The Best Fall Garlands and Wreaths

On an ordinary evening a centerpiece is the right answer. On Thanksgiving it is competing for the scarcest resource in the house, which is flat table surface, and it usually loses that competition at about 3:45pm when somebody needs somewhere to put the gravy.

A garland solves the same problem in two dimensions. It runs down the spine of the table between the two rows of plates, it reads as deliberate decor from every seat, and the moment a serving dish needs to land you simply put the dish on top of it. Nothing has to be moved to the sideboard mid-meal.

The other advantage is sightlines. Anything much above ten inches in the middle of a table means half your guests spend dinner talking to an arrangement instead of each other. Garland is two inches tall. If you do want a proper centerpiece as well, keep it low and read our centerpiece guide for the height rule.

Buy one 6-foot length and you have four options. Buy two and you can do more than one of them.

• Down the table. Centre run, between the place settings, with the flameless pillars set along it at staggered heights. This is the highest-impact placement and the one that photographs best.
• Along the mantel. Drape rather than stretch, with the ends falling a little at each side, and tuck two or three of the faux pumpkins into it so the run has depth. Six feet fits a standard mantel.
• Down the stair rail. Secure it with florist wire or clear elastics every eighteen inches rather than tape. This is where guests queue and where photographs happen.
• Around a doorway. The frame of the room people walk through, and the cheapest way to make a plain archway look dressed.

What not to do: wrap it round a light fitting or anything that gets warm, and do not run it across the serving area where dishes land hot.

Twenty-four inches is the default for a standard 36-inch front door, and it is the size that reads from the street rather than looking apologetic. Smaller than 20 inches disappears on a full door; larger than 26 starts to crowd the frame and will foul a storm door.

Hang it on an over-door hook. Adhesive hangers fail in cold, wet weather and take paint with them when they go, and a nail in a front door is not a decision you can reverse. If the door has a glass storm door in front of it, measure the gap first — a compressed wreath looks worse than no wreath.

Check the outdoor rating if the door is exposed. Faux foliage rated for indoor use fades quickly in direct autumn sun and sheds after rain, which turns a reusable purchase into a single-season one.

The trick to decor that looks considered rather than accumulated is repetition. Use the same two or three elements in every room rather than a different idea in each one.

So: the garland on the table, the same garland’s visual language on the mantel, pumpkins from the same box in both places and two more on the entry console, and the wreath on the door carrying the same palette. Four placements, three products, one coherent look. That is a far better result than six unrelated seasonal items.

Then let the linens do the color work. A plaid runner or a harvest tablecloth under a garland gives you the layered look without buying more decor — see the best fall table runners and Thanksgiving tablecloths. The whole-table version of this is in our tablescape guide.

Faux garland and wreaths are a multi-year purchase if they are stored properly and a one-year purchase if they are stuffed into a bin bag in a hot attic, which is what usually happens.

Garland stores flat, loosely coiled in a long shallow box, not compressed. A wreath wants to hang rather than sit — a hook in a closet, or a box slightly larger than the wreath so nothing bears on the foliage. Keep both out of an attic if you can; heat cycling is what makes faux leaves brittle.

Label the box with what is in it. The reason people buy new fall decor every year is rarely that the old set failed; it is that nobody could find it in October. Our storage and reuse guide covers the whole system.