Do-It-Yourself Holiday Gift: Plants with Flair

Flowering plants can make great gifts for the holidays. You can create fun styles with a variety of plants and accessories. This segment provides tips on how to dress up an arrangement with artistic flair.

Produced by the Department of Communications at Kansas State University. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.kansasgreenyards.org

Transcript:
Do-It-Yourself Holiday Gift - Plants with Flair

The flowering gift plants that we have at the holidays are nice. But, there are ways to dress them up. We can add some decoration to it. For instance, we can put it in a nice container. This pot has bark glued to it. You can purchase it premade or make it yourself. You can put a cyclamen in, and then add glitter pinecones. Instead of a bow, we’ve used a three-pinecone set: small, medium, and large to decorate the pot.

Another example using the same cyclamen is to put it in a plastic pot cover that adds a bright color to it. It has a nice see-through bow. And then we’ve added a corkscrew, spiral effect with bronze colored branches to go with the red cyclamen. We’ve also added some small ivy plants to give it a little cascade drape effect. So, we have the upward spiral, the cascade of the ivy, and the exotic look of the cyclamen flower.

Or, you could use a square basket with cyclamen. You can add a nice, silver glitter leaf effect, cascading ivy, and two different types of cyclamen. This one has a full size and a miniature cyclamen.

Or, you could give a tall pot like this. Not only do you have the cyclamen, you have a white cyclamen paired with a bright red colored miniature poinsettia. It also has some spiral gold twigs for added interest. It’s a very natural looking container – upright and tall. It’s very much in style and artistic for this time of year.

This feature story prepared with Alan Stevens, retired Kansas State University Research and Extension State Leader, Horticulture. For more information, visit your local county extension office or visit our website at KansasGreenYards.org.