From fairy lights to mistletoe: Alan Titchmarsh on setting up your house for Christmas
THE party season is almost here and this year make sure yours begins at your front door.
A sparkling doorstep display is the perfect greeting for your guests
A sparkling doorstep display is the perfect greeting for your guests and gives the whole family a dose of festive cheer every time they come home. First off outline the front door with fairy lights or throw a net of lights over the porch if there is easy access to a plug socket. If you prefer a touch more taste, just leave your outdoor courtesy light switched on, add a swag of evergreens for ambience and hang a matching wreath on the door.
Decorate them with a few colourful Christmas tree baubles or if you are having a natural theme this year, glue on a few nuts, acorns or fir cones. The next essential is to put together a striking container of seasonal plants.
Choose a fair-sized tub and pop down to the garden centre for some plants. A single, standard, trained holly looks smart and it’s a Christmas classic, especially if you add a bright red bow and team it with a matching container.
First off outline the front door with fairy lights or throw a net of lights over the porch
It won’t be cheap but you can use it every year. Alternatively, fill a wide, shallow patio planter with winter-flowering heathers in festive ruby shades and place a red stemmed dogwood (cornus alba) in the centre for height.
You could also use a good specimen of skimmia japonica “Rubella”, a small evergreen shrub with large pyramidal bunches of tight red buds. If you want to finish it off with a fringe of foliage round the edge, ivies are always a safe bet.
Add pot chrysanths to the display but keep to your festive scheme
Otherwise go for gaultheria procumbens, a low-growing evergreen which in midwinter is dotted with exceptional large red berries that look like gobstoppers. If there is a hanging basket bracket handy and the door is in a reasonably sheltered position, add a hanging basket of gaultheria.
That is assuming you can find half a dozen really good plants with long trailing stems and a good crop of berries. If a half-hearted display is all you can muster, you are probably better off sticking with just a single, well-filled tub at ground level.
Lastly comes the ultimate finishing touch: the mistletoe!
At Christmas, it’s all or nothing. If you have a porch, continue your theme inside, with evergreen swags round the walls and a row of brightly variegated euonymus in a trough along the wall or up on a shelf.
If it’s the sort of porch with an outer door, add pot chrysanths to the display but again keep to your festive scheme.
For a finishing touch, dress up the displays with a few push-in decorations such as stars on sticks or hang some decorations on a few key plants. But don’t go berserk. The idea is to create a co-ordinated effect, not one that looks like you tipped out the dressing up box from the attic.
Lastly comes the ultimate finishing touch – the sprig of Viscum album over the lintel. That’s mistletoe to you!