Blue Green Freedom

12/12/2025

🌿Yuletide in the Winter Garden from The Heirloom Gardener.
Gathering backyard botanicals for holiday decorations can connect us to age old traditions. Celebrations born of the season, and a long look back into the garden and forest floor. As we walk in our gardens at this time of year, the bones of the landscape are evident. We can see where to prune, and where we could improve on plantings in the year ahead.
🌲Once December arrives, I bundle up, and head out with clippers and the intention to find greens to fill my urns, window boxes, and planters with the beauty of the season. Some days, I enjoy solitary time in nature. Other days, I find great pleasure in turning a walk with friends or family into an opportunity to collect botanicals. In the process, we engage in conversation about the environment and plants we share in common. As we walk in the crisp air, we collect treasures (nests, shells, seed pods, cones, herbs and fruit) to make wreaths into a celebration of place.
Since ancient times, the wreath has symbolized the wheel of life. When we make wreaths with loved ones, we bring nature indoors during the cold season, and create a token of our time together that brings a smile each time we enter that door.
After the holidays (Twelfth Night or January 6th in early tradition), I move my wreaths to trees along the edge of the woods. The fruits, seeds and berries turn wreaths into neighborhood bird feeders and places for nesting by spring. Similarly, I move my tree out into my yard, lights and all.
The tree helps to illuminate the long winter nights. Over the holidays, I take time with kids to make peanut butter and bird seed pinecone ornaments that we can hang to bring the tree to life outside our windows.
Perhaps this is the year you could take a walk in nature with family and friends. Make your own wreaths from the special things you gather and renew this ancient holiday tradition designed to engage us in the spirit of the season.
Here's one of my 'Wheel of Life' holiday wreaths. Please post a picture of a wreath you create here too! From my book https://www.amazon.com/Heirloom-Gardener-Traditional-Plants-Skills/dp/1604699930

12/12/2025

In the hush of midwinter, when frost glitters like crystal across fields and forests, certain scents were once thought to carry the sun itself. Cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg—gifts from distant lands—were treasures brought into homes during the longest nights, prized not only for their rarity but for the protection, warmth, and life they were said to hold.

Cinnamon: Golden and fragrant, cinnamon was more than a spice; it was a shard of sunlight, a reminder of the turning year. In medieval Europe, it arrived from faraway ports, carried carefully through snow and storm, woven into hearth fires or braided into garlands. Folk believed it could attract abundance, guard against misfortune, and ignite vitality within the household. Its scent, rich and sweet, was thought to awaken the senses and stir the slumbering energy of the season, like the faint promise of the returning sun. To smell cinnamon in the midwinter was to feel the pulse of life beneath the frost, a quiet reassurance that warmth and light endure even in the darkest months.

Cloves: Small, dark, and pungent, cloves held a power all their own. They were pressed into oranges, apples, and wreaths, forming pomanders that perfumed homes and protected hearts. The sharp fragrance was said to ward off restless spirits and lingering shadows, carrying blessings through windows and hearths alike. In folklore, cloves were tied to the rhythm of winter itself: their presence marked the time when the world seemed stillest, yet beneath the frost, unseen life waited, stirred by the spice’s magic. They were a reminder that the stillness of winter is not emptiness but quiet preparation, a sacred pause before the return of warmth.

Nutmeg: Nutmeg, exotic and warming, was treasured for its ability to bring joy, health, and sacred delight in the heart of winter. Its aroma was a talisman of celebration, a reminder that even when nights press close and cold holds the land, life continues, and the sun will return. To taste nutmeg in a feast or smell it on the hearth was to touch the promise of growth, a whisper of sunlight hidden in shadow. Nutmeg’s rich, warm scent carried a sense of comfort, a gentle nudge toward gratitude and presence in the moment, reminding the household to honor the cycle of the seasons and the persistence of life.

These spices were once rarities, coveted not merely for their flavor but for the ancient magic they carried. Cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg became bridges between distant lands and local hearths, between the visible and the unseen, between shadow and returning light. To carry their scent through the home was to summon warmth, protection, and vitality; to breathe them in was to remember the cycles of the sun and the promise that life endures, even in the stillest months.

In the quiet of midwinter, when wind presses against windows and snow muffles the world, the fragrance of these spices still carries that old magic. They are echoes of distant lands, talismans of sun and warmth, and whispers of the turning year—reminders that even in shadow, the light waits to return.

Lighting a candle by a windowsill, sprinkling a pinch of cinnamon in your tea, or tucking cloves into an orange to sit on the mantel is more than a sensory delight; it is a practice, a ritual, a pause that honors the passage of time. These small acts connect us to generations past, to travelers and merchants who brought these treasures across seas and deserts, to those who waited in candlelit homes, listening for the first stirrings of spring beneath the snow. Nutmeg, sweet and mysterious, reminds us that joy can be found even in stillness, that celebration is not bound to sunlit days alone but blooms in the heart of winter.

Let these scents guide you through the season: cinnamon for abundance, cloves for protection, nutmeg for joy. Let them remind you of the cycles of life, the promise of returning light, and the quiet magic hidden in everyday rituals. Inhaling them is an invitation to notice the beauty in cold mornings, in frost-laced windows, in the deep silence where dreams take root. Midwinter is not absence but potential, and in these ancient spices, we touch the warmth, the sun, and the unbroken thread of life that winds through every turning year.

12/12/2025

Holiday who-be what-ee? What's that we hear? At the Holiday Faire, THE GRINCH will be there! 💚 Not to worry, don't fret one bit. This Grinch is jolly, we will admit. The joy of the season will surround us all, so join us Downtown for your Holiday Haul. 🎁

12/12/2025

Hygge(noun): a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).

12/11/2025

Pull out and wear some sparkly or holiday Jewelry this month!

12/11/2025

12/11/2025

PLANTS OF THE YULETIDE & THEIR SYMBOLISM 🌿🍒
🕊️ History shows that the botanicals we used for holidays were those thriving in that particular season. This is a great weekend to get out and forage for the botanicals which make house a home for the holidays!

🎄Symbolic Yuletide and Solstice botanicals used to deck the halls include:
•Evergreens (spruce, arborvitae, Christmas fern and wintergreen) as symbols of immortality since they were among the only botanicals to stay green when all others lost their leaves.
•Yews represented the death of the old year and were a connection between this world and the next.
•Oak trees were revered for being long-lived. Even though they were not evergreen, they were symbols of eternal life and considered a source of protection, strength, and endurance.
•Rosemary, an evergreen shrub in warm climates, was called the herb of the sun.
*Bay, an evergreen herb used in holiday garlands and comforting teas. Bay laurel also signifies achievement and celebration.
•Birch trees symbolized new beginnings.
•Mistletoe stood for peace, happiness and smooches.
•Holly was used for magical protection and good luck.
•Ivy symbolized fidelity, faithfulness, and healing and was made into wreaths and garlands to decorate during the winter.
•Pine symbolized peace, healing, and joy.

Artist ~ Carlton Alfred Smith (1853-1946)

12/11/2025

12/10/2025

Holiday Hancock. A brilliant sunset in Chicago, this week in 2015 for Wayback Wednesday.

12/09/2025

Embrace the cozy flavors of the season! From peppermint bark to spiced cider, these winter delights bring warmth and cheer to every moment. ❄️✨

What’s your favorite taste of winter? 🌟