Wreath-Cycling - Composting at Christmas
Natural wreaths are a festive staple, often made with evergreens to symbolize strength and longevity—their ability to endure cold, harsh winters. Traditionally, like vintage Christmas cards, wreaths were a promise of spring’s return, often adorned with berries to bring color and brightness to the season.
Today’s wreaths incorporate a variety of natural materials, including pine cones, cinnamon sticks, holly, and berries—most of which can be composted, except for any wire or metal elements.
What Goes In?
Some parts will be slower to compost such as pine cones, moss, willow, spruce, holy and twigs. We recommend preferably breaking up pine cones before adding to the HOTBIN, and only adding moss in small quantities ensuring it’s well mixed in with other easy to digest waste.
Composting Christmas Wreaths
Twigs provide a good source of aeration creating air spaces in the waste. Ideally chopped up into small pieces that are less than 2 in., twigs can even be processed through a chipper and will in both cases act as bulking agent, as long as they are dry.
As with all leaf’s holly should be shredded before adding to the HOTBIN, this is even more important for plants that have waxy leaves. The protective waxy layer makes it harder for bacteria to break them down. Shredding increases the surface area visible to bacteria and in turn increases the speed of breakdown.
Ensure leaves are mixed in well with new waste and avoid adding a thick layer that could restrict airflow through the bin.
Cinnamon sticks and berries are easily composted and unlike worm composters where acidic food stuffs should not be added... citrus fruit and peel can be added into the HOTBIN.
If you have any bows or ribbons from a wreath that are made from natural materials, and you are unable to reuse them then these will compost too. Be aware though that it may take a little time for them to fully compost as per this experiment to compost a jumper in a HOTBIN!
Give your Christmas wreath a second life this season and let your HOTBIN turn it into nutrient-rich compost. Happy composting, and merry holidays!
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