Decorate with Pinecones

I have a fondness for Pine Trees and I love their refreshing scent. For so many years I have decorated my Home with Pinecones and for the past six years I started using cones around my yard using a variety of shapes and sizes. I use them all year round and not just for special events.

We live in an area with an abundance of pine cones as most of our neighbors have Pine Trees in their yards always full of cones with so many of them all over the ground. I planned to stock up on pine cones for some garden projects and also to replace the ones which got damaged by wind and rain.
On Friday afternoon we suited up and went Pinecone picking around the neighborhood and returned home with four large heavy duty plastic bags full of cones. We were lucky to find a few acorns as well. Because some cones have sharp thorns, you should always use gloves when picking and handling them.

Since I wasn’t planning on using the cones indoors, I just checked to insure that their scales were free of pine needles and debris and then I spray painted them with different colors. The main reason why I didn’t rid the cones of their thorns is to discourage squirrels and stray cats from digging into my garden beds.

Here are some ideas to decorate with Pinecones:

All the pinecones we found contain pine nuts, the edible seeds of pine trees and are quite hard to extract. There are usually two nuts nested in each scale of the cone. While Crows are struggling to crack open the hard shells, Squirrels on the other hand have shown no interest in them. According to the Temperate Climate Permaculture website, it takes anywhere from 5 to 75 years for some Pine trees to begin producing seeds.

Possibilities and ideas are endless when decorating with Pinecones.

Click here to learn about Preparing and Preserving Pinecones.