seam and sewed right up my right index finger.
But, eager to wreathe, I stepped up to the plate.
There, spread on the table before me, were sumptuous bundles of greens. And berries that made me hungry for rainbow sherbet, all lemon, lime, raspberry and orange. Beside it all was a 14-inch round wire frame. The girdle, if you will, of all this greenery.
Line `em up
Since I was taking the Merry, Berry Wreath Class, and not the Grapevine and Gourd Wreath Class with everyone else in the room, it turned out I never got to get at my glue gun. In fact, it’s still in plastic, now limp and fully lacking hope.
My secret weapon this night was what they in the business call paddle wire, that is floral wire, 22 to 24 gauge, that comes wrapped on a paddle for easy winding and unwinding.
Clifton, whose mother it turns out was my Brownie leader 900 years ago, is talked about in reverent tones. People in and outside of the garden ooh and ahh when they hear she’s teaching a class. She is Chicago’s answer to Martha Stewart it seems. Only she is sweet and encouraging at every turn.
So it was as she grabbed for the Felco pruners and the first fistful of juniper.
She soothed as she talked. “This is so easy, even the most ten-thumbed wannabe could do this,” she said starting to snip. She explained that what we wanted here was an assembly line. I was to cut each big bundle of the four evergreens — juniper, taxus, hemlock and cedar — into little piles, each snip somewhere between 6 to 8 inches.
Then, presto, I would pluck from this pile and that and make a little bundle. That’s where the paddle wire comes in. I’d take a strand and start wrapping, holding tight the little stems of my bundle. Once I had a bundle, I had a choice: I could keep bundling, or I could start wiring each bundle, one at a time onto the wire frame, overlapping the previous bundle.
Bundles of berries
With a strand of paddle wire wrapped around the wire frame for anchoring, I then had my lead piece that I would never cut. I’d simply wrap a bundle about six times, lay it onto the wreath and wrap six or so more times, until it was tight on the frame.
“Imagine a clock,” advised the wise one, the calm one, the one who was simultaneously teaching the rest of the class how to do gourds and grapevines and then leaping to the back of the room to make sure I hadn’t succumbed to glue-gun fever.
And so, wincing as I went, for awhile there thinking I was the proud owner of the first rectangular wreath, I plucked and I bundled.
At last I had a wreath. It was round (OK, so maybe it did look like someone sat down on 3 o’clock). It was green. It smelled like someone walked me out to the middle of an enchanted forest and left me there to find my way home (which, come to think of it, is sort of how I felt back there in the back of the trailer home).
Now it was berry time. Here is where I started drooling. For the cost of the class ($87), I had my pick of more berries than I could ever dream if I ogled them at the garden store. But now, rose hips the color of persimmons, china berries as lime as a good summer daiquiri, pepper berries a subtle pink, and hypericum a lemony yellow, were mine for the plucking.
Once again, Clifton had me snip and wrap, making lovely little bundles of all my berries. They looked like bulbous baby nosegays, and as Clifton noted, they hardly shouted, “Merry Christmas,” but rather suggested a walk in a winter woodland. Not everyone in America is keen on wearing candy-cane sweaters all December. And this was the wreath, subtle, elegant, wintry without being blatantly Christmasy, for those of us who like a little understatement with our winter holidays.
Holding fast
To give my berry bundles some heft, since they might well have to stand up to the opening and slamming of the front door all through the holiday madness, Clifton had me use a giant-size toothpick thingie otherwise known as a “wired pic.”
This big green stick with a shiny copper wire tied to its neck is in fact the backbone of my bundle. I wrapped the fine copper wire first, and then for backup, I take five or six paddle wire wraps. Then with the finesse of a nurse taking a rectal temperature, Clifton has me ram the green stick into the thick of the evergreen bundles.
“Make sure it catches,” she says, ramming. I try to do the same. I used to be a nurse so I should be good at this. But, alas, I need another ramming tutorial.
Clifton, ever patient, rams again. This time, I mimic her precisely. And my berry bundle sticks. I have seven bundles to ram. Clifton reminds me that odd numbers are always a good thing, in wreathmaking or most artistic adventures.
I look at my watch. In less than the time it would take me to drive to the garden center, meander around looking for a wreath and then walking away sadly because I could never afford one as gorgeous as the one I’ve just bundled, wrapped and rammed, I’ve got a beauty for my front door.
Clifton, ever bursting with ideas, tells me that if I don’t want to hang it on my door I could use it on the table, with candles tucked here and there. Or I could lay it on top of my winter container, and use it as a base, with all sorts of berry branches pirouetting from the middle. She had so many ideas I couldn’t scribble them fast enough.
Take her class. You’ll be merry, berry glad.
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CLASS NOTES
CLASS: Merry, Berry Wreath
LOCATION: Joseph Regenstein School of the Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe.
DURATION: Two-hour-long, one-time class.
DATE: 10 a.m. to noon or 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 5.
COST: $87 for non-members. (You are asked to bring gloves, pruners and a box to carry home your wreath; I brought none of the above, but I did bring my glue gun, which set me back $35.83 even though I never used it. All greens, berries and other materials are included in the fee.)
WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS CLASS:
– Anyone who needs a little December therapy. If you have to choose between yoga or wreathmaking to catch your bliss, remember this: You get a gorgeous green thing to hang on your front door, and you won’t pull a muscle.
– Anyone who flips through shelter mags and drools at the December decor. Once you master this, the world of wreathmaking is yours.
WHO SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS CLASS:
– Anyone allergic to evergreens.
– Scrooge.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT: What’s not to love about a class in which you get to play in an enchanted forest of greens and winter berries, with an instructor who’s behind you every step of the way? Even for a glue-gun virgin, this wreathmaking was a breeze. And can I tell you how sweet it is to wander by my beautiful wreath and mutter under my breath, “Oh my, I made this, and I did not do in a single digit.”
CONTACT: Register online at www.chicagobotanic.org/school or call 847-835-8261.
OTHER PLACES TO LEARN: Sid’s Greenhouses, 10926 Southwest Highway, Palos Hills, 800-974-7437, and 550 S. Naperville-Plainfield Rd., Bolingbrook, 866-904-1007, will be holding wreathmaking and wreath-decorating classes from 10 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday. Registration deadline is Wednesday. Materials fee $20.
— Barbara Mahany
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Diaries of our DIY daredevils
Here are other installments in our Diary of a DIY Daredevil series you can read in the coming months:
Next
Jan. 8: The Chicago Bauhaus Academy teaches Tribune tech reporter Eric Gwinn centuries-old techniques that shape wood into elegantly simple furniture.
Other upcoming stories
– Will a girl who loved jigsaw puzzles be as mesmerized with mosaics when she’s grown up? Home&Garden editor Elaine Matsushita is about to find out.
– A pottery class dropout, assistant Home&Garden editor Tran Ha retakes her seat at the potter’s wheel.
Previous stories
– Reporter Karen Klages recounts her days of blood, sweat and stained glass. (See June 25 Home&Garden.)
– Garden reporter Beth Botts heads to the Chicago Botanic Garden to learn how to transform peat moss, sand and cement into a planter that echoes the rough-hewn stone watering troughs from European farms. (See July 23 Home&Garden.)
– Reporter Mary Daniels seeks out international teapot guru Fong Choo to learn how to make a pot — but comes home with a cup. (See Aug. 27 Home&Garden)
– Playing in the mud was never this much fun. Assistant Home&Garden editor Marjorie David learns how to spread the mud and tile a kitchen backsplash. (See Oct. 8 Home&Garden)
– For previous Diary of a DIY Daredevil stories, see chicagotribune.com/DIY.)
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bmahany@tribune.com
