Decorate your garden for the festive period: which plants to choose?

White, red and green are probably the colours that we all associate with Christmas, the biggest festival of the year. You see them in shops, on street lamps, in magazine photos, in adverts and practically everywhere else. Among the many meanings they encapsulate, white represents light and divinity, red stands for life and royalty, and green conveys nature and renewal.

In December, the garden appears less colourful and eye-catching than in spring and summer, but while everything around them is bare, evergreens still show off their verdant foliage, berrying species are splashed with spots of colour, and a few flowers peep out from pots and flowerbeds. White, red and green are the basic colours that will guide us in this article on plants for decorating the garden at Christmas.

Evergreen like the Christmas tree

Probably the first outdoor (and indoor) Christmas plant everyone thinks of is the fir tree, which can be decorated with fairy lights and/or other decorations. With their dark green, pyramid-shaped crown, real Christmas trees are a classic: usually they are Norway spruces (Picea abies) which are grown specifically to be sold bareroot.

You can keep a real Christmas tree in a pot for a few years, repotting it in increasingly larger containers before finally transplanting it into the garden. The plant needs space because it grows significantly in height and circumference and – particularly in the case of the Norway spruce – develops large surface roots. So choose the planting location carefully: it is difficult to remedy afterwards since, like other conifers, the fir tree is easily damaged by pruning, especially if it is aggressive. To prune fir trees (the best time is in winter), you can use manual tools such as handsaws and loppers, or otherwise a chainsaw. To work at height, opt for telescopic tools such as a telescopic lopper or pruner. Fir trees prefer cool habitats, so if you plan on keeping your Christmas tree in the garden, it will need to offer a suitable climate.

It is precisely the fact that Christmas trees are evergreen – thus representing life's endurance – that makes them a symbol of this festival which celebrates birth (the other symbol being the nativity scene). As an alternative to a Christmas tree, you could consider other evergreens for planting and growing as an outdoor festive plant. That way you can enjoy their green foliage season after season and, depending on the species, when they decorate the garden with flowers and later berries.

Evergreens not only include trees, but also various shrubs: you can wrap both types of plant with outdoor decorative lighting, or simply appreciate their natural beauty. But don’t rule out the idea of “sprucing up” deciduous trees and shrubs with lights. In any case, whatever solution you choose, do it in moderation, rather than putting up an excessive number of decorations and lights that will make your garden look cluttered and chaotic. Check out our article on how to prepare a Christmas garden in a sustainable way (for both the environment and your wallet) and this roundup of jobs to do in the garden in winter so that it looks impeccable for when the holiday period arrives.

Before planting fir trees or evergreen plants (in autumn-winter), prepare the affected area by going over it with a brushcutter, lawnmower or garden tractor, depending on the case. For a single tree or shrub, dig a hole with a spade and shovel, mix organic fertiliser with the excavated soil, position the plant in the hole and then fill it. For a hedge, use a spade or rotary tiller to work a strip of soil as wide and long as necessary, spread the fertiliser and bury it, then dig a hole for each seedling to be planted. Click this link to learn more about planting an evergreen hedge; in the same article, you will also find instructions on summer pruning to tidy your hedge’s shape, depending on how much it grows, using shears and a hedgetrimmer.

Christmas plants with berries

Berrying plants, which tend to be evergreen, don’t need any adornments: they are already decorative, thanks to the bright colour of the small fruits and the contrast with the green leaves. Holly (Ilex aquifolium) is an evergreen shrub that makes a long-lasting hedge, but can also be grown as a small tree. Its characteristic leaves are tough and thorny. It is a dioecious plant, meaning that some holly plants bear male flowers and others female flowers: only the latter produce the typical red berries (which can also be yellow) that appear in autumn. Holly is robust and undemanding, but make sure that the soil is well drained and don’t water it too much, to prevent accumulation of standing water. Holly should be fertilised in autumn with organic fertiliser and pruned, especially if you are shaping the plant (it is slow-growing in any case).

Native to the Mediterranean scrub, butcher’s broom (Ruscus aculeatus) is a bushy, evergreen sub-shrub. As a wild plant it is a protected species and in some regions it is prohibited to harvest it, due to it being over-exploited in the past as a Christmas decoration. In the garden you can grow butcher’s broom as a rustic and undemanding ornamental plant to create hedges and flowerbeds, or keep it in pots. It is also dioecious, so to ensure that it produces berries, plant male and female specimens side by side. Just like holly, butcher's broom stands out for its red berries, which ripen in winter and remain on the plant for a couple of months, as well as for its spiny leaves. However, those on butcher's broom are false leaves, because they are actually modified, flattened shoots (cladodes).

Another dioecious evergreen shrub which is laden with red berries for several months in winter is the Japanese skimmia (Skimmia japonica). The berries remain on the plant until the spring flowering: note that skimmia flowers are inconspicuous but fragrant. Grown either in open ground or in pots, skimmia loves shade and slightly acidic soil. It is most appreciated because it is economical and undemanding, including as regards pruning (because it grows slowly) and fertilisation (performed in moderation once a year). When watering skimmia, it is likewise important to avoid any build-up of standing water.

Flowers: make room for some Christmas classics

In December the range of outdoor flowering plants is limited, but great classics like hellebores and cyclamens never disappoint. Black hellebore (Helleborus niger) is an elegant herbaceous perennial, one of various species of hellebore. In the garden you can grow it in a pot or in open ground, for example to create borders: it can survive low temperatures and thrives in shade, being a woodland plant. At the end of flowering in spring, new leaves appear that thicken to form bushes in summer and remain green until the plant flowers in winter, so it’s also called the Christmas rose. Despite this name, the flowers are made up of thick false white petals (while the rhizome is dark). Hellebore requires careful watering, as the soil mustn’t remain too dry for long, not even in winter. You can combine it with cyclamens, which we will come onto next.

Although it may not be original at all, and cannot be defined as a Christmas flower in the strictest sense, there is much to like about the garden variety of wild Persian cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum), with its heart-shaped leaves. It is an outdoor plant, which you can grow in a pot or in open ground, and has a very long flowering period – from September to March – that covers the entire Christmas period. It exists in several sizes and the flowers come in different colours, including festive white and red, along with a range of pink and purple varieties. Cyclamen is a perennial plant, so in spring it should be moved to a cool, dark place so that the tuber can grow back and bloom again in autumn. It dislikes heat as well as frost, and the large varieties in particular are sensitive to temperatures approaching zero. With cyclamen, pay attention to the substrate, which must not be dry or soaked in water, and remove leaves and flowers from the plant as they wither.

In the cold winter, some berries in the garden provide food for wildlife such as birds, which feed on holly and butcher’s broom among others. For humans, on the other hand, several Christmas plants are toxic: this applies to holly, but also to mistletoe. The poinsettia – a classic Christmas flower, which should be kept indoors because it doesn’t tolerate the cold – is not poisonous, but it does cause skin irritation. By contrast, the Christmas rose and the cyclamen are toxic, so you should be especially careful to keep them out of reach of young children, who may be attracted by the brightly coloured berries and flowers. Likewise for dogs and cats, be careful of holly, mistletoe, poinsettia, Christmas rose and cyclamen.

Holly sprigs were used to symbolise prosperity by the ancient Romans during the Saturnalia, a religious festival comparable to both Christmas/New Year's Eve and Mardi Gras. Even today, they are used to create wreaths and other decorations, as are sprigs of butcher’s broom, skimmia and other evergreen species with and without berries. On the subject of Christmas decorations, here are our suggestions for pruning decorative branches and – for those who are experienced with chainsaws – carving wood sculptures. If you can't think what presents to give your nearest and dearest this Christmas, here are some ideas for gardening gifts.