WREATHS Nature's material things provide the perfect textures and colors

Demonstration makes wreath-making look easy.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Larry Daniel, who recently retired after 34 years with Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, N.C., graciously returned to his worktable last month to give a wreath-making demonstration.
Like any professional with decades of experience, Larry Daniel makes wreath-making look easy.
Daniel started with a straw form he had cloaked in leathery, medium-green lemon leaves (Gaultheria shallon).
Beside him on the table at Duke Gardens, where he still teaches classes in floral design, was a basket filled with the woody textures of early autumn -- spiky sweet gum balls, stems of bittersweet pods split open to reveal their cherry-red seeds, dried hydrangea with a blush of its original pale blue still showing, cotton bolls, acorns, eerie-looking lotus pods, dried mushrooms, magnolia leaves, rye, river oats and soft strands of millet. For a bit of color there were red peppers from a market.
Natural products
"I only use natural things," Daniel said as he began picking among his ingredients.
As he worked, turning the wreath in his hands, adding items that began to cover the lemon leaf background in a pattern that seemed both deliberate and random, he offered tips.
"Think about the scale of the wreath," Daniel said. "Have things in proportion. I like lots of variety, so I don't want items overly large."
The color scheme should go with the house, he said, and it's important to mix textures -- the smooth, waxy gloss of magnolia leaves and the coarseness of pine cones.
Daniel worked the wreath around in his hands with motions that were deft and certain, as if he were dealing with a beloved but somewhat unruly child.
Right direction
With a studied eye he jammed the pieces -- each attached to a wood pick with hot glue -- around the form, all in the same counterclockwise direction. Orange-red and yellow fall leaves lent color to a subdued wheel of light-brown dried mushrooms, acorns, millet and dark brown lotus heads with their rattling seeds. In Daniel's one concession to artificiality, he popped in a couple of pine cones that he had clipped to look like dusky zinnias.
The completed wreath is a delight to the senses, both wild and formal, with just the right touches of color to complement the rich mix of textures.