On fall mornings, Jordan Renzi can be found in the back of her truck making wreaths while she keeps company with the familiar voices on NPR. She works several jobs over the course of the year, like most of her peers on the Outer Cape, recently adding wreathmaker to the list.

Since 2011, Renzi has mostly been a singer-songwriter, with stints as a wild oyster harvester, surfing instructor, and development coordinator at Harvard. Six years ago, Renzi started making wreaths for friends, collecting the materials from nature. Her side gig may have started as a creative way to give gifts on a budget, but after showing off her creations on Instagram (@wellfleetwildwreathco), people started placing orders and offering to pay for her work.

The plant materials that most interest her are common Cape species that other foragers with rarer targets in mind might overlook: marsh grasses and seedheads in tones of wheat and silver, inky black baptisia pods, chalky-blue bayberries, spiky milkweed pods from a meadow, and whatever else catches her eye along the trail.

Gathering happens weeks later after the plants begin to dry out. Late season fruit provides the finishing touches. Silvery-blue juniper berries may pop out earlier, but winterberry is the real treat — bright red berries that appear on bushes in October and keep their color and shape for months after they dry.

Unless someone has placed a custom order with specific instructions, Renzi lets herself be led by what’s happening around her in the seashore, forests, and marshes. Making wreaths is not only a meditative exercise in preserving the natural world — it also trains her eye to connect with the ecosystem around her while she searches out potential fodder.

Renzi’s wreaths evolve almost like music, building from a basic structure that’s accented by fleeting design elements, each changing as the months go past in a seasonal rhythm. In her hands, what most people speed right by and pay no attention to is turned into something artful.

Wreathmaking 101

• Renzi begins with a metal round (available at craft supply stores) in one of three sizes: small, large, or extra-large, ranging from 6 to 24 inches in diameter.
• She begins to layer her materials by tying a base layer of grasses to the metal with green garden wire.
• Then she adds more textures to create a dynamic mix of airy seedheads accented by pods or berries.
• Sometimes Renzi adds a recognizably Wellfleet design element: oysters spray-painted gold and secured with a hot-glue gun.
• Finally, the entire wreath is given a spritz of Krylon lacquer, preserving the subtle colors while protecting the natural elements so that the wreath can be enjoyed for seasons to come.