Still haven’t got a Christmas tree and stumped for ideas? We ask some of Victoria’s most inventive garden designers what they do. No surprises, none go down the artificial route.
Fiona Brockhoff, landscape designer
“Our tree varies depending on where we are. If we are camping it might be something made of banksias and driftwood or other things we find on the beach. Our ‘thong tree’ in Sorrento started off as a Christmas tree made from thongs washed up from Indonesian fishing boats that we collected from a beach in Arnhem Land.
The ‘thong tree’ in Fiona Brockhoff’s Sorrento garden began its life as a Christmas tree.Credit:Ben Wrigley
Last year we were renting a house at Angourie and I made a tree out of cut grey fan palm leaves and red, waxy brachychiton flowers. This year we are going there again and I might see if I can use the same fan palm but with frangipani flowers.
It’s good to be flexible and I don’t think it needs to be red and green. Put your thinking cap on and be clever with ideas – it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money or affect the environment.
It’s important to have traditions but it’s also important to respect the world we live in and not to behave as irresponsible consumers.”
Fiona Brockhoff’s Christmas ‘tree’ at Angourie last year.Credit:Fiona Brockhoff
Paul Bangay, landscape designer and author of Stonefields by the Seasons
“We have always loved Christmas and we don’t do anything by halves. We spend it at Stonefields (his house in central Victoria) one year, and our little house in the Cotswolds the other.
But we are in a quandary now because we are supposed to be going to England – we haven’t been for two years – and with this new variant we just don’t know what’s going to happen to the borders in Australia. We will have to wait and see.
Paul Bangay’s decorated pine tree at ‘Stonefields’.Credit:Barry McNeill
If we are at Stonefields we go to the local Christmas tree farm and get a three-metre pine. There’s nothing better than the smell of pine, it reminds me of childhood Christmases and we decorate it with a different colour theme each time. I always cut at least 100 stems of Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ out of the garden because it has just finished flowering and I use the seed heads as decoration, including in the pine tree.”
Paul Bangay’s Blue spruce in England.Credit:Barry McNeill
In the Cotswolds we get a Blue spruce, which doesn’t smell but has better form, the branches are lateral and stiff and they are better to hang decorations on. My husband Barry does all the decorations and he loves to collect ones that are personal to us, like ones of cocker spaniels.”
Jason Chongue, The Plant Society
“Since growing up until now, I have never had a tree, isn’t that sad. My grandpa was very against ‘hallmark holidays’ and the only thing we ever did was an end-of-year dinner. But [my partner] Nathan’s family makes Christmas a big thing and this year it is at our house and we are doing a tree.
It’s going to be a Kauri pine (Agathis robusta), which I have in a pot indoors. The leaves are beautiful and it has a good form that is good for decorations. I am going to do something simple but en masse, I am thinking silver balls.”
Kate Seddon, landscape designer
“I love a traditional pine tree – the smell, the ritual, the carols while we decorate. We always buy ours from the local primary school my boys went to and the dads deliver it to the homes in the area, so there’s a good community basis for buying the tree. We have a variety of ornaments, from home made pieces from the boys’ and my childhood, to special eggs and balls that we have bought in various locations: a Christmas market in Rome; painted eggs from St Petersburg; paper ornaments from Seville; Mexican tin figures.
But, if I was to avoid buying a tree at all, just outside on our deck we have a large potted frangipani, and this could do as a substitute tree with all of the above ornaments. Can’t say we have done that yet, but this could be the year!”
Peter Shaw, Ocean Road Landscaping and author of Soulscape
“We drive to a pine plantation just out of Anglesea and saw down one of the hundreds of self-sown pines (Pinus radiata) that sit in a clearing between the plantation and the forest. We cut it down with a handsaw, strap it to the roof of the car and then bring it inside and decorate it with basic re-used Christmas decorations we have had in a box for years.
The Shaw family foraging a self-sown pine.Credit:Peter Shaw
The kids (now aged from 22 to 16) always come, and there’s always a bit of an argument about who carries the saw and who picks the tree and always something funny seems to happen.
When we go there are already many stumps, so we are not the first. Personally I think we are doing the world a favour by taking the trees out, as they rob the soil of nutrients.”
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