Some festive ideas and inspiration for your stylish Christmas decorations, such as baubles and garlands, can be easily handmade at home using foraged and natural materials from the garden or surrounding landscape.
Also useful are lengths of colourful ribbon, stiff florist wire and green sticky tape which helps natural materials hold their shape. Small pieces of chicken wire help to provide support for dry stems. Make wreath bases from slender stems twisted into rings. Children will love being involved in making your own decorations.
From ivy garlands to baubles made with seedheads and small fruits, there are many creative ideas to choose from to decorate both the home and garden.
In many places, you will find branches of trees covered with the most magnificent lichen. Choose a particularly good-looking specimen to bring into the house to decorate with other natural Christmas decorations such as small seedhead baubles.
Seedheads are very versatile when it comes to creating natural decorations for Christmas. They catch the light and can be given a light spray of gold, silver or bronze paint to add shine and interest. Ivy flowers and berry clusters can be added in to break up the seedhead base.
Old tree stumps and gateposts are the perfect place to find mature ivy with clusters of fantastically architectural berries. To show them off to their best advantage, they need a structure. That structure can be provided in the form of thin ends of branches to make a ball that is light enough to hang from a pin.
A collection of these globes in varying sizes looks great as a Christmas decoration hanging from the ceiling.
A simple Christmas wreath packed with just one plant material is often more striking than a mixture of colours and texture. The shiny leaves and dark purple and green berries of mature common ivy are so fulsome that they need absolutely nothing else. Ivy can be a pest, but in the winter, it provides evergreen shiny leaves and berries for your decorations.
Use small twigs and branches to make atmospheric stars and a bright strip of ribbon adds a little colour, right at its heart.
A simple Christmas garland made with trailing ivy and small fruits can decorate a painting or a mirror, or form a ring on the Christmas table, hung festoon-like over the top edge of a cupboard, or twisted around the banisters of a staircase. Small citrus fruits or dried slices look good with shiny leaves.
Succulents are the plant of the moment. If the previous designs are too country-living for your taste, a succulent wreath offers a solution to those wanting to add a more trendy, millennial touch to their Christmas festive get-up.
Soften the look by incorporating herbs, ivy berries and leaves amongst the succulents. Use rosettes of Sempervivum ‘Rubin’ and echeverias.
Create simple, thoughtful table decorations by adding aromatic foliage to glasses or napkins. To transform your wine or champagne glasses, use soft, small-leaved stems of myrtle or choose sprigs of scented, winter-flowering shrubs such as rosemary or lavender.
Lighting up an entrance, whether it’s a gateway that leads to the house or one that takes you to another part of the garden, is not only about the practical illumination of a point of arrival, it is also about the welcoming of guests and building a sense of anticipation for what lies ahead.
Rosie Peddle mgapsec@gmail.com www.mgaportugal.org
With thanks to Gardens Illustrated
Read more articles from Rosie Peddle on gardening: What are the golden rules in gardening? or Plant portrait – Salvias or Making plans while the sun shines – Gardening for wildlife in the Algarve
