Back Roads

Old pros with boughsCommercial Christmas wreathmaking has been tradition in Long Prairie for more than a half century.

In 2008 Tony and Mary Borgheiinck, the owners of Custer Floral, agreed to take over the Christmas wreath making business from the local Methodist church. The church had the business because the Custer family brought it to the congregation as a fund raiser when they sold the floral business to the Borgheiincks in 1970.

“The Custers didn’t want to sell that part of the business then,” Tony said.

Tony recalls picking up the balsam, white pine, and cedar greens near Deer River, Minn. that first year. They took their delivery van but didn’t realize how many big bundles it takes to make 250 or so wreaths.

“We took some apart and stuffed them in corners in the van,” Tony said. “Then the crew that cut them helped us tie some to the top of the van.”

The harvesters that helped Tony and Mary decorate their van like a rolling Christmas tree are licensed to harvest greens on tribal and state land.

“I have to have a copy of their permit to show that they were harvested legally,” Tony said.

Now days Tony, with help from his son, has a better system for hauling the greens. And once they get to the floral shop (which the Borgheiincks closed several years ago), Mary, Tony and a long-time holiday helper set to work making two sizes of wreathes and a swag.

The helper, hands flying efficiently, cuts a small spray of greens, assembles them, and wires them onto a heavy wire wreath frame.

“I really enjoy doing this,” she said. “It smells good.”

If an order requires it, the assistant attaches pine cones which were gathered by Mary and Tony during the summer. Then Tony and Mary make the ribbons and cedar sprays and attach them to the wreathes.

“I’ve been assigned the job of making the swags,” Tony says.

“We use about 1,000 yards of ribbon and 700-800 pine cones each year,” Mary, who can make a big red velvet ribbon in the time it takes to say this, said.

Since they closed the flower shop, the Borgheiincks have cut production down to around 200 wreathes a year. Retail sales declined and most of their sales are wholesale — including the Peace Methodist church which continues to sell them as a fund raiser.

Mary says she’ll be happy to connect anybody who wants a wreath with the church. She’s at (320) 732-3663. v