Spruce the place up for Christmas C
HRISTMAS is a time of wonderful smells. The spicy scent of mulled wine, the sootiness of the log fire, and the fresh pine aroma of a real tree in the corner.
As the days are shorter and the outside world a little bare, we bring evergreen plants indoors to help us celebrate the festive season.
From boughs of holly to sprigs of mistletoe, all sorts of Christmassy plants are grown and sold each year to adorn hallways and living rooms. But wouldn’t it be fantastic if we grew some of our own Christmas decorations?
Splashing out on pricey plastic bits of holly is mad when it’s perfectly simple to grow the real deal. Once they’re established, your Christmas plants will be there year after year, ready for you to start snipping and decorating in December.
So here’s a quick guide to growing some of your favourites: have plenty of space.
Each year you can not only decorate the tree with outdoor lights, but also prune off sprigs and branches to decorate inside your home, bringing indoors the fragrance of Christmas.
They look great on the mantelpiece, or as part of your Christmas wreath – and you can even put little sprigs upright in pots to make miniature Christmas trees. have become nearly as much a symbol of Christmas as our trees.
There are loads of varieties to choose from – I really love the Ilex aquifolium Argentea Marginata, whose foliage is edged with a lovely cream colour.
Holly likes a sunny position, but can be grown in partial shade. It’s fully hardy and works well in well-drained beds and borders as a hedge plant.
It will grow in all soil types and aspects, and is available to buy in garden centres now – so you could be planting your own holly bush today.
If you already have holly in your garden, December is a great time to get down to some pruning. Cut back to the growth bud and use your snippets to deck those halls.
Use the pruned vines in your Christmas wreath, to decorate your home, or even as an embellishment to your Christmas wrapping. THESE ethereal spheres of evergreen foliage can often be spotted growing wild in bare trees over winter, and are a delightful touch to our front doors and hallways for Christmas.
The age-old kissing tradition has been around since pagan times, when the white mistletoe berries were thought to be linked to fertility.
Because mistletoe is a parasitic plant, which means it depends on a host plant to survive, it can be quite difficult to propagate yourself.
My recommendation is to buy a growing kit, which contains mature berries for planting and helpful advice. Bear in mind too that mistletoe is rarely spotted in northern Britain – so you will have a much higher chance of success if you live in the Midlands or in southern England. Don’t attempt to plant berries from shop-bought Christmas