What is special about this wreath other than "this is the first I ever made and the materials are prunings of shrubs and straw from the backyard"? The answer is it is ONLY made of prunings WITHOUT any glue, wire or string. It is 100% compostable. Nothing was purchased from the store other than the pruning shears. It holds together by the weaving of the spiraling rods. However, some wire and string were used temporarily during the making process to secure the different parts until everything was blocked into place by the weaving rods.
The base ring is made of fine cotoneaster branches, 18 to 30 inches in length, that were cut during the winter, and immediately assembled into a ring shape before drying, so they would dry into the wanted circular shape. I started by coiling just a few rods to shape a ring of 16 inch in diameter, staggering their butts evenly around the ring, then kept adding more rods. While building the coiled ring, it was held in shape by a few wrapped wires. Once the coil of the ring reached about an inch and a half, the coil was wrapped in a spiraling string and the wires removed. Then it was left to dry for 3 weeks in the garage.
For the final assembly, I used a mixture of fresh cut branches (cotoneaster, spindle, dogwood) and dried straw and weed flowers collected in the fall. I started by small bundles of straw (7 stems together per bunch) secured into place temporarily by wrapped wire or string. After placing each bunch against the inside of the ring, one rod of cotoneaster was spiraled around the ring to block that bunch into place. Eventually the spiraling rods were completely wrapping around all the straw and flower stems. As the work progressed I was able to remove the temporary wires and strings, and the wreath held together simply by the interweaving of the stems and rods.
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