Natural Decor for the Season

October 6th, 2008 BY AceFisch | 1 Comment

With autumn right around the corner, the season for décor has arrived. From October to January, festive decorations will adorn homes and businesses alike, but often these decorations are discarded once the season has passed, adding up to millions of pounds of extraneous waste in our landfills and dumps.

But this doesn’t mean decorating has to stop. There are easy and beautiful ways to decorate your home without producing extra waste. In the fall, and around Halloween especially, there are a number of organic decorations that can be used to spice up any home.

Some of the more famous eco-friendly decorations include hay bales, pumpkins, decorative gourds, corn stalks and harvest corn. Most of these are best used for outdoor décor due to the mess they can make, but smaller pumpkins and gourds, as well as corn, can be used indoors as well.

Large items like dried corn and corn stalks can last for months before they start to go bad. When the hay bales become wet or soggy, it’s best they be thrown out- but not in the garbage. Hay is a great insulator for outdoor plants, and leftover hay bales can be used to protect the ground and roots of bulbs and other perennials. Hay can also go in autumn compost piles.

Dried harvest corn (or “Indian corn”) and corn stalks can be stored for years and reused like traditional decorations, and they look great in wreath and garlands. But when they do eventually wear out, they can be composted and used in garden material just like hay.

Smaller gourds, and especially pumpkins, can be reused in a manner of ways. Gooseneck gourds, and others like them, can be dried and hollowed to create unique baskets and birdhouses. Pumpkins can last for up to five months when stored at around 50 degrees, so when the season has passed, pumpkins make a great resource for pumpkin puree, baked pumpkin slices, and pumpkin seeds. If they happen to rot, however, pumpkins are still biodegradable and make a great addition to any compost heap without adding waste to the environment.

So this autumn, when you’re in the mood for harvest décor around the house, look into reusable, biodegradable decorations that add not only colour to your home, but the spice of the season.

AceFisch | My Bio & Articles

I am an junior English major/ Philosophy minor at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Currently I am spending the spring of 2009 studying at the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland.