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The Rural Voice, 1999-12, Page 39Gardening Making it a green Christmas By Rhea Hamilton -Seeger About the end of November I start looking for greens for our Christmas decorating. One year we had a horrible storm and in some areas the wind tore through the trees causing considerable damage. There by the side of road someone had set out their broken blue spruce boughs for pickup. So I did. We had luscious decorations that year. I have also taken a leisurely walk to the bush with my pruning toppers in hand and done some judicial pruning of some ' lower boughs. Like the Christmas trees we see loaded on trucks and heading across the country in November, you can pick your evergreens now too. Keep them outside for as long as possible or in a cold garage or a shed until you need them. You can then cut them into decorating lengths later. Greens used in arrangements with water will last longer but there are some greens that will do just fine without. We lay greens in large baskets decorated with pine cones, dried flowers, poppy seed and teasel pods. Everyone has their favourite greenery for Christmas. My grand- mother couldn't celebrate Christmas without a slender aromatic cedar in a corner of the parlour. When she no longer could have a full tree I would take her an arrangement of greens making sure it was well embellished with black or white cedar from the bush. In our house the type of tree was determined by my father, who loves pine trees. He often came home with a Scotch pine for Christmas that was always a little on the lean side. You know the kind; branches too far apart and needles so long and droopy they couldn't hold an ornament. Once he brought home a spruce and I thought it was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. It was full and easy to decorate and the smell was delicious, pure woodlands. But when it came time to clean up there were minute needles everywhere. Months later we 36 THE RURAL VOICE were still finding them in slippers and under furniture, which could be a testimonial to our housekeeping skills or, more to my point, to the insidious nature of the dropping needles. So what do you pick for your arrangements? Spruce is great for adding bulk to an arrangement but because it drops needles it should be used with water in a vase or with florist oasis. Be sure to remove the needles that are below water to avoid that pungent rotting odour. Red pine has lovely long needles and makes great large arrangements. It can be used to arch gracefully over the top of hutches and cupboards and along mantles. It's especially good looking in Targe outdoor arrangements. White pine has smaller more wispy needles on smaller more pliable stems. Like its cousin the red pine, it will dry out without dropping its needles making it great for indoor arrangements. You can pick out white pine by the five needles attached together. Balsam fir makes a soft addition to your decorating. We have a blue fir in the back yard with broad elegant branches sweeping right to the ground. I wouldn't dare trim it and heaven help anyone who did. But the greens would make a wonderful seasonal decoration. Fir needles do not go all around the stem like spruce which makes it flatter or less bulky to work with and more supple than spruce. It makes wonderful layered wreaths. Another bonus is they retain their needles longer than spruce and are easier to clean up afterwards. Fir has a rich deep blue green colour which provides a wonderful backdrop for your arrangements. Last year a friend brought in trimmings from her yard and among the boughs was an armful of juniper. I find the blue varieties of juniper rather nasty with their unusually sharp needles but it makes up for that with its lovely blue tones and with clusters of blue -black berries which add a lovely addition to arrangements both in and out of the house. Look for the softer version of golden juniper to team up with the ivory poinsettia. We load the mantle above our wood burning fireplace with greens and ever year I clean it off by New Year's because I worry about tire. This year I found the lid of an old toilet tank that tits perfectly on the mantle. I am placing oasis in this unusually shallow container with water and then our greens will last a few more days beyond the New Year and be less dry and susceptible to fire. Another greenery' neglected during the holidays is our own boxwood. It provides a textural contrast to the traditional needled greens. Shape an oasis into a cone and starting at the bottom carefully layer boxwood cuttings. It makes a wonderful miniature Christmas tree for the table or for a friend. You can further decor- ate it with bits of ribbon, miniature ornaments or dried flowers. If holly is a must on your greenery list, consider our own native Oregon grape or mahonia. This shiny spiny leafed evergreen provides a wonderful backdrop in arrangements. Get your cuttings early before the really snowy cold weather sets in before Christmas. Preserve them in a plastic bag in the back of your fridge with a moist paper towel until you need them for decorating. Use with or without water in arrangements. Well this is the last column for this decade, this century. It all sounds rather sad before your realize that we are on the threshold of a new segment of time. But before we get all bent out of shape with all the millennium talk we should remember that every day is a new day and no less exciting and we should live every one of those days to the fullest. Hope you have a holiday of family and friends with lots of love and old fashioned good times. Now that is the way to start every year, even a millennium.0 Rhea Hamilton -Seeger and her husband raise two children at their home near Auburn. She is a skilled cook and gardener.