Rosemary Wreath

This lovely scented rosemary wreath is dead simple to make. Truly! If I can make it, anyone can!   

I have been on a bit of a wreath making kick this fall. Not sure why, but suddenly wanted to start bending all sorts of branches, twigs, and stems into wreaths. I've harvested arbutus branches (they make gorgeous golden wreaths), ocean spray for it's bushy little branches, rose buds, sedum flowers, yuletide greenery, and lots and lots of grapevines.  

I want to keep it really simple and organic so these wreaths area all fully compostable with no wires to snip or frames to remove before they are tossed in the compost bin.  

What you need:

Wreath frame of any sort, can be grapevine, metal, straw, whatever you have on hand - I made mine from our own grapevines. See below for the how-to.   

Twine - any kind of string or twine. I used an old ball of (fading) green garden twine. 

Rosemary - Sprigs of fresh rosemary. 

Scissors - to cut the string.

Lavender - if you want to jazz it up some.   

The blue rosemary flowers are bee magnets. 

My rosemary needs an annual pruning so this is the perfect craft. I can use all those clippings for something really lovely instead of composting them. It is an upright one growing much too close to the edge of the raised bed. When I planted it, I thought it was the low-growing, creeping kind, had envisioned it growing nicely over the side of the bed. Hah. This thing is now 4 feet tall and would be growing half way into the pathway if I did not keep pruning it back ; ) 

This wreath form was made from just one long grape vine. 

To Make The Wreath From Scratch.  

If making your wreath form out of grapevines, or other bendable stems, you'll need to harvest a bunch of good sized vines. If you don't have grapevines, you can use other pliable skinny branches from the yard. I find that the skinny arbutus branches also work really well.   

I use only one to three vines for the herbal wreaths so is not as thick as you would use for a traditional wreath. A thicker wreath form required more sprigs of greenery to cover it all. 

The first vine should be really long, at least 8 feet, but longer is better. The other two can be shorter so that they just go around the circle one and a half times, or you can just use another really long one instead.  

Trim off any curlicues, branches, or sticky out-y bits. 

Go along and bend the vine slightly every few inches to make it more pliable, this will keep it from snapping as you weave it into a circle. 

Now you are ready to go. Grab hold of the longest vine at the thick end and make your circle whatever size that you would like the wreath to be. I went a bit smaller at about 8 or 10 inches diameter as it is meant for inside the house. 

Once you have formed the circle to the size you like, hold onto it at that spot with one hand while you weave the rest of vine in and out of the circle. Once you have woven that first vine all around itself, it should stay together in a circular form nicely without any string to hold it in place. Don't worry about any long ends sticking out at this stage. 

Weave more vines into your circle to make the wreath as thick as you would like it to be. For herbal wreaths, I like to go smaller and thinner so use only three vines but for the front door, a nice big, thick, 12 to 14 inch wreath would look better. Make yours look however you want it to be!

Once your wreath is the thickness that you want, go along and trim off any pointy long ends that are sticking out.     

To Make The Rosemary Wreath

Harvest a big bunch of rosemary clippings. Trim these clippings into sprigs that are 4 to 8 inches long. Do not do this ahead of time sot that they get dry and brittle, you want them to be fresh and pliable. If it will be a day or two before you can get to making the wreath, put the rosemary in a vase or bucket of water. 

Grab 3 or 4 of these sprigs, making them into a nice little bundle. If you want to add some lavender, sage, sweet bay leaves, or eucalyptus to make it more fancy, add a sprig or two to each bundle. Whatever you put into each of  these bundles is what determines what your wreath looks like when finished. 

 

Place that bundle on your wreath form and tie it tightly to the wreath form. You want it to be one or two inches from the end so that it stays put and does not does not fall out. Knot this first bundle firmly into place.

 

Keep making these little bundles and placing them partially on top of the other bundle so that they cover the grapevine form and the string. 

Twist the string around the bottom part of the bundle, pulling it tight as you go. I looped the string twice around each bundle. 

This may look complicated but is actually super simple. Don't worry too much about any pokey bits, you can always snip off a bit of the bottom if it is sticking out too far. 

When you get all the way around the form and it is a nice thick wreath, turn it over so that you can tie if off. Make a good firm double knot and then cut the string. 

Leave a bit of a tail of string so that you can loop it and knot it to make a hanger for your wreath, if you like.  

Once your wreath is tied off, hang it up and have a look at it. Do you want it to be freestyle or do you want to snip off the wild ends so that it looks a bit more refined? Is your wreath, make it what you want it to be.

If you did not add any lavender or bay earlier but decide that you would like some in it now, just tuck them into either the vine or into the bundles. They will stay in there without any string, wire, or glue. 

I made two of them, one with lavender and one without.  

Add a bow, or a ribbon, or thick twine if you prefer the rustic look, hang inside the house. 

This rosemary wreath is my favourite, but you can use any kinds of greens to make it suit you. Don't have rosemary? Use Sweet Bay, sage, or olive branches instead. Eucalyptus would also look and smell amazing inside the house. 

To make a traditional Christmas wreath out of assorted greenery, go out and clip all sorts of bits of greenery from out in the yard. Evergreens like fir, ceder, hemlock, spruce, yews are always terrific. Use bits of gold or blue hued evergreens for a different look. 

Make the grapevine ring bigger and fatter by using more long vines. Shorter ones will be too hard to work with. 

Make the bundles the same way, mixing different kinds of greens together, tie them on with the string. To cover a fatter/thicker base, you will want to stagger the bundles around the wreath form, one bundle facing outwards and the next one angled slightly in towards the centre. Keep going around the ring, angling the bundles inwards and outwards.      

Make wreaths to hang anywhere and everywhere.... the kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, front entry, front door, living room, guest bedroom, etc. It is kind of addictive when you get started.  

Happy Wreath  Making! 

Tanja