Poinsettia are not the only living colour in December – although they are a definite delight to display indoors. But if you’re after something a little more original for the vase, garden or planter pot this Christmas, we have some suggestions to whet your appetite. What’s more, they are all easy to grow and arrange.
Fiery foliage
Photinia is such a go-to shrub or hedging plant, that we tend to take it for granted. But when you’re looking for Christmas colour, this easy-to-grow garden staple comes into its own. Photinia ‘Red Robin’ is our pick for its brilliant-red-tipped foliage. Bunch it tightly together in a square-necked vase, and support it with a scaffold of pure white, summer-flowering, stiff-stalked New Zealand Iris (Libertia grandiflora). Such a festive combo!
Flaunt the flax this Christmas when you gather the fine blades of Phormium (flax) ‘Evening Glow’. This super-low-maintenance damp-lover delivers up slim, glowing-red blades of scarlet foliage that look spectacular in a vase alongside white gladioli or Christmas lilies. ‘Evening Glow’ is as happy in a container as it is in the ground so if you’re enjoying apartment life or a down-sized garden, give it a place on the balcony and decorate it with a string of tinsel this December!
Shady characters
You can rely on begonias to deliver up the real Santa red in time for Christmas. While bedding begonias (grown from seed and often treated as annuals in cooler parts of the country) provide delicate sprays of colour, it’s the tuberosa begonias (grown from tubers planted in spring) that flaunt the eye-catching pops of frothy scarlet flowers. These summer beauties are more than happy to sit out the day in shade or dappled light, and love nothing more than a swing in a hanging basket. Use them to provide a festive welcome to visitors by hanging them at your door this Christmas!
Fuchsia ‘Swing Red & White’ says ‘Christmas’ in no uncertain terms. Covered in masses of red and white blooms, with a backdrop of deep green foliage, it’s made for growing in a container while also being eager to please in a garden setting. Give it its head in dappled light or shade, and it will brighten up an otherwise drab corner of your courtyard. Keep fungal disease well away from this thirsty plant by watering early in the morning when there’s still plenty of day left to dry off foliage before evening.
Rosy glow!
Can’t prune roses to save yourself? Wouldn’t recognise a ‘dead head’ if it bit you on the leg? Forget the gardening stress, and snip Christmas colour to your heart’s content when you plant Flower Carpet® Red. A long-flowering, undemanding rose that is tolerant of a wide range of growing conditions, Flower Carpet® Red blooms full from spring through autumn. Chop it back by a third in winter or early spring, and leave it to take care of its own dead-heads – easie-peasie. Team this pretty little rose with Gypsophilia ‘Baby’s Breath’ for a delicate festive vase display, or pop the duo into a tussie-mussie as a Christmas gift or to take on a December hospital visit.
Wow power!
Who would have guessed the brightest Christmas red would come from a no-fuss perennial that loves nothing more than a spot of damp. Geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’ is show-stoppingly bright and just won’t stop flowering from spring through summer! Pick it again and again to encourage blooms, and use its own vibrant green leaves as a backdrop. Vase companions include white dianthus, scabiosa, or Federation daisy.
Christmas is about colour, and one of the most sustainable, eye-catching ways to make it happen, is to harvest it from your own garden.
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