Hi friends! And happy 2023! We had a really wonderful holiday and winter break. I feel like I say it every year, but Christmas with a four and two year old may be my favorite yet. I’m going to share some favorite pictures from the break tomorrow, but today I’m finally getting around to sharing my winter outside containers this year.

In fairness, I put together my winter containers before the holidays, but I love making them easily non-Christmas-y, so they look beautiful all winter long.

In the front, I anchored the container with a spruce top picked up at my local garden nursery. I bought the white berry, pine cone, and birch wood accents last year, so they cost me zero dollars this year. 🙂

And then I filled in the container with a layer of white pine and incense cedar along the base and pine tree in the middle. About half of which was purchased from our garden nursery and the other half salvaged from my yard and my neighbors’ yard by way of their beautiful white pines that overhang into our backyard. (I checked with them over the summer that they were ok with me cutting a few branches!)

For the holidays, I wrapped the center “Christmas tree” in twinkle lights to match the rest of our Christmas lights up front. But I particularly love the clean-ness of the whites, greens, and browns as we enter the new year and the rest of winter.

In the back planters on our patio, I did two matching containers.

I used the same outdoor flicker pillar candles that I used last year. They still work perfectly and are set on a timer to come on at dusk each evening. I did lose one at the end of last season because it had gotten some water in the battery compartment, but five for six surviving and working in their second season seemed like a great win for me! Especially after winter!

I filled in the base again with white pine and incense cedar. The middle was accented by a few magnolia leaves and pine. And I picked up some fake red berries at Hobby Lobby, I think…and the honeycomb-ish things are from Trader Joe’s in their dried stems!

I’ve really been enjoying the pop of red in the backyard this winter when everything else is all brown and grey. And plus, I’ll get to reuse them next year!