The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Bennett: Decorate your home for the holidays with plants from your own yard

Musical to feature heart, drama of Clooney’s life
2:00 p.m.
Protecting your child from sexual abuse
1:47 p.m.
‘Fine Lines’ celebrates the art of drawing
1:45 p.m.
‘Old person’ gets hope from young woman
1:44 p.m.
5 ways to get party-ready for the Oscars
1:43 p.m.
> More lifestyle headlines

By Pam Bennett, Contributing Writer 6:46 PM Friday, December 11, 2009

I love to use fresh cut evergreens and stems from my landscape to decorate for the holidays. The great thing is that you don’t really have to be creative to come up with a pretty nice looking decoration.

Take a look around your yard at your landscape plants and see if there are evergreens or twigs from trees or shrubs that might make nice table centerpieces, arrangements or centerpieces.

If you don’t find have anything in your landscape, start a list of plants to add to your landscape for next spring. I am doing this since I don’t have very many plants in my landscape.

One of my favorite plants for holiday decorating is Ilex verticillata or deciduous holly. While this isn’t a brand-new plant, you don’t see a lot of it in the landscape yet.

Unlike the evergreen hollies, the winterberry holly loses its leaves in the winter, revealing the most spectacular red or orangish-red berries. The stems are quite sturdy and the berries last throughout the holiday season.

Like the evergreen hollies, you have to plant at least one male with the females in order for the females to produce berries. The male has to be somewhere in the landscape in order to pollinate the female.

The plant is not especially showy during the spring and summer, but the berries are incredible. The plants are upright, multistemmed shrubs and can grow from 12-15 foot down to around 3-4 foot tall, depending upon the cultivar.

Look for “Red Sprite” with its dwarf habit (3-4 foot tall) and brilliant red berries. “Jim Dandy” is the best male to pollinate “Red Sprite.”

There is also another female cultivar, “Winter Red,” that grows up to 8 foot tall with bright red fruit.

Evergreen hollies are also quite nice for indoor decorations; however, they don’t last long once inside since they are a broadleaf plant. Plan on keeping them in the house no longer than a week to 10 days.

Boxwood makes attractive decorations and can be arranged into a centerpiece, placed in clusters on the mantel, or designed into a wreath.

However, not everyone likes the smell of boxwood — make sure you check this out first before bringing a lot of it inside.

Spruce or juniper may be a bit sticky to the touch but make beautiful, long lasting decorations. Again, some people don’t like the smell of juniper.

I like juniper because you can pick among the different color variations in these plants, ranging from green to yellowish, to bluish. The blue colors are even better when the berries are present.

The most important tip for decorating with evergreens is to vary the shades of green and the textures. You can’t go wrong.

gardening pam corle-bennett

Share this article