How florists and gardeners decorate their own homes at Christmas

For those who celebrate, one of the best things about Christmas is decorating. If you’re looking for inspiration, here’s how florists and gardeners decorate their own homes during the festive season.

Garden clippings put to good use

I make wreaths all the time, but especially at this time of year. I love them.

I make them with whatever I am clipping back in the garden. At the minute, I have really droopy canariensis oak branches and I will bend them into a loop for a base. I’ve also got wisteria that is great for a base. Then I add flowers, especially ones that dry well or have good seed heads like Achillea Coronation Gold, paper daisies, nigella and phlomis. I like to add lichen, and sometimes I put solar lights in. You can just keep adding stuff.

I also like to keep a potted dwarf White Spruce (Picea glauca) which I bring inside and decorate for Christmas. I have old Mexican tin decorations that are at least 40 years old and tinsel and baubles that I have kept for ever. Lily Langham, garden designer and artist, based in Basalt, Victoria

Lily Langham’s Christmas wreaths.

Making the most of natives

I love to make arrangements from NSW Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) as it’s a beautiful native with small festive blooms. I have it growing in my garden in Pittwater.

We also have a dried wreath that I bring out every year. It’s made of eucalyptus foliage among other things and I always pimp it up with everlasting daisies to keep it looking fresh. I like to use the orange and bronze everlastings. I buy them from Bess in Sydney’s Paddington, which also made the wreath. Richard Unsworth, Sydney-based garden designer and author of The Natural Gardener.

An edible centrepiece

Christmas in Lutruwita (Tasmania) falls in peak cherry, stone fruit and berry season. So, to decorate our festive table, we gather canes of brambles and currents in fruit and arrange them in vases with our Christmas lilies.

Pairs of cherries are hung by their stems on the handles of serving trays and champagne buckets and scattered along the table. Potted strawberries in full fruit are also a hit with kids and adults alike.

The only downside of decorating with fruit is that your guests eat all of your baubles – often long before dinner. But last year, we had leftover cherries and gooseberries, and we made jam. It was the best we’ve ever made. Paulette Whitney, author and co-owner of Provenance Growers, Tasmania

Lilies and berries on Paulette Whitney’s Christmas table (left) and Jane Hearn’s potted tree.

A potted plant to rehome in your garden

I take a sustainable approach by decorating the mantelpiece in our living room with a potted blue spruce tree, which I later plant on our bock in the Otways. One of the joys of having a living potted tree is how easy it is to move around. I can place it on the mantelpiece, kitchen table, or hall table, depending on the mood.

For our front door, I buy a grapevine wreath from a local woman who makes them from her garden and, on Christmas Eve, I also put together a centrepiece for the table using seasonal elements from my mum’s garden, such as hydrangeas, holly and spruce, and also seedpods for texture. Jane Hearn, florist and founder of Lilac & the Cat in Footscray, Melbourne

Giving found foliage a second life

Every year before Christmas, my daughter EJ and I get in the car and go on an adventure, driving around the streets of South Melbourne looking for an eucalypt branch that has dropped off one of the street trees.

We chose the branch of a lemon-scented gum last year and its perfume went through the whole house, it was so gorgeous. We cover it with decorations I have been using for 20 years, and we also make a new one each year. I will definitely say they have an Australiana feel. We have a koala, a kangaroo with a santa’s hat, a blue wren. We don’t do tinsel, but I have little fairy lights. Emma Cutting, founder and chief executive of environmental charity Heartscapes, and the driving force behind the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor.

Summer blooms that suit the temperature

I gravitate towards seasonal blooms, incorporating gardenias that remind me of summer and peonies and magnolias, which make the perfect centrepiece for the table on Christmas Day. To add a festive touch, I include a little spruce, not just for its beautiful texture but for its fragrance – the fresh, crisp scent of conifer brings to mind the magic of Christmas morning and a sense of nostalgia. A wreath on the door is also a must-have for me. Saskia Havekes, florist and founder of Grandiflora in Potts Point, Sydney.

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