Easy Ways to Bring Your Garden Indoors During the Holiday Season

Save time and money with these decorating tips!

Paula Spletter, NHG’s creative director extraordinaire (and long-tenured Dallas County Master Gardener) loves color and texture, but doesn’t rely solely on blossoms to get them for her seasonal decor. Her favorite? Super-hip succulents, of which she keeps a good supply growing in her garden year-round.

While gourds and pumpkins are abundant during the fall season, Paula offers a quick tip for a simple centerpiece that requires no carving.

Holiday Decorations Using Your Garden

You’ll need:

• a pumpkin
• a small handful of moss (sheet moss is ideal)
• a variety of succulent cuttings, preferably snipped and allowed to dry for a day or two before use
• a hot glue gun

Affix the moss to the top of the pumpkin with a few dots of hot glue; allow to dry. Arrange the succulent cuttings on top of the moss; be sure to include a variety of colors and forms as well as small and large cuttings to create a nice composition. Affix each with a drop of hot glue.

For larger pumpkins, Paula often finishes her creation with dried tips of branches, small pinecones, or even nuts. These mini-pumpkins make fabulous place card holders for a Thanksgiving table, too! Paula considers them a sort of long-term floral arrangement, noting that they’ll last about one to two months indoors.

Paula’s blending of succulents with other textures also extends to holiday plating. Here, she uses a simple white cake plate and adds a nest of green Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides). With snips of garden greenery—here, Camellia, Boxwood, Yaupon Holly, Junipers, and Magnolia—she layers the succulents to create a unique composition, finishing it with a bright green apple and a few dried almonds in the shell.

It’s a fresh, low-cost way to bring the garden indoors this season, and perfect for the holiday table. Paula’s final tip? Up the ‘heirloom’ factor by using a cherished vintage dish or add interest with collectibles or even costume jewelry.

North Haven Gardens Can Help

Visit us in the garden center for more ideas, inspiration, and the best plants in town or sign up for our weekly newsletter for NHG updates, new arrivals & timely tips!

Read More about Fall Gardening: 

• Love Tea? Plant Some in Your Garden This Fall
• Fall Flavors for Your Garden
• Plant Fall Tomatoes

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