Going Green for Christmas

During the hot summer months, when I am masterminding my pruning plan attack, my strategy must include finding a concealed spot of evergreens to secure my Christmas cache. Always hard to imagine (though I have finally caught on after experiencing many years of season changes) that yes – 90 degree weather eventually yields to sub freezing temperatures. So, my stash must be somewhere that I can get to easily should we have two feet of snow - but not so evident that should I not get to it, another year’s growth will not matter.

You have to understand that someone had outlined my entire backyard with evergreen trees. Planted about ten feet apart…if they all were allowed to grow freely, you would not be able to find the house, let alone any other living creature.

Sadly, one by one, I had to cut many of them down before I was swallowed up into the enchanted forest. But then I discovered something I thought was amazing and which I wish I knew before so many of my green friends became mulch. If they were simply “topped,” their growth was stunted and their underbrush filled in, becoming thick and lush. Great boughs of fur (ha ha Jerry Lee Lewis) for my floral arrangements.

I’ve been thinking about this whole “going green” phenomenon. Gram, was doing it way before it was fashionable. The Great Depression and the paucity of resources had that effect on many folks. For me, in grade school, it was called the ecology movement. I remember bringing in the empty carton of 8 pack glass coca-cola bottles in exchange for a baby pine tree to plant. Hmmmm. And you wonder where all those evergreen trees came from?

Today, going green has a way more mandatory ring to it. Our consumption of resources continues to grow and our output of disposable, non biodegradable products has exponentially grown. I worry about running out of space and not just in my filing cabinet drawers or wardrobe closet. So, I do my small part by making holiday decorations from my backyard rather than polyurethanervinylchlorateresin…Artists today chicly call these items “found treasure objects” and this inventory fits nicely into the starving artist’s budget.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”-Ben Franklin. Artists have always known this for a very long time.