Flora For The Festive Season

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday December 19, 2008

Cheryl Maddocks

Decorating the yard for the holidays can be practical and cheap.

TIS the season to be merry: that time of year when family, friends and colleagues converge on your place for barbecues, booze and backyard cricket. But is your garden up to scratch as a venue for Christmas fun?

You may be pondering how to brighten things up without breaking the bank, not wanting to spend too much on the garden when your credit card already has a bigger bulge than Santa's stocking. So start with some simple tasks, such as weeding, trimming the hedges, mowing the lawn and renewing mulch. You may also want to give seats, pine table settings, arches, decks, gates and pergolas a coat of paint or oil.

Then introduce some containers filled with colourful annuals. You can give your outdoor entertaining areas a Christmas theme by choosing scarlet salvias and white petunias. A few pots will transform a small space. Some troughs of red-and-green-leaved pick-and-come-again lettuce will add a practical element to your decorating.

There's plenty of fun to be had in the garden after daylight fades and Christmas is certainly the time to lighten up. Add some lights but make them soft and subtle because you won't want to dazzle your guests. Bright lights are only required in utility or barbecue areas.

Highlight features such as pools, walls and plants, or even a group of pots. Use spotlights to highlight individual plants, a water feature or a statue in the garden. Uplights can be used to accentuate walls, ornaments, or special trees and shrubs. Use pond lights with coloured lenses to create elegance and tone in your pond or to draw attention to a fountain or feature.

Relatively inexpensive solar-powered lights are available in a variety of sizes and types, including fairy lights. The flicker of candlelight is also appealing. Place tea lights in glasses and situate them throughout the garden or alongside paths. Floating candles are also cheap and can be placed in ponds and water bowls. A few frangipani flowers floating beside the candles will create a romantic atmosphere.

Perfume is another way to enhance the garden at night. While you can buy perfumed candles, nothing compares with the fragrance of plants and some perform best at night.

Perfumed climbers can be trained over courtyard walls or pergolas and will provide scent for many summers to come. One fragrance is usually enough, especially in a small area.

Beaumontia grandiflora has large, white, trumpet-shaped flowers that stand out against deep-green leaves. It requires a sturdy support and a sunny position. Poet's jasmine (Jasminum officinale), Arabian jasmine (J. sambac) and heavenly scented Madagascar jasmine (Stephanotis floribunda) are also good choices.

Now that the garden is looking good, you can turn your attention to Christmas gifts with a gardening theme. The Australian Garden: A Poetic And Practical Celebration by Veronica Burns and Margaret Geddes (The Five Mile Press, $19.95) is a well-priced, nicely designed book that follows the seasons. Frangipani by Linda Ross, Lorna Rose and John Stowar (Reed New Holland, $35) celebrates a perfumed flower long associated with our summer gardens. The book contains all the information needed to grow frangipanis.

Paul Bangay's Garden Design Handbook (Penguin, $69.95) has some great design ideas and contains beautiful photographs by Simon Griffiths. Naming The Rose by Roger Mann (Random House Australia, $55) focuses on the people who gave their names to some of the world's most popular roses.

There's an extensive selection of gardening books online at www.florilegium.com.au or you can visit the bookshop itself at 145 St Johns Road, Glebe.

A subscription to the ABC's bimonthly Organic Gardener (isubscribe.com.au/organicgardener) is an ideal gift for friends interested in chemical-free gardening and eco-living issues.

It's time to stop using an exotic pine Christmas tree and substitute an Australian native. The Wollemi pine will live happily outdoors in a large pot for many years. You could also use the newly released lillypilly Syzygium 'Winter Lights'. Keep it in a large pot or transfer it to the garden after Christmas, where it can be clipped or left to grow to about three to five metres. It has brilliant red new growth, will grow in sun or partial shade, is psyllid resistant and its pretty, fluffy flowers are followed by purple berries that birds love to eat.

A potted NSW Christmas bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) makes a Christmas tree that can be planted in the garden and grown to provide branches for future Christmas use. Keep potted Christmas trees indoors for a maximum of two weeks and don't forget to water them.

You can also pick a couple of eucalyptus branches, stand them in a large urn or vase and decorate them.

It's time to . . .

* Buy a frangipani as a Christmas present. If there's no space in the garden, grow it in a large pot.

* Apply a complete fertiliser to passionfruit to ensure a good crop.

* Check out the newly released Seasol Super Soil Wetter and Conditioner. It conserves water and conditions the soil.

* Buy a worm bin as a present for a gardening friend or put it on your own Christmas list. Worm bins are great for small gardens, balconies and other areas where it is difficult to have a compost heap. You can feed the worms with most of your kitchen scraps and the castings are free fertiliser. Plus children love having worms as pets.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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