Wreathed With Smiles (and Marshmallows) for Christmas

Carrot and pepper wreath: habanero peppers and carrots with berried ivy over a wreath of noble fir and pine tips. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Gilded oak leaf wreath: gilded oak leaf rosettes, cherry tomatoes, crab apples, ruscus, holly and nandina berries wired onto a gilded leaf wreath. By Laura Dowling: / Photo by Kevin Allen

Sweet potato wreath: sweet potatoes, nandina foliage and berries with holly over a square boxwood wreath form. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Pinecone wreath: cinnamon and gilded pinecones, bundled snow peas and variegated holly, all wired onto a straw wreath frame. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Lady apple wreath: lady apples with Boston fern, nandina berries, holly and green hypericum. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Brussels sprouts wreath: Brussels sprouts and variegated holly over a boxwood wreath frame. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Red potato wreath: red potatoes with nandina foliage, astrantia, ivy berries and French grapes over a ruched ribbon base. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen

Marshmallow wreath: marshmallows with crystal branches and white statice, over a textured white paper base. By Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kevin Allen.

Floral designer Laura Dowling. / Photo by Stan Giske.

AFTER SIX YEARS as chief floral designer at the White House, Laura Dowling is back out there teaching and learning and arranging . . . and decorating her neighborhood with wreaths for  the holiday season.

She wanted to experiment a bit and show that all sorts of things could be pressed into service to make a wreath, but what else could she do with the wreaths, which were made with such foodstuffs as sweet potatoes and marshmallows? “A neighbor told me she liked one of the wreaths, so after Kevin [Washington photographer Kevin Allen] had shot it, I gave it to her,” Dowling explained. Pretty soon there were colorful and unusual wreaths all over Dowling’s Alexandria neighborhood

“These are not wreaths that are going to last a long time,” she cautioned. Some will last longer than others, but some, she explained, are really for just a few days, perhaps a special event.

Laura Dowling. / Photo by Kate Headley.

So making wreaths kept Dowling busy during the last month or so of 2015. Not to worry, Dowling will not be bored going into 2016. In February, she will be teaching a series of Master Classes at FlowerSchool New York. Every year she is a presenter at the renowned Philadelphia Flower Show, the oldest and largest in the country (in 2016 it runs March 5 to 13). In mid-April, she will deliver the keynote address at the Cincinnati Flower Show.

And, if that’s not enough, in late April she will travel to the Arts Quarter of Ghent, Belgium, to create a major installation for the international floral event Floralies 2016, which showcases innovative displays from around the world (Belgium itself is is home to an avant-garde of floral and landscape design).

Soon we won’t have to travel the country to keep up with Dowling: She has three books in the works!

–Nancy McKeon