With the festive season now upon us my focus for December’s article moves indoors. Since Pagan times, we traditionally bring greenery into our homes at the darkest time of the year to give us hope of the spring to come. With our centrally heated, hermetically sealed homes this is a modern-day challenge, and I want to give you some tips to make your Christmas foliage last the longest it can.
Firstly, Christmas trees. The thought of cutting an evergreen tree and sticking it upright in our living rooms dates to draughty Victorian villas. So, to adapt the cut tree needs a source of water to draw on. Get your tree home, slice, and inch off the bottom to produce a fresh cut and stand the tree in a bucket of water for two days outside. This will rehydrate the foliage. Bring indoors and set up in a water holding Christmas tree stand and top up the water every other day over the holiday.
Wreathes hanging on doors benefit from laying in a wide tray of shallow water weekly to refresh the moss’s water retention, extending in turn the foliage.
Mistletoe branches also benefit from pruning the ends of the branches and sitting in water before you hang it up. Wrapping the ends with some wet cotton wool and encasing the wet wool in foil also helps keep the bunch going for longer
For indoor plants, the trick is to do your homework and match your plants with your environment. For warm draught free rooms go for poinsettia, originally from south America they thrive in warm dry conditions. For cooler rooms, potted bulbs such as scented narcissi or hyacinths do well. Azaleas, cyclamen and planted Christmas containers all benefit from sitting them on your windowsill at night and drawing the curtains so they get to stand in a cool spot overnight. For flowering, the best value plants are moth orchids. These need a humid warm atmosphere, achieved by standing them on gravel in shallow trays and keeping the gravel wet. Once the last flower opens on the first spike, cut the stem back to a stem node and a new flower spike will develop in six weeks. It is possible to have a three-spike plant in flower for months after Christmas celebrations are a hazy memory and spring has sprung.
For December I am recommending the many Yorkshire gardens and parks that light themselves up in the evening. The Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Roundhay Park, Harlow Carr, Stockeld Park, Temple Newsam and Scarborough allow us to see a unique perspective on how lighting can be used over the winter to enhance our gardens so making them multi-functional spaces. Up-lit trees and shrubs can transform our out spaces and add to the drama a garden can offer at a drab time of year.
Plant of the month
Sarcoccoca humilis.
Christmas box is an unassuming evergreen shrub until its tiny white flowers open in December. The air is then filled with an intoxicating perfume, rivalling gardenia flowers. It grows in shade under other shrubs, throwing out underground stems that shoot up to spread the plant around, and is covered in glistening black berries through March and April. It is great in a pot and looks stylish under planted with snowdrops.
Every year I am given an Amaryllis for Christmas and it flowers, but then the big strappy leaves grow, and it just goes leggy. How do I look after it properly?
Amaryllis or Hippeastrum are now a plant gift associated with Christmas. The bulb flowers on tall stems and the foliage grows afterwards, to build the plant up for flowering the following season. The insider knowledge you need to know, is to keep the bulb cool for as long as possible to reduce the leggy growth. Pot your bulb in a well-drained compost and water to initiate the dry bulb to send out roots. Keep in a cool place such as a north facing windowsill and allow the plant to establish. As soon as the flower buds start to emerge water with liquid seaweed or tomato fertilizer. This will build up the bulb up for flowering next year. As soon as it finishes flowering return to the cool windowsill. The leaves will then follow and at the end of April just reduce watering to allow the bulb to die down. To get it to re-flower just start the process again the following November.
Salad leaves are a major source of vitamins and iron and a winter sowing of microgreens in a greenhouse will give you crops in 21 days such as spicy salad mixes of cress, mustard, giant red mustard, rocket and mizuna. For more substantial crops I recommend individual sowings of Pak choi, tatsoi and mizuna and rocket, which will be ready to harvest in late February from a Christmas sowing. If you have not got a greenhouse or designated indoor growing space, do not forget the health benefits of sprouting seeds which are an easy alternative, and children get a fun activity shaking the jars every day and seeing the seeds sprouting over the week before they get to eat them.
READ MORE: Gardening gift books for green-fingered fans: Christmas 2024
