Lee Valley employee Rachel Buchanan created this planter, which is on display at the entrance of our head office in Ottawa, Ontario. It's composed of materials found at her parents' rural property, including dried hydrangeas, which she spray-painted cherry red, pine and spruce tree cuttings, dogwood branches for additional red color, and the "airiest" ornamental grass she could locate.

Rachel creates planters using "anything that I find in my garden", which leaves room for her to be as creative or simplistic as she wants. The only strict guidelines she follows include using groups of three or five elements and waiting for optimal weather conditions. The soil must to be soft enough to stick the components into it, but the temperature needs to be low enough so that after watering the planter once, all of the elements will freeze into the soil. Once frozen, the planter should last throughout the winter season.