Gardening Topic for December 2007
Winter Gathering for Terrariums or Berry Bowls

Provided by the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association
www.wmassmastergardeners.org.

Cutting fresh greens and collecting small plants to make woodland terrariums is traditionally a job for the weekend after Thanksgiving or the first weekend in December in our household. It’s a task that needs to be completed before it snows and the ground freezes.

Now I’m a gatherer not a hunter but I’m well aware that there are hunters out there at this time of year. Supposedly hunting is not allowed on Sundays but you would never be able to tell that from the amount of the gunshots you can hear coming from the woods surrounding my property on Sunday afternoons. Perhaps they’re just working on target practice. At any rate, I proceed into the woods with caution. I don my red coat, always take a buddy along, and singing a verse or two of “Good King Wenceslas” lets anyone lurking about with a gun know that we’re bipeds.

When setting out on a gathering mission make sure you obtain the permission of the property owner before you dig or cut anything and remember there is no such thing as public property when it comes to harvesting plants. While you’re free to hike, camp, hunt and fish {with a proper license of course} in state-owned wildlife management areas, removing plants is not permitted. According to Bill Brumback, Conservation Director of the New England Wildflower Society, Massachusetts has adopted, from English Common Law, the principle that while fish and game belong to the state, plants belong to the landowner. So technically, cutting greens along the roadside, railroad tracks or electric lines is off limits without permission.
Most of what I need to create Christmas terrariums, or berry bowls, as I call them, can be found in my own backyard. The clear glass containers I collect at flea markets and secondhand stores throughout the year.

My first rule when gathering plants from the wild is to never collect more than I can use. It doesn’t take much plant material to fill a six-inch bowl, and I do my best not to waste anything.

Princess pine is a member of a group of primitive vascular plants known as club mosses that grow in nutrient rich woodsy soil. It resembles a pine tree but is only a few inches tall. It is found growing in clusters because it’s aerial shoots are produced on trailing underground stems. Unfortunately, many people who collect this plant to make Christmas wreaths find it more convenient to pull the plants up by the roots rather than cutting the individual shoots off at ground level, and entire colonies are being wiped out every year. I only need a few shoots for each berry bowl so I carefully lift them out of the ground with a hand spade and clip them away from the rest of the plant with a sharp pair of scissors.

Partridgeberry {mitchella repens} and wintergreen, also called checkerberry {gaultheria procumbent}, both common in woods throughout Ashburnham, are small evergreen plants that produce red berries in the fall. Partridgeberry is also a trailing plant and I clip it away from the root system to avoid taking more than I need. These plants along with moss are the major ingredients of a berry bowl.

I know of four types of moss that grow locally and I like to collect a bit of each to add some variety in color and texture to my arrangements. Fern moss is low growing and develops in sheets that can easily be pulled away from rocks and soil. Cushion moss and rock cap moss are clumping varieties that can be found growing on rocks. Cushion moss is a lighter green with a silver white cast while rock cap moss is a rich, dark green. Both need to be harvested carefully because the clumps break apart easily. Hair cap moss has rootlike structures that anchor it to rocks and may need to be dug up if found growing in soil.

To begin planting I fill the bowls with a few inches of moist potting soil. I plant the princess pine, partridgeberry and wintergreen first, adding more soil, if needed, to cover the roots, and then I press bits of moss in around the plants to fill in any remaining space. I like to add a small acorn, a curl of white birch bark, a few pine needles or a couple of hemlock cones to each container to make the planting more reminiscent of the forest floor. A few squirts of water from a spray bottle are all that is needed to keep the arrangement moist and fresh throughout the winter if you choose to seal the top of the bowl with clear plastic wrap If you choose to forego the plastic wrap you’ll have to mist the plants on a regular basis.

I am not a winter person. I don’t like the cold, and two inches of snow on Christmas Eve is all I require to satisfy my dreams of a white Christmas. I really enjoy my last few forays into the woods before winter really takes hold, and keeping a berry bowl on my kitchen sideboard throughout the winter is a sweet reminder of everything that is green and good in the world.

Rock Cap Moss
Dicranum

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Provided by the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association
www.wmassmastergardeners.org