Best recipes for gorgeous Christmas containers

Here’s how you can plant up colourful festive pots to brighten the garden or give away as special Yuletide presents to family and friends, as Hazel Sillver explains

-  Hazel Sillver

CHRISTMAS containers add festive cheer to the garden, and make wonderful presents for your friends and family. Select a beautiful pot, then choose the plants to make up your festive display, including colourful stems, striking foliage and winter flowers. If you’re creating a container to brighten your own garden, you might choose a fairly large pot and fill it with a selection of plants, including a sizable focal shrub (perhaps a dogwood) and smaller plants (such as dwarf conifers and pansies).

If you’re intending to give the pot as a gift, you need to be able to carry it, so plant just one young shrub or tree (such as an olive) or a group of small plants (for example, violas, a heather and a grass).

Consider the size of garden your recipient has. If they don’t have much room, opt for something small or a winter-blooming climber that isn’t too vigorous (such as Clematis cirrhosa). Avoid anything prickly, such as holly or mahonia, to protect small children investigating presents under the tree and make transportation easier.

Also, select plants that have some sort of ‘wow factor’ via bright colours (red-stemmed dogwood ‘Sibirica’ or golden pansies, for instance) or scent, such as winter honeysuckle.

Traditional festive colours

Go for festive colours, such as the golden grass Libertia ixioides ‘Goldfinger’ or bronze-leaved Carex comans, and Christmas-themed plants. such as ivy. For a winter wonderland feel add dwarf conifers (such as Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Blue Moon’) and, to please the bees, nectar-rich heather and hellebores.