Flowers at Christmas get so little attention that I cannot help but feel sorry for them. Most often they’re relegated to an afterthought, a mixed bunch tossed in the trolley in the chaos of the 11th-hour shop. And people who do try often end up with the seasonally-bankrupt bunch — glitter flecked branches, red roses, maybe a token sprig of holly. At worst, there are no flowers at all and the table is nothing but a vast expanse of unfunny Christmas cracker jokes, cold chipolatas and empty bottles of fizz.
We can and must do better by our tables, for the sake of beauty, magic and holiday cheer. There are so few truly special occasions left anymore that it is really worth it to make a proper effort at Christmas. A ‘polish-the-silver, iron-the-napkins, frantically-pick-wax-off-your- best-tablecloth’ effort.
Amaryllis can be bought or grown, says the writer.
First off, I beg you to eschew soulless, season-less flowers and instead flood your table with candlelight. Short of burning down the house, it is not possible to overdo it with candles, especially in the beautiful darkness that hovers either side of the solstice. From there, you have options. Add some mossy, antique ironstone bowls filled with intoxicating paperwhite bulbs, wreathed in a halo of lichen covered twigs. Or hellebores nodding their gentle heads in collections of cut glass sherry glasses. How about the warm softly spiced scent of bay leaves clustered in garlands down the center of the table. Regal amaryllis, holding court on their long strong stems, flushing pink or red, with picotee edges catching in the candlelight have their place, too. Take your pick. And with just a modicum of forethought, minimal spend and absolutely no talent required.
Cut flowers in winter are a thorny prospect, as most of what is on offer is a conventional array of hothouse stems grown continents away, doused in god-knows-what to maintain a veneer of artificial perfection — not to mention the airmiles accrued. Not exactly special. Instead I highly recommend leaning into the season, even if that means a simple bunch of holly, heavy with berries, or a tendrils of ivy looping along your table. A walk through the hedgerow (or your friendly local carpark) will yield bounties untold. A few long wisps of lithe, arching cedar in a vase is utterly graceful in a way that straight-stemmed roses from South America could never even touch. Crabapples on the branch come pre-bobbled, and festively red too. Swathes of fluffy vines of old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba) couldn’t be more Father Christmas-approved in name, and they look smashing down a table. Bare hazel branches drip with catkins in December, so why not add piles of shiny old-fashioned tinsel to a big arrangement in a Champagne bucket? Hey, we don’t have to be classy all the time.
They key to beautiful arrangements — including these hellabores — is in the choosing of materials and vase.
If you have your heart set on blooms with a capital ‘B’, bundles of British-grown narcissus can be bought for a fraction of the price as imported stems and they smell a hundred times more fragrant. Amaryllis can be bought or grown, and hellebores, cyclamen, pansies and hyacinths can go from pot to vase in a flash. The key to successful arrangements is in the choosing of materials and vase; beautiful, seasonal blooms look chic plunked into a jam jar, whereas overly stiff and fussy imported flowers require heaps more effort to look half as good. When in doubt, asymmetry is a quick trick to making a vase feel effortless, so trim a mix of lengths, a few short, a few long, and let Nature do the rest. Start with any foliage you may be using to create a framework, then add in focal flowers to add interest and fullness. Some soft gestural flourishes could be added last to add movement and levity. The same basic rules of flower arranging apply at Christmas as throughout the year: sharp clean cuts at steep angles help hydrate stems; scrupulously clean vases and water, free from any leaves or debris below the waterline, will keep bacteria at bay.
Some of my favourite ways of incorporating flowers at Christmas are through potted plants from local nurseries, florists, and even the supermarket in a pinch. What looks like a basic plastic pot of £3 hyacinths undergoes a sort of alchemy when replanted in old terracotta or a chipped antique terrine, tucked through with moss and small twigs for support.
I chuck my hyacinths in the garden after blooming and they come back year after year in the spring. While forced bulbs like paperwhites will only bloom for one Christmas, hyacinths and amaryllis can live on for future flowers, lowering their environmental impact further still. Forcing bulbs oneself, rather than buying pre-potted bulbs, is a game of luck and skill when it comes to timing — with hyacinths notoriously taking upwards of three months. The worst outcome, if you can call it that, is that the plant flowers in January, which honestly is when your spirit, if not your table, might need them most.
