Choosing a Christmas wreath, garland or door swag
A Christmas wreath and a Christmas garland do different jobs, and most homes end up wanting both. Our wreaths are round and generous, between 61cm and 66cm across, wide enough to read properly from the far end of a hallway rather than looking lost on a full-height door. The foliage families differ more than the shape does. Mixed winter greenery of cedar, pine, berries and pussy willow is the full, traditional one. Sage and pinecone designs are drier and more rustic, and come with red or white berries where you want the colour to carry across a room. Pared-back eucalyptus in warm russet tones is the quietest, and the one that carries on working long after the Christmas tree has come down.
Garlands are the horizontal answer. Ours run to 183cm, a length that suits a mantelpiece shelf, a doorway, or one flight of a staircase. A pre-lit garland has its lights wrapped through the foliage by hand rather than draped over the top afterwards. Others leave the greenery behind altogether, in favour of hand-welded iron leaves in an antique gold finish on a twig-like wire, closer to metalwork than to foliage and quiet enough to leave up all winter.
If neither shape suits, a door swag hangs as a 56cm drop rather than a circle. It is the one for a narrower interior door, a kitchen dresser, or a stretch of wall where a wreath would feel too formal.
Browse them alongside the rest of our Christmas collection.
How our Christmas garlands and wreaths are made
Foliage here is finished by hand, stem by stem, which is why no two pieces are quite the same. It is the same way our faux flower stems are made, and it is what stops a wreath from reading as one moulded sprig repeated around a ring. Stems are wired individually and set at slightly different angles, so the depth you can see is real depth rather than a printed impression of it.
The detail that matters most is hidden. A concealed metal wire runs through the stems of our foliage garlands and swags, which means they are made to be shaped rather than simply hung. You can open a garland out where it crosses a newel post and close it in where it meets the wall, and on a swag the stems can be trimmed back with wire cutters if the drop is longer than the door. It is the difference between a garland that follows a bannister and one that sits on top of one.
On a pre-lit garland, the LEDs are wrapped through the foliage by hand and run on batteries rather than a cable so that it can go somewhere there is no socket. The iron garland is made differently again: galvanised iron with an antique finish, each leaf welded on by hand, with a small loop at either end for tying it into position.
