Festive decor grows in your garden
Christmas is just a couple of weeks away and you may be decorating out of doors. If you like the natural look, versus icicle lights or blow-up Santas and reindeer, we have some advice for you that will look great and save you money.
There are many natural items in your garden that lend themselves to a seasonal look:
1. Holly. “The Holly and the Ivy” is not only a famous Christmas carol, these plants actually exist. Winter hardy (to zone 4), Blue Holly has been around for a generation now and is a staple in many Canadian gardens. Don’t be afraid to cut stems this time of year as no harm will be done. Note that female holly is the one that forms berries — a universal rule for asexual plants.
Ivy needs to be the evergreen variety to be useful and it is generally less hardy than Blue Holly. However, if you are lucky enough to have some, feel free to cut it down and use it around door frames and wind it up railings. We’re going to cut it down from our office window where it has blocked our view since July — been meaning to do that . . .
2. Evergreen branches. This is big business. You can go to your local retailer and buy pine, fir, cedar and spruce branches at considerable expense or you can cut your own. Again, no harm done to your trees. There is no magic in this, just cut with a sharp pair of pruners and get creative with the use of the stems, inside and out.
3. Berries. Many plants produce berries or berry-like fruit in late fall. For the most part, they remain on the plant until late winter when foraging birds clean them off come February and March. Crabapples, Mountain Ash, Bittersweet Vine ( Celastrus scandens), euonymus and even roses can produce great looking fruit that is useful outdoors in containers and as decoration on the Christmas table.
4. Dogwood. The Red Twig Dogwood is a weed plant to many farmers as it grows almost anywhere that you find lingering moisture. When you cut native dogwood down by a metre or so, it grows back up aggressively in a year. The bright red bark of dogwood stands out in an outdoor arrangement, will not wither and resists frost. It is one versatile decorating accessory.
5. Birch. This one is a bit tricky as we would not recommend you cut down your birch tree just to decorate your front door. Unless, of course, you were cutting it down anyway. Again, there is no magic in the birch branches that you find at retailers this time of year. They are cut from two- to three-year-old trees, and then plants are dug up and replanted. Like a Christmas tree crop: sustainable and renewable.
6. Willow. Another weed. Pussy Willow ( Salix discolour) and Arctic Willow ( Salix arctica) both provide the raw material of a great display outdoors. They are unique in that they are very flexible — you can twist and weave them into wreaths, baskets or just braid them into a rope that will look great on the fireplace mantle.
7. Nuts and cones. What looks better on the Christmas table or front door console table than a natural bowl of chestnut conkers or pine cones?
Where do you get this stuff? Conservation areas and public forests have enough problems with humans taking liberties with their assets. But you may have a neighbour with some of these plants and who would be pleased if you did some free pruning of their mature landscape. Or you may know a farmer who would welcome your interest in controlling their dogwood problem.
Always get permission from the land owner: there is a hedge of Rosa multiflora at our neighbourhood golf course, and they have given us per- mission to cut all the rose hips that we want. Finally Let’s reflect on the meaning of all this: Berries, nuts, cones and rose hips are the fruit of plants that are attempting to reproduce. The message here is connected directly to that of new beginnings — of hope.
The holly, ivy and evergreen boughs, and live Christmas trees, are, well, evergreen. The point? That the message of Christmas does not end with the season. We celebrate year after year for reasons that all come back to one thing: Peace.
Peace to you. Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster, tree advocate and holds the Order of Canada. His son Ben is a fourth-generation urban gardener and graduate of University of Guelph and Dalhousie University in Halifax.