How to add scent to your natural Christmas decorations and wreaths
Use fragrant clippings from your garden and other imaginative additions
The rich fragrance of pine, cinnamon, cloves and orange all spell Christmas in your home – and there are ways to add aromatic additions to your decorations without spending a fortune.
Whether you want to add some scented pine cones to a Christmas wreath, or eucalyptus to your tree or your festive floral arrangements, or just adding a trio of cinnamon sticks to your decorations or some sprigs of freshly cut rosemary to dress your Christmas table place settings, it just takes a little imagination.
Winter plants can go a long way to enhancing your floral displays indoors, says Sally Newbrook, RHS formal ornamental team leader at RHS Garden Rosemoor.
Winter foliage
Natural eucalyptus wreaths make a great scented feature
“To fill your home with festive spirit and scents, you can use winter foliage and flowers found in the garden to add an extra touch to your Christmas floral displays or garlands,” she says.
“All herbs like lavender, rosemary, thyme and highly scented alpine mint (Prostanthera cuneata) could be incorporated dried or fresh into displays.
“Aromatically scented foliage plants from the garden such as eucalyptus, myrtle (Myrtus communis), tea tree (Leptospermum scoparium) and confetti bush (Coleonema pulchellum) can also be used around the home for fantastic fragrance.
“The flat waxy leaves of western red cedar (Thuja Plicata) also have a pineapple-like smell when lightly crushed, sweeter than some of the other conifers,” she suggests.
Flowers
Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’
“Many winter plants provide intense colour and beautiful scents that can revive gardens during the colder months. For instance, Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’ (witch hazel) offer highly scented flowers during the winter season,” says Newbrook.
For your festival floral displays, add some mahonia like Mahonia x media ‘Charity’, which flowers before Christmas (you may want to remove the spiky leaves), she suggests.
“The flowers of this evergreen shrub offer a delightful, sweet scent. If you’re lucky you may have winter flowering daphne in bloom before Christmas, which are rich in fragrance.
“For the ultimate Christmas scent use sarcococca, which is also known as sweet box or Christmas box, as these white winter flowers have an intense sweet scent. Place these by your front door to greet guests with a magic scent as they arrive for the festivities.”
Herbs
Think about freshly cut sprigs of rosemary, dried lavender and other fragrant herbs to add to your place settings, or insert underneath ribbon or string on your presents, for a fragrant note.
Tie a trio of cinnamon sticks together with jute to add to your tablescape, or simply to dress napkins before Christmas dinner begins.
Chair adornments
Tying a bunch of aromatic eucalyptus to the back of dining chairs, perhaps with festive ribbon or jute string, not only can add texture and interest to the Christmas scene, but will also add a waft of fragrant scent to the room and should keep for at least a few days. If you dried any lavender from your garden in summer, that would also do the same job.
Make a pomander
All you need is a few oranges, some cloves and lengths of ribbon. Prick the orange skin with a cocktail stick to allow you to insert the cloves into the orange in a pattern, tie the ribbon around the oranges and hang them up to dry, before grouping them together in a bowl as a table centrepiece, or placing them among an evergreen tablescape for a colourful, aromatic addition.
Gardening extras
Craig Wilson, founder of online garden retailer Gardener’s Dream, says a wreath can be spruced up “with some decorative elements like dried orange slices, pine cones or bows, or enhance it further with a light spritz of pine or cinnamon essential oils to give a classic Christmas scent”.
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Items that are widely available include fragrant pine cones, natural-looking scented Christmas tree decorations with Christmas essences of cinnamon, cloves and spiced oranges, plus pretty wax melts which can double as present toppers.
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