Garden Guru: Floral festivities

Red and white are the colours you need to go for to give the house a real Christmas atmosphere. Photo / Supplied

We describe our latest take on a Christmas tree as alternative but in essence it is a Frankenstein of a thing - an amalgamation of bolted-together parts lurching this way and that, which looms menacingly in the corner of the living room.

In years past in an effort to save, I've delayed the pruning of the cryptomeria hedge at the back for this time of the year just so we can lash a few branches together and make what amounts to a crude pointy pine shape without the sickly smell.

Cryptomeria is really too floppy for this but it never drops needles and we allow it in the house for only a short and sweet stay.

But this year I was pruning a blue cedar (Cedrus atlantica glauca) out on the lawn so the branches of this have been brought into service to pretend, en masse, to be something much grander and paid for.

The trouble is that cedar is rather thin with gaping holes and so now we have had to buy so much tinsel to stuff in all the gaps that we may as well have splashed out on a well-groomed pine. At least 6-year-olds are more interested in what's under the tree.

The absence of prickly holly and anaemic mistletoe has never bothered me at Christmas. New Zealanders have far more interesting things at hand to play with and, hey, it is summer, so why try to hide the fact? Weeds are a good place to start - on a road verge they are instantly forgettable but bring the big cartwheel heads of agapanthus indoors - perhaps stringing a line of white ones (minus their stalks) down the centre of a table-setting, complete with fairy lights - and the effect is pure magic. A simple branch can look stunning stood in a corner if draped in small white lights.

I'd like to cut some of those architectural flax seedpods and try the trick with them too.

Taiwanese lilies crop up from time to time, naturalised near the coast, and their sculpted trumpets are a great substitute for the more expensive shop-bought kind.

Ginger is another weed worth picking - if only a single bloom for its scent alone - and there are some garden-safe kinds about, such as Hedychium greenei.

Slightly better behaved is Alstroemeria psittacina; an invasive but totally beautiful perennial Peruvian lily which lasts longer in a vase than nearly every cut flower.

This alstroemeria will spread about under trees even in deep shade and has a tendency to flop but it has the perfect festive colours of greens and red-like little lanterns. The better-behaved cultivar for gardens is Red Baron, which is not so dwarf as many of the cultivated alstroemerias so is good to pick. It sports scarlet flowers which work well set in plenty of green foliage.

Not all leaves transfer well to the indoors when cut and many soon wilt. Smashing the cut stems with a hammer helps them take up water but it is safest to stick to tough evergreens such as white variegated pittosporums, the bold leaves of Magnolia grandiflora, flax and the hand-shaped Fatshedera, a sprawling evergreen shrub which has a true-ivy ancestor.

Good flowers for picking at this time of the year include the flat-headed achilleas which come in a range of colours. They dry well and hold their colour.

If you want to go tropical, bring some bromeliads inside.

The bold torches of guzmanias and aechmea can be used as cut flowers or brought inside plant and all. Put them with fruit salad plant leaves (monstera) and add red-hot pokers (kniphofias) and candles for the total torchlight effect.

One of the best places to allow the garden into the house in the holidays is the dining table. Hibiscus strewn across the table can look opulent but uncontrived. Daylilies and nasturtiums can be used that way too, with the bonus that should the salad run out you can tuck into the flowers.

Could do this week

* It's hard to believe that anyone is so organised in the run-up to Christmas that they have time for gardening but for those who finish work a day early there may be time to spruce up the deck.
* When visitors arrive, the basics of lawn cut and edged and paths and decks brushed and swept makes all the difference. Dust off and wipe down any furniture which is languishing in the shed or garage.
* If you are going away put house plants in a well-shaded and sheltered place outside for a summer break. If no one is coming in to take care of them, water well and stand them in trays of gravel filled with shallow water.
* As tomatoes start to set fruit keep nipping out side shoots and tying the leader to a tall, stout post. Water tomatoes at ground level to discourage blight.
* If you sowed the vegetable garden frantically in spring now is a good time to plant a second wave of later maturing veges, especially heat-lovers such as french beans, runner beans and corn.