The best way to use fresh flowers in your home at Christmas..

Bringing fresh flowers into your home is always a wonderful thing. Research has shown that fresh flowers in your home can boost your mood – increasing happiness and decreasing feelings of stress and anxiety. Researchers have put this amazing side effect down to a culturally learned association of flowers as a symbol of positivity.

It’s such a shame that we don’t consider a vase filled with colourful blooms a must-have every week, but there are certain times of year when we fill our homes with colour and light and people and joy, so adding fresh flowers to the mix really makes a lot of sense.

Here’s our guide to three ways to take the best advantage of the best fresh flowers and foliage for the winter season:

Indoor Wreaths

Why restrict the Christmas wreath to the front door only? There are many ‘make a wreath’ workshops happening all around Manchester, or you can buy a kit online (we like the one from SweetBud.co.uk, in Levenshulme) or there are gazillions (almost) of guides online, from detailed YouTube tutorials to step-by-step guides on websites. Whatever approach you choose, the key is to make sure you will be using fresh foliage, not dried. Only this way can you benefit from that fresh green, piney fragrance we so associate with Christmas.

If you can, make a small wreath for all the main doorways in your home. Invest in some ribbon and some Command hooks and make entering every room a festive experience.

Here’s a quick and easy guide to making mini-wreaths using materials you can gather from your garden or a hedgerow forage, or your local florist:

You will need:

15 birch twigs, about 90cm long (if you don’t have a birch hedge, the finer, bendy twigs from any hedge will work, just be careful to check for thorns if you are hedgerow raiding!) Depending on how big you want your wreath you might cut these down as you turn the circle and get the size you want.

Three to five fir sprigs

Two stems of holly

Three baubles to match your tree decor

A length of thick ribbon the same colour as your baubles, or deep green

(Pine cones, dried orange disks, cinnamon sticks optional)

Garden twine or fine wire

Secateurs

Gloves!

Method:

Bend your twigs into a rough circle and loop string or wire at intervals to hold it firm.

Push your fir sprigs into the frame at regular intervals, the second overlapping with the first, etc. You shouldn’t need to tie them in, but you can use a little twine if need be. Make sure you know which is the front and the reverse of your wreath, so you can keep the front neat!

Use twine or wire to attach your holly sprigs – put the cut stems pointing towards each other at around 5pm on the ‘clock’, with one facing upwards and around numbers four to two, and the other curving in the opposite direction, around numbers six to nine. Try to hide the point of attachment under sprigs of fir. You may want to wear your gloves at this point.

Attach your baubles, using the fine wire, at a single point on your wreath, noon or 6pm works well. Attach any optional extras, such as cinnamon sticks, the same way.

Add 

Loop the ribbon around the top of your wreath, hang it up, step back and admire!

With our houses being warm and dry at this time of year, these wreaths won’t last as long indoors as out, so every day or so take it outside and give it a spritz with water. It should then last for the 12 days of Christmas with ease.

Tabletop bouquets

Head to your local florist and have a look at what they have in stock that matches your Christmas tree decor, to extend your colour scheme throughout your home.

If you’re an ‘all the colours’ festive decorator, choose three that you love best and pile them into a tall vase for a colour shock your guests will love.

If you’re more of a traditional red and gold person – how about deep red roses or scarlet amaryllis? Add plenty of dark green foliage for a luscious arrangement to take you through to the New Year. Silver and blue are your colour scheme of choice? Choose white roses or lisianthus and mix in blowsy blue hydrangeas or anemones.

To add a little festive flair, buy short bamboo canes, from your florist or local garden centre, cut them to just taller than the height of your flowers and bind them with ribbon to tone with your colours, or metallic gift wrapping ribbon for extra sparkle. If you’re using fabric ribbon, start your binding just above where the water line in the vase will sit.

Tablescaping

Nothing says Christmas like a festive tablescape! Not many tables have room to lay out all the serving dishes filled with roasties, veg and other seasonal goodies (I’m thinking stuffing balls and bacon wrapped sausages here, yum) so you definitely have space to make your table a little more dramatic than usual.

We’re quite traditional in our home – we like a white table cloth and have a set of used-but-once-a-year brass metal chargers we put under our usual white plates. Last year we spent a very small amount of money seeking out nine small glass posy vases – we found loads on eBay to choose from, ranging from five to seven inches tall, in clear glass. We also found a couple of pairs of brass candlesticks nine inches tall, which I spent a satisfying afternoon polishing up with Brasso. We dotted the vases along the table and added just one or three dark red roses to each one, then spaced the candlesticks between and added tall red candles. My wife then threaded gold tinsel (yes, we have tinsel, it is very much NOT so last year in our home!) between the vases and candlesticks, then dotted red and gold baubles throughout. It looked fabulous and we’re doing it all again this year.

An alternative is to treat your table like a horizontal, rectangular wreath! Seek out some freshly cut ivy (it’s all over most gardens) and fir sprigs and arrange them along the length of the table, then add pillar candles (real or LED, your garden centre will have both) and baubles from your tree. You could weave in tinsel, or some tiny LED lights, too.

Once you get started, you’ll find there’s no end to your creativity! Just be sure you take advantage of nature’s bounty – fresh flowers and foliage add something really special.

Eddie – Friday 6th December 2024. (Image used from marketing team).