There are so many bits and pieces from the garden you can use to make festive decorations, from Christmas tree clippings as a base for traditional wreaths, to variegated holly with berries, crab apples, poppy seedheads, euonymus and cones.

“Making your own organic Christmas decorations won’t cost a fortune and is a lovely way to spend some festive family fun time together,” says plant grower Mike Kitchen, Rocket Gardens plant nursery founder.

His step-by-step guide shows you how to make natural-looking decorations in minutes:

Natural place settings

Dorset Echo:

You will need:

  • Stem of bay, stem of holly and a couple of sprigs of rosemary
  • Floristry wire
  • Gardening twine
  • Scissors

1. Select a stem of bay, a stem of holly and a couple of sprigs of rosemary

2. Cut them to size.

3. Arrange them how you want them to look when bunched together. Keep the foliage facing forwards.

4. With floristry wire, bind the bunch of foliage together.

5. Go over this wire by wrapping the twine over the top and forming a pretty bow at the front.

You can completely cover the stems with the twine or leave some showing, it’s up to you. Attach a personalised tag to each one and use them as place settings for your Christmas dinner table

Festive candles

Dorset Echo:

You will need:

  • Candle
  • Holly
  • Red berries
  • Hessian material
  • Gardening twine
  • Glue gun or safety pins
  • Scissors

1. Cut a strip of hessian to fit around your candle and attach it together at the back with a glue gun or safety pin.

2. Wrap the gardening twine around the hessian and tie into a pretty bow at the front.

3. Take your foliage and tuck in behind your bow. You could also create a small foliage arrangement, bunched together with floristry wire and tuck this in behind your bow to spruce up your candle further.

Rosemary snowflakes

Dorset Echo:

You will need:

  • 4 sprigs of rosemary (all measuring roughly the same length)
  • Gardening twine
  • Floristry wire
  • Scissors

1. Using two sprigs of rosemary each time, place the sprigs together to form a cross shape.

2. Use the floristry wire to bind the two sprigs of rosemary together in the centre of each cross.

3. Place two crosses together and form a snowflake shape.

4. Using floristry wire, bind the two crosses together in the centre.

Want to create a set of snowflakes? Cut your sets of four sprigs of rosemary into varying sizes to create different sized snowflakes.

Use twine and tie to one of the sprigs on the snowflake and then you will be able to hang your snowflakes in your window, fireplace, staircase or on your Christmas tree.

You could make a pine cone star by gluing the base of five cones to form a star, wrapping raffia around it, between the cones, leaving enough to make a loop to hang the star, and add holly sprigs and berries to the centre with floristry wire or glue.