The Foliage of Christmas

Mistletoe is and has been remarked as ‘everyone’s favourite parasite’, although the pedant in me has to point out that it’s actually a hemiparasite, because as well as it pinches nutrients off its host plant by a connecting organ known as the haustorium, mistletoe does provide some of its own energy by photosynthesis.

The term mistletoe is a catch-all for a number of different plants around the world, many related, some not, but the UK native is Viscum album. Don’t be alarmed if you’ve never seen any where you live; its geographical spread across the UK is patchy and it is absent from some areas altogether. If you want to seek some out, mistletoe favours apple trees, limes, maples and poplars, although it can be found on other trees too. If you can’t find any real mistletoe, you could invest in the mistletoe cactus (Rhipsalis baccifera) as a hanging houseplant and steal a ‘snog’ under that instead.

You can scan the internet for a whole host of information on mistletoe myth and legend, plus practical details of how to grow it in your own garden. There are a few gardens we work on throughout the year that has a spill of mistletoe and they have all favoured apple trees to host on.

Unlike mistletoe, ivy is not a parasite, despite its bad reputation among many gardeners: it photosynthesises and gains nutrients from roots buried in the ground, not from a tree. It can be a gardener, or home owners enemy, to get rid of it can be a nightmare and not for the faint hearted to handle such a chore.

And yet, it is a fantastic plant for wildlife, a wonderful evergreen screen and a powerful symbol in art and culture, although its role as a festive decoration has been fading in the last few decades. It has many advantages over holly, though – it’s more widely and freely available, doesn’t spike you as you try to arrange it and is easy to manipulate into swags, wreaths and any other shape you can think of.

Or should I say Helleborus niger, for as anyone who grows this plant in their garden knows, it very rarely flowers at Christmas and isn’t a rose at all. Those pesky common plant names, who thinks of them? The wonder of this plant is that it boasts the biggest flowers of all the hellebores; pure white blooms that push up from the soil ahead of the leaves from January on.

Despite its reluctance to flower at Christmas in gardens, it is easily obtained as a pot plant in bud now, so you can enjoy the flowers on December 25. You can risk bringing it inside into a cool environment for a few days, but don’t leave it too long to send it back to its preferred habitat outside; or just place it on an outside table you can see from a window, or by the front door.

Growing H. niger in a large pot isn’t such a bad idea, as it prefers fertile but well-drained soil that doesn’t get boggy over winter; it also means the petals won’t get splashed with mud.

We all love a few Brassica oleracea Gemmifera Group on our plates at Christmas, don’t we? I may be stretching the theme a little here, but sprouts are foliage, after all. Sprout “stalks” have become the trendy way to buy your sprouts in the last few years, which has at least educated people about what part of the plant brussels sprouts come from (they’re buds, but we knew that, right?).

They are not the easiest vegetables to grow for yourself either. Like most members of the brassica family, they are long-season plants that need to be sown in February or March and planted out in early summer to limber up for a winter harvest. Sprout plants take up a lot of room and if the tall stalks aren’t firmed into the ground sufficiently, the sprouts can “blow” – in other words, fail to form the tight balls we expect. Sprouts are best left until the frosts before picking if possible, as they tighten and react to the frost making the sugars within rise and do give better taste.

Not only is sage a vital ingredient of the Christmas classic, sage and onion stuffing, its fragrant, evergreen leaves are also a wonderful addition to a homemade Christmas wreath, a table centrepiece with candles, or simply stuck in a vase with some silvery eucalyptus leaves, bay branches and rosemary.

Sage is also reputed to have health-giving properties, you name a condition and there’s probably an anecdote that Salvia officinalis treats, although you should bear in mind that not all of this is proven scientifically.

In the garden, sage likes full sun and well-drained soil; the best way to promote fresh growth is to prune it right back every spring, rather than letting it get too leggy and woody. Purple sage, Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’ is particularly pretty, especially if grown alongside its green relative. If you don’t want to plant it in a dedicated herb bed, it looks lovely underplanting roses along with lavender.

Happy Christmas in the garden folks!