From observing what I am drawn to in my pinning tendencies, I can hardly resist a full garland of greenery as a table runner. It feels full and beautiful and classic. I like it with a lot of color palettes, but greenery plus black and white might be my favorite and I feel like it is a scheme that’s hard to mess up. I was recently wanting the lush green garland look for a big party I was helping host. I quickly found that this look is usually expensive. THEN I found the trick lays with a plant called salal.
Those are the generic green leaves that are usually just used as the default leaf in bouquets. They are cheap, but when they are strung together in pretty garland form, they are an inexpensive way to get a full feel of lots of gorgeous greenery.
Really it looked so good I didn’t even miss ruscus or silver dollar eucalyptus.
My greenhouse sold salal in bundles. One bundle was about $15 and included 15 stems. So for your quantity buying purposes, 1 bundle = 15 stems = 12 feet finished garland.
The only other supplies needed are wire and wire cutters. For the wire, I bought some nice thin kind for floral arranging at the same place I got my greenery. It was only like $3 for a spool. Nothing heavy duty is needed on the cutters because the wire is so thin.
Then you just make your garland by wiring pieces together, covering the stem of the previous piece with the leaves of the next one. Then to finish attach a couple reverse pieces to cover the last stem. The process is very forgiving and you can easily make tweaks and fill in as needed.
If pieces come apart, (which they definitely can if your garland is long) it is no problem because they would be easy to reassemble on site (if you are transporting).
The greenery naturally curves on its own during assembly and looks lovely and sculptural. Making my twelve bundles for about 144 feet of garland took 2-3 hours. And maybe best of all, salal lasts SO LONG. So you can do it in advance. Even if you aren’t having a big occasion, you could make a garland for your summer table in an instant for like, no money.