Christmas decorations - dressing up topiary
If you have bay, yew, lonerica or other topiary trees in outdoor tubs, or citrus trees in your greenhouse, and you have a cool hall or conservatory, you can have a lot of fun dressing them up for winter. Bring them into your space about two days before Christmas, but don't water them - giving them too much to drink will cause water-logging of the roots which can cause harm in the chills of January and February. Indoor trees look lovely with softer and more subtle decorations than the usual gaudy but gorgeous things we hang on our 'official' Christmas trees, so ideal accoutrements might be:
- ping-pong balls wrapped in small squares of silk or velvet and tied with pretty pastel ribbons so they hang below the branches
- strings of popcorn or cranberries looped around the branches
- Bows of wide raffia or paper ribbon in soft colours, with a small dried flower head or seed pod glued to the centre and wired to the branches.
Citrus trees look great if you just buy some of the fruit they would normally bear, and fasten it to the branches! Alternatively, and if you're feeling very clever, you can buy large silk leaves, or make them out of paper, and fasten crystallised fruit to those leaves with wire. Once wired to the branches they make perfect after dinner treats and you can invite people to help themselves on their way to the living room or whatever so you have a moment after dinner to make coffee and clear up.
Christmas Articles
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