As the new year began, Christmas faded into the past, but some holiday greenery lingers at my home as Nordic-inspired Winter decor. Live spruce tree seedlings on the kitchen island were part of the kitchen Christmas decor, and are now sprouting new growth from the warmth in the house.
Little by little, Christmas decorations in my home have been replaced with Winter decorations.
C H R I S T M A S d e c o r
T O W I N T E R d e c o r
N O R D I C I N S P I R A T I O N
For the past several years, I have enjoyed Nordic Christmas decor in magazines, blogs, Instagram, and Pinterest. Unadorned evergreen trees caught my eye, but until this past Christmas, I did not know of any local sources for similar live seedlings.
Silver Tip spruce cut Christmas trees appeared on several blog sites, but are more expensive than traditional evergreens offered in my area. While I was tempted to splurge and to order one online, I resisted.
In November, I found live spruce seedlings similar to Silver Tip spruce trees for the first time at one of my favorite nurseries, Nicholson-Hardie, located in downtown Dallas. The two spruces on the ends are Black Hills Spruce, and the one in the middle is another spruce variety.
The landmark nursery/garden center has offered beautiful plants, flowers, and garden decor to prominent families in old Dallas since 1899. Last November, the nursery had small 3½" x 3½" x 5½" starter pots in three or four different varieties of evergreens.
One of our newest Christmas traditions is to visit Nicholson-Hardie to shop for exquisite Christmas decor, to ooh-and-ahh over their gorgeous fresh cut garlands and wreaths, and to buy beautiful Christmas flowering plants. If you love gardening and live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, a trip to Nicholson-Hardie is a must!
Much to my surprise and delight, the little Black Hills Spruce seedlings began to sprout new growth from the warmth inside the house over Christmas.
The seedlings have gone from Christmas decor to Winter decor for several more weeks.
By the last week of December, there was new growth all up and down the Black Hills Spruce branches.
Compare the fresh growth the first week of January with the new growth shown in the previous photo.
Summers in north Texas are too hot for the spruce seedlings to survive in the ground. Instead of transplanting them into the ground, I plan to transplant them to larger pots.
Once Winter is over, the seedlings will live in pots on my back deck until Summer heat arrives. Then I will bring them back inside the air-conditioned house which should keep them at temperatures similar to their natural growing summer climate.
Fingers crossed, the little seedlings will once again be part of my Christmas and Winter decor in 2020. . . only a little larger.
The landmark nursery/garden center has offered beautiful plants, flowers, and garden decor to prominent families in old Dallas since 1899. Last November, the nursery had small 3½" x 3½" x 5½" starter pots in three or four different varieties of evergreens.
One of our newest Christmas traditions is to visit Nicholson-Hardie to shop for exquisite Christmas decor, to ooh-and-ahh over their gorgeous fresh cut garlands and wreaths, and to buy beautiful Christmas flowering plants. If you love gardening and live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, a trip to Nicholson-Hardie is a must!
Once Winter is over, the seedlings will live in pots on my back deck until Summer heat arrives. Then I will bring them back inside the air-conditioned house which should keep them at temperatures similar to their natural growing summer climate.
Fingers crossed, the little seedlings will once again be part of my Christmas and Winter decor in 2020. . . only a little larger.
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Where has Botanic Bleu been the past month?
Thank you to those of you who inquired how I was doing since I have not published blog and Instagram posts since Christmas. I took a cruise to Panama Canal with my extended family, but did not share publicly in advance I was going to be gone for security reasons. In addition, I took a break from social media to focus on time with my aunts and uncles who I had not seen for two years. We had a great time!
There may be a handful of photos from the trip that pop up, but no detailed blog posts since I focused on family time, without my large digital camera.
Started the new year, the new decade, by
living life with joie de vivre!
Happy New Year!
