Originally Posted by fly2hi

My wife has been making 100+ holly wreaths each year for about 15 years. We always sell out. Whenever i've bought in ready made wreaths, i normally end up chucking them or giving away. When you see how much is involved in making a nice holly wreath you start to appreciate that you can't do that and then wholesale them, so you've got to expect a very, very basic wreath when you buy in around the £3 mark.
To make your own you can moss up a few weeks ahead and just leave them outside so they wont dry out. If you can find a local farmer or someone with lots of holly this helps a lot. The best holly is on young trees or at the top of older trees. You won't get at this standing on the ground. If you cut the 'prickly' leaves, your hands will be ripped to shreds by xmas. Dont worry too much about berries, we use the plastic wired berries. you can then place these evenly. The natural berries are nicer but normally are in larger clumps and sometimes difficult to arrange properly. you could do a combination of both. I normally fill a large van when i cut holly. You'll be amazed how much you get through. Find some variegated holly as well and use a few bits in each wreath. Bind the individual pieces to the mossed ring with mossing wire adding any decorations as you go. We add small pine cones. You should be collecting these well in advance before they rot on the ground i.e. months ago. You can always buy bags of cones from wholesalers but this adds to your cost and they are normally a bit larger (nicer for selling loose) Crazy as it is, this area is covered in pine trees, so millions on the ground until everyone is looking for them when they are rotten, so yes you can sell them.
You can add a red poly bow as the cheapest option or make up a nice bow with tartan ribbon. These look really classy.
Yes, it's very time consuming but at least you will be selling nice wreaths that won't be dead on xmas day.