Decorating With Natural Elements From Your Own Yard

Some of the best decor in my house came in through the back door on a windy afternoon. A branch that fell in the yard, a handful of dried hydrangea, a nest of pinecones under the spruce. New England yards are generous in every season if you know what to look for, and using what grows outside your own door is the oldest kind of decorating there is. It also happens to be free, which never hurts.

The trick is not to gather everything you see. It is to gather a few good pieces, bring them in, and give them a place of honor. A single beautiful branch on a mantel says more than a room full of foraged clutter. Think of yourself as borrowing from the landscape for a few weeks, not stripping it bare.

What to Gather and When

In fall, look for dried hydrangea heads, bittersweet, and seed pods. In winter, pinecones, spruce tips, bare branches with interesting curves, and the red twigs of dogwood. Spring brings pussy willows and forsythia branches that will force open in a vase of water. Summer is for wildflowers and tall grasses, which dry beautifully if you hang them upside down for a week.

Gather after a dry spell, not after rain, so anything you bring inside is not damp. Shake everything out well before it crosses the threshold, because spiders and beetles are part of the deal and you do not want them in the living room. A quick spray of hairspray on dried hydrangea keeps it from shedding, and a light dusting of fake snow on pinecones is a small cheat I use every December.

Displaying What You Find

Containers matter as much as the contents. A stoneware crock, a galvanized bucket, a simple glass jar, a vintage enamel pitcher. Keep the palette quiet so the natural materials stand out: cream, iron, aged wood, a little black. Branches look best in a tall narrow vase or a weighted basket, angled rather than standing straight up, the way they grew.

Pinecones belong in a wooden bowl on the coffee table, or piled in a basket by the fireplace, or wired in a simple garland across a mantel. Dried hydrangea wants a wide-mouthed vessel so the heads can rest against the rim. Bare branches in a floor vase in the corner add height to a room for nothing, and they cast wonderful shadows when the lamp is on.

Change things out as the season turns. The same crock holds pussy willows in March, wildflowers in July, and dried grasses in October. Nothing in the house needs to be stored in the attic, because the yard keeps handing you something new. That is the quiet pleasure of decorating this way: your home stays in step with the world outside, and every season you get to go for a walk and call it work.