"Branch In!"

As I looked out the kitchen window yesterday morning, I saw it: Spring!!! The teeniest little lime green buds on the trees had appeared over the weekend!!! (I think it was that 80 degree weather!!) And they're even bigger today. So, it got me thinking of reaccessorizing & one of the easiest & cheapest (I apologize to those that hate that word but i love it ;) ways to do this is to bring in your yard!! (Or nice, unsuspecting parkland/ public property.... hahaha ok I probably shouldn't have said that! but as long as you cut carefully!)



Even right now before the buds have really even started, look how beautiful the branches in the image below (from House Beautiful) look!








To keep branches alive, cut the stem with sharp pruning shears and put them in warm water containing fresh floral food. Floral food helps keep nourished the branches and also keeps bacteria from growing. (check out http://www.stemsflowers.com/aboutflowers.asp for awesome details on different types of plants.) I'm saying to put floral food in the vase because I just learned this great tidbit of info from the site above, but I've always done it without floral food and had luck! (Also, sometimes they wilt for a bit & come back!! odd.)




Below, I love what I think is a maple branch (correct me if I'm wrong!) and how easy it is to do. It's so striking and probably took all of 5 minutes:

Below is (not a branch!) but a snippet of (evergreen) clematis vine from my old house and it was super-easy to do & they lived for over a month!! (I put them everywhere!!)

Here's some flowering quince from Jenna Lyon's apt featured in Domino:

And some more:
Forsythia is one of my absolute favorite things to bring in!!! You can really force the buds with the warm water & they look so gorgeous when they branches are huge!! (My aunt in NJ has a home office that's floor-to-ceiling windows on 3 sides and it's surrounded by forsythia bushes- can you imagine that in the spring?!!! I'll have to get pics from her!!)

Below on the mantle, I used rhododendron branches to fill up the antique pitcher & since then I really hope to have a rhododendron bush one day!!!

And finally, I couldn't resist this beauty from House Beautiful, although I doubt many of us will be bringing in olive branches from our yards this year ;)

Good luck with your pruning & I can't wait to hear what you do with your branches!!!

xoxo,

lauren