Our Free, Compostable Christmas Tree Made from WEEDS!

Hey everyone, I'm kinda proud of my Christmas tree this year. I live on litterally zero dollars except for the occasional workshop that I do. I need to make my "no dollars" stretch, so this year, I've made my own Christmas tree and ornaments out of Carolina Creeper Vine, Luffah everything, Smilax Vine, Pine Cones, a teeny bit of bamboo and string. We even got some ornaments from the thrift store with some 70s-esque funk to them (we've traditionally not had a tree, but now we have a little one and that changes everything).

So, the tree and most ornaments are completely compostable, but if we want to keep them, the tree collapses onto itself for easy storage in our teeny house. We strung up some old lights and voila! We made faeries with long dresses out of luffah. The wings are made from luffah skin or vine depending. Instead of a star we made a bird's nest at the top and made a bird from luffah and bits of bamboo.

It took about 4 hours start to finish including harvesting materials.

I hope you like it!

Wow, Alex, I'm impressed! Did you grow the luffah and the creeper vine?

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Wow, Alex, I'm impressed! Did you grow the luffah and the creeper vine?

Thanks Jocelyn! I grew the luffah. I had the biggest, bestest Luffahs ever this year! They were about 20" long! The Creeper and the Smilax are the ones that you could categorize as weeds, but I don't see it that way. The Smilax has thorns all over, but they make great bean trellis! I'm trying to find a "weed" that isn't AMAZING or at least useful for something...

they are not weeds when you want them, they are volunteer plants

Yeah, that's how I see it, but when you want to capture someone's attention about turning something that most people think of as "unwanted" and invasive into something very useful, you call them "weeds" in the title

Alex Ojeda wrote:Yeah, that's how I see it, but when you want to capture someone's attention about turning something that most people think of as "unwanted" and invasive into something very useful, you call them "weeds" in the title

Love it! Yes, I think it helps to show people another side of "weeds." The more we do that the better.

This one made with branches reminded me of yours, Alex. I'd want to somehow string the branches from each other so as not to make so many dings in the wall. Can't tell if they did that.



Here's the recycled art source page.

Reviving this thread because it's awesome! Have you made a similar Christmas tree in the years since this post, Alex?

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Reviving this thread because it's awesome! Have you made a similar Christmas tree in the years since this post, Alex?

Great to hear from you again!  Yes, we continue to use this same tree.  It doesn't seem to have a shelf-life.  Still trucking along just as good as day one.  We just pull it out from being a chair where it stays year-'round, hook it to the ceiling, plug it in and voila.  Christmas!

All of our Christmas presents use Christmas bags from years gone by, so there's very minimal waste.  Running the LED lights (since it's in the 80F temps here in December and we don't need extra heat) off of solar (nickel Iron batteries) helps with that too ;)

Here's a shot of the tree as it hangs right now.

Oh, yay! I was hoping for another picture, and there it is!

BEAUTIFUL!!

We're being a bit silly with our tree this year (see Christmas trees made of books) and I still don't have lights on it yet. So. much. to. do. (This time of year!)

A couple years ago, as I was heading out to get a Chistmas tree, I opened my door, and a tree-shaped Russian Thistle (tumbleweed) was sitting on my doorstep. I looked around, said “Thank you!” to Nature, took it inside, and decorated it.

One year when I was young (maybe 8 or 9?) my mom sprayed a cholla cactus skeleton gold and it was our Christmas tree, I liked it. Cholla looks like this, in case people don't know:


Me and mom live together these days, and Christmas trees are not something we have the urge for, but we like weird pretty things. This year mom wanted a thing to hang above where she lays to exercise, there is a heater register there, and I painted it for her, so it's at least not as rusty, but it is still boring to look at. I was working at the property one day, cut a little volunteer tree in a bad spot, brought it home, got creative with the printer, scissors and thread... and now this is above the exercise space.




We are claiming it as Christmas tree this year. Last year's "tree" was probably our weirdest, definitely not compostable, but made of recycled stuff:




So this year's thing is pretty close to normalcy for us!

How beautiful!

We have the Christmas crock. It is an antique 6 gallon crock that we fill with pine boughs and red osier cuttings. Throw some ornaments on it and poof Christmas!

I love this thread, and it's just what I've been looking for. The thought of spending $50+ on a tree anymore is ridiculous. and thinking of the possible environmental issues with Christmas tree farms, I just couldn't buy one this year. I have 2 lovely fir trees and a holly tree, and was thinking of trimming a few branches and cobbling something together. This thread gives me lots to work with. Thanks for coming through yet again, permies!

Back in 2021 with COVID still of concern, we lost interest in venturing out for a tree. I had a wrapped gift for my sweety, but no tree to put it under. So I thought of wooden things that would be big enough for a few presents underneath and opportunities to hang decorations, and came up with the following: