It’s coming up to that time of year when twinkly decorations appear on the shelves and there’s a sense of festivity in the air! Christmas is only two months away – have you started planning for it?
When it comes to Christmas decor, there are a few trends to choose from this year: making use of the Pantone Colour of the Year, Classic Blue; displaying an over-the-top wreath on your door; creating high quality paper decorations with coloured card – there’s lots to choose from. But do you really want to follow the trends this year, or do you want to try something different?Â
Help the environment with natural Christmas decor
Imagine your family and guests enjoying a ‘real plant’ Christmas, where the decor isn’t chintzy or ready-made, but natural and thoughtful! Using real plants in your decor doesn’t only look wonderful, but it also reduces your carbon footprint by eliminating plastic usage, emissions from manufacture, and doing a small part to make the air ‘greener’. If you didn’t know, plastic creates methane when it decomposes, which is actually 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – so making a conscious decision to use natural decor can help the environment immensely.
How to introduce plants into your Christmas decor
Plants can be used in any part of your Christmas decor, but here are a few common ways:
- Real plant wreath. Some florists can make bespoke wreaths with your favourite flowers and plants at a higher cost, but you could always do this yourself for free using foliage from your own garden!
- Foliage garland. Garlands can be fixed to your bannisters, place on shelves and draped over mantelpieces, and they’re easy to create using foliage-filled branches from fir and spruce trees.
- Tree. Of course, your tree can be real too! Real trees have that beautiful fresh scent that lasts all Christmas. A real tree doesn’t create toxic gasses when it degrades either – you can even put it on your compost heap!
- Tree decor. Why decorate your tree with plastic baubles when you have the beauty of nature at your fingertips? You could decorate your tree with a range of dried plants and flowers to suit your theme. I’ve even seen pampas grass used on one Christmas tree!
- Centrepiece. You might be planning a lavish meal on Christmas Day this year, so why not complement it with a showstopping centrepiece? Flowers always make a fantastic centrepiece, and you can use any variety that you fancy, in a range of mediums from cut, to dried, to potted.
Creating your real plant Christmas centrepiece
Sourcing plants for a centrepiece isn’t difficult. Many florists and garden centres have a fantastic range of festive flowers at this time of year. However, if you didn’t want to put a centrepiece together yourself, QVC has a wonderful bundle that does the job for you using real plants and an attractive display idea!
This kit includes:
- compost
- 25cm silver trough with ribbon
- a seasonal decoration
- cyclamen
- primrose
- euonymus
- easy to follow instructions
This kit requires very minimal effort to assemble, and once put together provides an instant fun, festive feel for your home – without the tinkly plastic decorations.
Perfect for wowing your guests at the dinner table, the display can take pride of place within your home for anywhere between four weeks and three months, depending on how warm it is in your house. It can even be put outside and can withstand temperatures down to -5C.
Get this Christmas Planter Display from QVC.
Where would you place this display? Leave a comment below!
Michael has been involved with gardening and plants since he was just five years old. He is a self-professed Plant Geek, and was listed in the Sunday Times top 20 most influential people in the gardening world, thanks to his plant hunter role at Thompson & Morgan. Michael was responsible for new plant introductions such as the Egg and Chips plant and the FuchsiaBerry and keeps busy travelling the world in search of new plants as well as lecturing worldwide, including stints in Japan. He is very active on social media – so why not give him a follow at @mr_plantgeek or Facebook. You can also listen to The Plant Based Podcast with Michael and co-host Ellen-Mary on iTunes, Spotify and Google.