Wreath care: keeping a fresh one alive and an artificial one in shape

Keeping a fresh evergreen wreath alive

A cut evergreen wreath has no root system. It is running on the water already in its needles, and everything you do either slows that loss or speeds it up. Realistic expectations first:

Three things genuinely extend it:

1. Soak it before hanging. Submerge the wreath in cool water overnight, or as long as you can manage, and let it drip dry. This is the single biggest intervention and it happens once.
2. Mist it every few days. A spray bottle of plain water on the needles, in the evening rather than in the sun. It slows the loss.
3. Keep it out of direct sun and away from heat. A north-facing door is the best position; the gap behind a glass storm door is the worst place in the house.

Artificial wreaths: shape is the whole problem

An artificial wreath does not dry out. What it does is take a set: eleven months of a tote resting on it and the branches learn the flattened position and stay there.

The prevention is entirely about the container and the stack, and it comes down to four rules: flat not on edge, bow upward, one wreath per box, and always the top of the stack. Sizing the box is a chart in wreath storage containers and the full method is in how to store a wreath.

Reshaping and refreshing

If it is already flat, it is usually recoverable. Let it warm to room temperature first — cold PVC resists bending — then work around the ring a hand’s width at a time, bending each tip outward and slightly up. Do a second pass angling alternate branches forward and back so it has depth rather than sitting in one plane.

Two more things worth doing every few years:

• Dust it. A wreath that lives in a garage collects a gray film that reads as age. A soft brush or a hairdryer on cool takes it off.
• Re-bow it. Ribbon is cheap and a crushed wired bow is the thing that most makes a wreath look tired. A new bow on an eight-year-old wreath buys several more seasons.

Hanging it so it survives six weeks

A wreath on a storm door takes a slam several times a day. An over-the-door hanger sized to the actual door thickness stops it rocking, and a short length of clear line tying the bottom loosely to the hanger stops it swinging. Both are invisible and both stop the wreath drifting off-center by mid-December.

If the wreath is pre-lit and battery powered, take the batteries out at the end of the season before it is boxed. A cell that leaks inside a sealed container over eleven months does damage that no storage box prevents.

The same wreath, next season

A fall wreath and a Christmas wreath have the same storage problem and the fall one usually has it worse, because its trim is bulkier and more fragile. If you keep both, they need their own containers — not a shared one. See the best fall wreaths.