I had some fun decorating my front porch for Halloween this year. But, after Halloween had passed, I needed to find new decor inspiration for the porch. And I got it from that old, underrated source: The forest floor.

More specifically, the floor of my woodsy little shade garden. There are plenty of mosses, lichens, berries, and fallen branches there this time of year. And they can be so beautiful.

None of it looks perfect but, to me, fall is all about the imperfect beauty of nature.

Recreating Nature

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So I took these treasures, and some store-bought moss, and created my little “slice of the forest floor.”

I added a rusty flower frog to the mix. I wanted the whole thing to look a little like something you might find on a walk through a forgotten garden.

I got the chunk of moss that the arrangement sits on by wrapping sheet moss around a large, overturned terracotta saucer.

One thing I learned about this look, especially if you’ve had some fun foraging for materials, is that it’s easy to go a little overboard.

This was my first attempt – cute, but too busy and too “styled.”

I like the pared-down version I ended up with.

A Rustic Wreath

But I still had a lot of good moss left. So I re-worked the twig wreath I made earlier this year. The reindeer moss was beginning to lose its color.

I pulled it off and added newer reindeer moss – plus some lichen-covered twigs from my shade garden.

The slice of the forest floor and the rustic wreath should make for a nice transition from fall into winter. So, no worries if I’m slow getting around to holiday decor for the front porch.

But this lichen-and-moss look will stay outside for one reason: Tiny critters. Since most of the materials came from my garden, who knows what is living in that moss. Whatever it is, it (and I) will be much happier if it stays outside.

Resources:

Bags of assorted mosses and lichens can spare you the work of finding your own – and the possibility of ride-along critters.

Sheet moss is a user-friendly liner – and a foundation for many creative projects.

Posts on this website are for entertainment only and are not tutorials.

Holiday Reading

The novel Year of the Angels begins and ends with an Old-World Christmas. But it’s what happens between those two Christmases that makes this book so fascinating.

Treasures from the Forest Floor

Recreating Nature

A Rustic Wreath

Resources:

Holiday Reading

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