One of the key Christmas trends for 2018 is the Rainbow as highlighted by John Lewis’s decorating schemes, whether decorating in all seven rainbow colours, in this case ruby, emerald, amber, gold, jet, sapphire and moonstone. Either by using bands of each colour or picking one colour of these colours to be the central theme of the scheme. I always love the idea of continuing a theme from the indoors to the outside.

Colourful stems in winter

Some of my favourite rainbow effects in winter (and for winter garden inspiration in general) are in the winter garden at Anglesey Abbey and at Harlow Carr where they use the dogwood (Cornus) and Salix families, ranging from the acid green of Cornus sericea ‘Flaviramea’, Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ which starts as yellow rising to a vibrant red as you go up the stem, to the deep purple of Cornus alba ‘Kesselringii’. The deep red or purple stems really standout when planted against the acid green of ‘Flaviramea’ or the greens and yellows of a salix. The stems have a similar palette to the Cornus family, whether using the yellow stems of Salix alba ‘Golden Ness’, the orange rising to red stems of Salix alba subsp vitellina ‘Britzensis’ or the black stems of Salix myrsinifolia.  The white stemmed Rubus biflorus are used to set the colourful Cornus off, looking as though they have a frosted or snow covered feel. Although I have to admit with their rambling and prickly nature they need space and I think are more suited to large public spaces or country gardens.

Winter Garden

Alternatively, I love seeing smaller groups of cornus or salix, either in groups of one variety or offset with a complementary or contrasting colour and then under planted with smaller flowers. From dazzling white snowdrops, to jewel like cyclamen or the larger hellebores in all their multitude of colours, from the ones currently growing in my front garden ‘Verboom Beauty’ to the reds of ‘Harvington Double Chocolate’ or ‘Pretty Ellen Red’.

Cyclamen

Taking the theme indoors, plants flowering around Christmas come in an incredible rainbow of colours, I love that not only many of them add colour to the house but fill a room with their perfume. Starting with the reds Amaryllis (or Hippeastrum) bulbs in the velvety red of ‘Liberty’ or the even deeper red of my favourite Amaryllis ‘Royal Velvet’. ‘Santiago’, is one I’d like to grow and comes in a very Christmassy red and white candy stripe, it is even scented. Then there is the most traditional red Christmas plant of all, the Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) with the bright red bracts although I have to admit I’m not very good at keeping them alive for long.

Red Christmas flowers

Every year I pot up scented Narcissus Paperwhite bulbs, either ‘Ziva’ or ‘Inbal’ in time to have their scent filling the kitchen around Christmas and into the New Year. The first Narcissus to flower before those in the garden start popping their shoots up, they give me a feeling that the days are starting to get longer and brighter again. To add contrast to the slender stems of the Narcissus I like mixing them up with or just dotting around bowls of sweetly scented hyacinths in any of the pearlescent colours of ‘White Pearl’, the vivid blue ‘Peter Stuyvesant’ or the deep pink of ‘Woodstock’. Alternatively adding small pots of indoor cyclamens (Cyclamen persicum), in shades of reds, pinks and white will continue the rainbow theme and complement other houseplants. The best thing about houseplants, how easy it is to re-arrange the pots to provide contrast, different colour or contrasting arrangements or just choosing a favourite to shine on its own.