Christmas Decorating With Plants; How to Make Plants Look Festive
It is time to deck the halls!
I am one of those extremely festive type of a gals.
I wait every year until November 12th to bring out any Christmas ornament in respect of Remembrance Day on November 11th. But after that, I go wild! I am certainly not a Clark Griswold, nor a Martha Stewart, but close enough!
Preparing the home for the Holidays is a big ordeal, (and a pleasure of course)!
With 105 plants in the house as of today, I can’t simply bring out the Christmas Tree and start decorating it.
Oh no, no, no…I need a day of furniture and plants re-arrangement to make room for the tree and all the other Christmas ornaments!
Plus, I cannot go with the same re-arrangement every year because all these plants keep growing, and growing, and growing!
It takes creativity and thinking outside the box to come up with new solutions every year!
Anyway, once the lay-out is approved, the excitement of unpacking the basement stored Christmas boxes begins! It’s such a beautiful surprise every year and it is accompanied by squeals of joy, (both mine and my daughter’s!).
My Christmas decorating is not limited to the tree, the mantle, the door and the various decorations and garlands.
As the title goes, I go to the extent of decorating my plants for the Holidays too. I decorate some, and I use some as part of my Holiday decor.
What else can I do with 105 plants, right??
Since tis’ the season to share, I wanted to share with you some holly, jolly ideas on Christmas decorating with plants.
It is whimsical and inexpensive too!
It will also spark your creativity!
Here are some ideas and how to create them!
This Santa is new to our home this year. It is so relatable to me and my cozy winter mornings in Canada, that I bought it for my desk. A little Santa hat on my Zebra Haworthia compliments Santa’s outfit perfectly! (And it also brings out the whimsical nature of Zebra Haworthias).
decorate the pots
Decorating pots is fairly easy and it can be done in quite a few different ways.
You can even paint your terracotta pots with a holiday theme if you feel artistic and inspired, but here, I only have easy and fast solutions.
ugly sweaters pots
I really like this idea because I love Ugly Christmas Sweaters!
They are fairly easy to make. Simply cut an old sweater that doesn’t fit you, your spouse or children anymore into a rectangular shape that covers the surface of the pot. Either sew together the extremities or glue the material to the pot.
This sweater doesn’t look so ugly, doesn’t it? That’s because I didn’t need to cut an ugly Christmas sweater for it. I was able to repurpose a Dollar Store sweater mug as a cache-pot for my Hoya Pubicalyx.
wrap the pots in wrapping paper
You can use any Holiday themed wrapping paper to wrap your pot, but I really like the classic brown package paper as it goes well with any type of plant’s foliage and it’s not too busy. I give the pot an accent by adding a festive string or bow around it.
It took me less then 5 minutes to assemble this pot. And to make it very inexpensive, you can use brown bags from the grocery store for it!
wrap the pots with a bow
This is really easy to do and self-explanatory!
I used this plaid bow to wrap my plant’s pot as I have gone with a plaid decorating theme this year. I’ve used the same bow for the door wreath and the main entrance outdoor pots. It’s nice to be able to have a theme consistency throughout the home.
add candy canes around the pots
The classic red and white candy cane colours go particularly well with terracotta pots and greenery, so you can’t really go wrong selecting plants to use for this arrangement.
Red, white and green look really good together in this picture!
place holiday ornaments on the plants
This is when you actually get to decorate your plants the same way you decorate your Christmas tree. It cannot be done with every plant as some plants are not structured to have ornaments hanging from them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate them as part of your holiday decor.
add some good ol' fashioned strands
I have a very big Norfolk Island Pine, which is generally sold as a novelty plant at Christmas time, so I took total advantage of the occasion and I decked it out with festive strands!
It is a delicate and subtle way to decorate plants for Christmas without going overboard and without being too obvious.
I like the gentle and tasteful effect of the strands on my Norfolk Pine. I especially like how the strands mimic the movement and direction of the plant’s fronds, adding that special Holidays sparkle.
hang some ornaments
There are different ways to add ornaments to your plants; subtle, and not so much.
Even though I am a holly, jolly person at Christmas time, I still respect my plants, (and their dignity!!).
You really need to consider your plant’s shape and structure before you decorate it. Not all ornaments look great on all plants; consider colour, shape, pattern and textures of both plants and ornaments before pairing them. But also, consider the weight!
Don’t hang overly excessive, (or too many) ornaments that can damage the plant by breaking off leaves, stems or branches!
In this case I hung some pale colours bells on the African Milk Bush branches. The effect is delicate and subtle.
In this case I hung richer colours and textures ornaments on the same plant. The effect is different but still pleasant because the ornaments proportions are still small.
If you are dealing with trailing plants or plants that don’t really have the proper shape to hang ornaments from, you can use clips. These red birds on my Wax Plant are glued on hair clips and are easy to clip on along the plant’s trailing stems.
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add a string of lights around your favourite plants
This is a super-cute solution, and honestly, it can be used all year round.
Twinkle lights are always cheerful, no matter the season!
Just find your favourite plant, or simply a plant in a practical location for you to be able to water it easily without needing to remove the string of lights!
Make sure you don’t damage the plant as you wrap the string of lights around it.
I wrapped the string of lights around my tall Snake Plant. I particularly like this location because I was able to hide the power source behind the plant, and run it into the wall. (This is a USB powered string of lights).
create a festive garland around your plants
I had so much fun assembling this arrangement!
I love how such different plants as cacti and spruce branches are married into such a tasteful combination of festive greens and browns!
The pinecones are the binding element that brings them together.
I used fake spruce branches and pinecones from the Dollar Store that I had from previous years outdoor lantern arrangements.
combine your plants with other christmas ornaments
Christmas decorating with plants is not only tasteful but also a fun opportunity to add greenery and cheer to your traditional festive ornaments.
Try adding plants to your display of Christmas ornaments or start displaying your Christmas ornaments near your plants and see what comes out of it.
Our mantle has always had plants in the off-season and the Advent Calendar Tree with other festive ornaments during Christmas. So, I decided to combine them and see how it looked. I am pleased with the display and I took the opportunity to add a couple of red birds to my Wax Plant and a Santa Hat to my Pothos!
This small corner table always has the Domino Peace Lily with some pictures and three soap stone sculptures on it. I decided to add a string of red sequins around the pot and a gnome stick to the plant for the season. To add more Christmas flavour to the composition I added two dark green glass jars and a cute garland candle holder with a Christmas ornament in the centre.
accessorize your plants
This is the fun part that my kids love and that many of my Instagram followers look forward to every year! The Santa Hats! (The toques are new this year!).
This is definitely a whimsical spin to Christmas decorating with plants, and if you have kids, they will sure appreciate it!
make some wool toques
My daughter Gaia and I are big Pinterest crafters!
This year we discovered the wool toques! And we are obsessed! They are so easy to make and so adorable to put on your plants, especially cacti, because they look ridiculous wearing them!!!
All these toques were made by my 10 years old daughter.
Beautiful beige toned toques for cacti, (because it’s cold in winter in Canada)
Adorable candy cane toques to decorate the Desert Candle Cactus.
add some santa hats!
These Santa Hats are all quite inexpensive at the Dollar Store and perfect for those plants with pointy leaves and stems!
A group of dark green plants with pointy hats!
Aloe Vera gone Santa
Those long Marble Pothos Stems are ideal to clip on a Santa Hat! These clip on Santa Hats are great for plants that don’t have pointy tips!
Even Pileas can be decked out with Santa Hats! Just stick one on their suppport stake!
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