The short answer
Take the bow off, shake the tips out, size the container five inches larger than the wreath, lay it flat and hang it on a hook. The two free steps — removing the bow and shaking the tips out — do more for the wreath than the container choice does.
The method
- 1
Take the bow off
It is usually the deepest part of the wreath and the first thing crushed. Store it flat, separately, and wire it back on next December. If it is glued rather than wired, leave it and buy for the depth instead.
- 2
Shake the tips out
Hold the frame and shake gently, then run a hand around the outer edge lifting any tips that have been pressed flat against the door. A wreath stored in its December shape stays in that shape.
- 3
Remove anything organic
Real pine cones, dried berries, citrus slices, raffia. In an unconditioned garage or attic those are food and nesting material. Artificial equivalents are not.
- 4
Measure and size the container
Across the outer tips at the widest point, plus five or six inches. Depth from the back of the frame to the highest remaining decoration.
- 5
Lay it flat, decorated side up
It should drop in without persuasion. If you are pressing the tips inward to close the container, the container is too small and the wreath will come out flattened.
- 6
Hang it, or shelve it
A hook on a garage wall or a rafter is the best storage a wreath can have. A shelf is fine. Never the bottom of a stack.
Why hanging is so good for a wreath
A wreath is a disc. Discs are terrible on shelves — they take a large footprint for a thin object — and excellent on walls, which is where the wreath spends December anyway.
Hanging also removes the crush question entirely. Nothing can be stacked on a hanging container, so the failure mode that ruins most wreaths simply cannot occur. Most fabric wreath containers publish reinforced handles that take a hook directly.
The one thing hanging does not solve is dust, which is why an unbagged wreath on a garage nail is a worse idea than it looks. Bag it, then hang the bag.
The bow, specifically
Bows are the deepest and most fragile part of most wreaths, and they are the reason people buy an oversized container. If the bow is wired on, removing it takes thirty seconds and drops your depth requirement by three or four inches, which frequently drops you a whole container size.
Store the bow flat in the same container beside the wreath, or in a shallow box with other bows. What ruins a bow is sustained compression, and the same rule applies as with gift bows: nothing on top. See storing ribbon and bows.
Several wreaths
Stacking two wreaths in one container works if the container publishes a depth per wreath rather than only a total height. The Zober two-pack publishes 7.5 inches per wreath in a 15-inch container, which is the honest version of that number.
For small window wreaths, stacking three or four flat with tissue between them inside a rigid bin is perfectly reasonable, and cheaper than four containers. The sizing is on wreath sizes.
And the garland
If the wreath has matching garland, store them together. They go up together and come down together, and a separate garland bag in a different part of the garage is how one of them gets lost. Most wreath containers publish an interior pocket or compartment for exactly this. Coiling method at how to store garland.