Why Fresh Wreaths Beat Artificial Ones, If They're Actually Fresh
Here's the honest case for an artificial wreath. It lasts for years. It never drops a needle. It never needs misting. If you want one wreath for the rest of your life, buy the plastic one.
But a client gift isn't for the rest of anyone's life. It's for one season, on the door of someone you'll never visit. The whole point is that it's alive when it gets there.
What plastic can't do. It can't smell like anything. The smell is the thing our customers mention first:
"The quality, freshness and THE SMELL are first rate."
HuntJ, verified buyer
Pre-lit, battery operated, $54.98. It'll last forever. It smells like the box.
It also looks like plastic up close, and a front door is about as close as it gets.
What most fresh wreaths get wrong. You've probably gotten a wreath that looked great when it arrived and tired eleven days later. That isn't what fresh greens do. That's what cold storage does. Plenty of fresh wreaths are built in early fall, stacked in coolers and shipped as orders come in. Greens start losing moisture the moment they're cut, so a wreath that spent a month in a cooler shows up with a month already gone.
So fresh vs. artificial is the wrong question. The right one is how many days passed between the tree and the door.
Three questions to ask any vendor
- When were the greens cut? Noble Fir needs the first hard frost before its needles set. Greens cut before the frost look fine and don't hold.
- When was it built? Made to order, or made in September and stored?
- How long will it last? A good fresh wreath gets about six weeks on a cold door. If a vendor won't give you a number, that tells you something.
Our answers. We cut after the frost, starting in mid-October. Each wreath is built the week it ships. Six weeks on a cold door, sometimes eight. Customers have sent us photos of Doory still green in mid-January.
One more thing about plastic. It lasts forever, including after it goes in the trash. A fresh wreath goes in the yard waste bin in January. I'll leave that there.
If you're deciding between fresh and artificial for a client list, tell me a little about your list and grab fifteen minutes with me. I'll tell you which one I'd send, and why.
Jonah, founder, wreath.co