Holiday Classic Decor Elements Made Modern

Boxwood: A green element in European gardens for centuries, boxwood's unique suitability for being heavily pruned has made it the standard choice for topiary. Winston finds many out-of-the-box uses for boxwood, both as potted shrubs and cut material. It looks modern planted in repetition in containers or perched in pots with exaggerated height. And Marc Hall often uses cut boxwood twigs stuck into Styrofoam to form towering faux hedges for events.

Holly: Used by Druids to give fairies and sprites a safe haven once other trees had lost their sheltering leaves, a sprig of holly holds steady as a symbol of the holidays. But Winston’s favorite holly isn’t the evergreen kind. He favors the deciduous Ilex verticillata, or winterberry, which forms thick clusters of red berries along ramrod-straight stems. “We’ve even massed the branches inside a trio of tall, clear floor vases used to support a glass tabletop.”

Paperwhites: Paperwhites are tender bulbs native to the Mediterranean. Easily forced into bloom indoors in the winter, their fragrance can waft through an entire house. Winston considers paperwhites beautiful in all their parts, not just for their flowers, and enjoys presenting them like a living botanical illustration: “We rinse dirt from the roots and peel off some of the bulb’s outer covering, exposing its white and green coloring. Then we place several inside a clear vessel so you can see the whole plant — flower, stem, bulb and roots.”

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Evergreens: Brought into the home since the Saturnalia festivities of Roman times, boughs from conifer trees have served as a reminder through the centuries that life will indeed return to the winter landscape. Winston uses conifers as needles sprinkled on a table, as elements in centerpieces, as 4- to 5-foot-long branches in oversize vases and as swags and garlands.

Amaryllis: This large-flowered tropical bulb, popular for forcing indoors, is botanically Hippeastrum and not in the genus Amaryllis. Breeding efforts by the Dutch began in the 1700s, with the first cultivars probably reaching North America by the early 1800s. Winston noticed that loose bulbs left lying around will send out quirky crooked stalks going in different directions. He just adds a little water to bring them into bloom and, voila!, living modern art.

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Poinsettias: Native to Mexico and Guatemala where it grows wild along the roadsides, poinsettia has long been a Christmas plant south of the border. In the U.S., Paul Ecke Ranch in California has dominated the poinsettia-growing market thanks to a secret method of grafting plants, a mystery for many years. Winston likes to incorporate them as tiny 3-inch-tall plants for individual place settings.

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Cones: Conifer cones, such as pine cones and spruce cones (pictured), can last for years and, as Winston says, “They’re wintry, but not necessarily Christmas.” He fills glass vases with them, strings them and uses tiny ones to top-dress potted plants, treasuring their organic appeal and finding them “beautiful just as they are.” An unusual approach he takes is refrigerating cones while they’re still vivid green for use later.