Your Christmas tree is brimming with baubles, a lush green wreath is hanging on the front door and your windows are framed with twinkling fairy lights, but have you thought about your Christmas dining table?
Notice
Due to staff shortages in our catering team (congratulations to our Head Chef who has just gone on paternity leave), over the weekends of the 11th/12th and 18th/19th May we will be serving BBQ food only from outside our Stables Restaurant, as well as cakes, sandwiches and ice cream in our cafe. A limited menu will also be available from Monday to Friday over the next two weeks. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
We’ve been chatting to local florist Jan Waters from JW Blooms to get some top tips on how you can use easily foraged foliage to make your table fit for a festive feast.
1) Have some small bottles with sprigs of berries or seed heads in.
Spindleberries, ivy berries, holly berries or sprigs of mistletoe look great in small antique bottles which you can pick up in most junk shops. Birch sprigs are lovely too, with their dangling seed pods, and curly willow is good to give things a bit of a rustic touch. Winter-flowering honeysuckle is just starting to flower and smells amazing.
2) Scatter things down the middle of the tablecloth - like cranberries and lanterns.
There's loads of old man's beard in the hedgerows at the moment and a trail of that down the middle of the table looks great too. Trailing ivy will also work as it’s good out of water - dunk it in a bowl of water for half an hour before you use it so it's well hydrated and it will be fine without a water source. Other foliage will usually need to be in water to stop it wilting but ivy stands up well.
3) Get a cheap pot of forced narcissi from a supermarket or garden centre and drop the plastic pot into a prettier container.
Stick in some sprigs of birch or curly hazel to give it a natural look and support the bulbs, then cover the soil with some lovely bright green moss (the wet weather means our grass is full of it). It transforms a cheap pot of bulbs into something lovely.
JW Blooms are based in nearby Hillcommon. From March – October, you can visit the Flower Field and buy bunches of beautiful blooms.