Instructions

1. Gather cones, bark and twigs on a dry day and shake the loose dirt out of them before they come indoors. Anything collected after rain holds water deep in its crevices and will lag far behind the rest of the load.
2. Drop the cones and bark into boiling water for fifteen minutes. This is not about drying them — it kills the insects and eggs that live in bark, and a wreath hung indoors without it will eventually release them.
3. Slice any citrus peel thinly and press flowers flat between two sheets of paper before they go on a tray. Curled peel and crumpled petals set in whatever shape they went in, and the shape is the point here.
4. Load like with like: cones on one tray, peel on another, petals and herbs on a third. Their times differ by hours, and keeping them apart means each can come off when it is ready.
5. Dehydrate at 57 °C for 7 hours. A cone is finished when its scales have opened fully and it feels light for its size, peel when it holds a curl without springing back, petals when they rustle.
6. Let everything reach room temperature before you reach for the glue gun. Warm material is still giving off water, and glue laid onto it lets go within a week.
7. Build the ring from the largest pieces first to set the shape, then fill the gaps with small ones. Work round the inner and outer edges as well as the face, so the foam disappears from every angle.
8. Finish with the cinnamon sticks, nut shells and a ribbon, and hang it away from a heater or a sunny window. Dried botanicals hold their colour for a couple of seasons in shade and lose it in weeks in direct light.