GARDEN
DECK THE HALLS WITH... GARDEN CLIPPINGS?
The things I curse in the garden during the year become my best friends at Christmas. Isn’t that the way?
The seed pods of the palm trees whose berries turn the ponds into bloodbaths dry up and turn silvery about now, providing the perfect base for Christmas sculptures.
The magnolias drop messy, massive brown leaves all over the driveway but, along with a few twigs and seeds, they become installations on the outdoor tables.
Certainly, I couldn’t sustain it for more than a few hours, but I find this sort of garden decorating relaxing, and the pleasure I take in it has nothing to do with the artistic merit of the outcome. Which is just as well.
In addition to fashioning installations from debris, I like to do things with candles. A couple of years ago, I decided to plan ahead, so I scoured the internet for inexpensive but interesting candles and was astonished to discover there are very well-known designers who specialise in candles. One makes a whole range of candles for every conceivable occasion, including travel candles, and you can pay as much as $500 for a single one.
I think I’ll stick with my usual plan of buying heaps of medium-sized candles and placing them at strategic points around the garden, to highlight a spectacular plant or a sculpture.
A line of them along a wall or a gang grouped on a table provide much more of a Christmassy look than solar lights.
After you’ve cut your teeth on making little displays from garden debris, you could turn your hand to a Christmas wreath. Give yourself a head start by buying a base from a craft shop and turn it into rustic chic with a long-suffering foliage that won’t go brown overnight.
Macrocarpa, cryptomeria and other conifer-type plants have the right kind of foliage, and if you don’t have any, your neighbours probably will. Push the pieces into your base and add tiny silver or gold balls, fake berries or ribbons.
It’s easy to make decorations and gifts with succulents. If you want to get some for free, you’ll need a gran who grows them by the dozen; failing that, get ye to the garden centre.
(In case you’re wondering, all cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti. Succulents are defined by their moisture-storing capacity and come from many botanical families. Cacti have small, round, cushion-like structures called areoles from which spines grow.)
Most succulents are droughttolerant, so they’re great for Christmas decorations and work really well with other dry-garden items. Plant some in a long, narrow trough, top with white shell mulch, then sprinkle with tiny silver balls or glitter.
As a gift, you can’t go past Aloe polyphylla. Despite its name, which always sounds to me like a shonky plastering job, it’s a work of art. It would have every right to be difficult and demanding, but it isn’t – it’s easy to grow and tolerates a significant amount of neglect. Because it’s so decorative, it needs only a simple container and a card to be the perfect Christmas gift.