Getting ready for Christmas is a high point in the year. The tree takes centre stage in a room adorned with festive sparkle.
Planning and preparing a distinctively personal display is so satisfying and, like most gardeners, I always want to include extra plants in the layout. They add a delightful fresh fragrance to a room.
Unfortunately, looking out on the garden as I write, I see many of my best laid plans have been fatally flattened by storm Arwen. So we can’t have any ornamental grasses, striking hogweed umbels or astilbe. Seedheads fit for spray painting are now few and far between.
For starters, what should the festive room look like? Should it be crammed with lights, wreaths and glistening goodies or do we want a more minimalist display where less is more and we hope fewer, possibly larger, displays will have greater impact?
And I’ve two more problems to add to the mix. Covid-willing, the whole family, including our 2 small granddaughters, will be here over the holidays, together with my son’s enterprising young cat set on exploring everywhere.
So prickly stems and alluring, slightly toxic, red berries must be kept out of reach.
Blackbirds and thrushes have already cleaned up the holly berries and this is probably just as well for my granddaughters as they are mildly toxic, irritating the mouth and causing an upset tummy. One of the girls has a keen eye for red berries.
During the summer, walking through the woods, I remember the excited wee soul craning out of her backpack and avidly pointing at ripe raspberries.
Cotoneaster berries are also slightly toxic, but hawthorn berries and the last of the rose hips are safe. They’ll brighten up wreaths and masquerade as holly berries.
Most of our conifers, pine, cedar or cypress are safe but do avoid Leyland cypress for decoration as it can irritate the skin. And never use laurel because the leaves are poisonous and cherry laurel leaves even emit cyanide.
You’ll almost certainly have a suitable evergreen. Simply snip off the odd unobtrusive branch to use for wall or windowsill decorations, possibly brightened up with the odd bunch of hawthorn berries.
Bare twigs can also work well as decorations, particularly hazel, birch, or alder. You may even have picked up some branches or stems after the storm, but do look closely at them.
The beautifully shaped branches are often fan-shaped. Enjoy their impressive impact when acting as the focal point for a most appealing display. Take a hand lens to them – it’s fascinating. Even a thin stem has highly textured bark, sometimes smooth, rough or curling. As icing on the cake, gorgeously patterned lichens may luxuriantly cover their host. There may be more than one species, together with young specimens, almost painting the bark a greeny-blue, till you glimpse their tiny, leaf-like shapes.
Pick out and spray paint any cones on alder or larch branches and wind tiny battery powered lights along and through the decoration and, if possible, arrange a lighted backdrop to highlight the display. On a small scale, an arrangement of 3 or 4 little twigs on a mossy base looks good.
And why not raid the herb garden and greenhouse? Choose small pots of scented rosemary, thyme or painted sage and one or two sprays from larger plants always enhance a decoration.
Look round the greenhouse with its overwintering tender residents. I’ll be using little pots of last year’s scented pelargonium cuttings that are now bushy little plants. And a more unusual pelargonium, ‘Ardwick Cinnamon’ is the perfect candidate with its tiny leaves smelling of cinnamon and even smaller little pink-streaked white flowers.
Plant of the week
Pinus strobus ‘Blue Shag’ is a small, spreading form of Eastern white pine; growing to 1.5 metres. The slender needles have a distinctively blue tinge.
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