As if the rising cost of living isn’t enough, the price of shop-bought Christmas decorations can make even the most enthusiastic fan of the festive season think ‘bah, humbug’.

Yet there is a way to put the natural back into Noel, just by taking some clippings from your garden and using them to make much more subtle decorations than you could buy in any shop.

With this in mind, Gardening Which?, the Consumers’ Association magazine, has come up with a bundle of ideas on how you can make some simple, stylish decorations to bring the outdoors inside to complement your tree, without a shimmer of tinsel in sight.

“The great thing about making your own decorations from garden material is that you are bringing the garden into the home and returning to a time when things weren’t about the flash or the dazzle of Christmas but more about natural ways to dress the tree,” says Ceri Thomas, editor of the magazine.

Colourful stems, such as dogwood and birch, can be snipped to make the simplest of twig bundles, tied together with green garden wire or florist’s stub wire and then finished off with a bow made of a narrow-leaved evergreen such as libertia or miscanthus and then hung with a thin strip of raffia.

“Look in your garden for anything with berries, like cotoneaster, rowan and pyracantha. If you’ve grown chillis on the patio or in the greenhouse these can also look fantastic in natural garlands,” says Thomas.

A natural garland can look so much more colourful than any amount of beads and is simple to make if you have a little patience.

Just thread suitable berries, such as rowan (sorbus) and cotoneaster, onto lengths of garden wire, adding chillis if you have them, and even perhaps cranberries that you may have left over after making cranberry sauce, and you will soon have a garland to hang in the house or even around a tree in the garden, where you can see it.

Although the berries will dry up indoors, they should last throughout the festive season. You could alternate them with the leaves of evergreens such as holly, ivy and euonymus for a fuller effect.

“Plants with evergreen leaves such as phormium (New Zealand flax) and cordyline are also great because you can make star shapes from the leaves and use pine cones or seed heads in the middle,” Thomas adds.

You’ll need eight New Zealand flax leaves for each star, cutting four leaves to around 18cm in length and four slightly shorter. Lay the longer leaves out flat so that they overlap to make a four-pointed star, then staple them together in the centre. Lay the shorter leaves out to form a cross and staple in the centre. Position the cross under the star and staple the two together.

Glue your pine cones or seed heads in the middle, which will hide the staples, and attach wire to the centre for fixing or hang the star with raffia thread.

Small larch cones, conkers and nuts make a wonderful cluster and a great alternative to a plastic bauble. Make a tight ball of string as a base, about golf-ball size, with a loop for hanging. Put glue onto the base of each cone for a star effect and stick them to the ball of string until it’s covered.

Of course, there are other natural decorations which will continue the theme. A large bunch of gypsophila from the florist or even your local supermarket can go a long way. Cut stems of it and place them evenly amid the branches of the tree, for a snow effect.

Your tree will soon look stunning – with not a garish bauble in sight.

• The full article on homemade decorations can be seen in the December issue of Gardening Which? To try your first three issues of Which? and Which? Gardening for £3, call 0800 389 88 55, quoting VEG337F.

Best of the bunch – Skimmia japonica

These wonderful evergreen shrubs can often be seen in winter containers, their deep green leaves a backdrop to dark red buds, borne all winter, which burst into fragrant, white or pink-tinged flowers in spring. On female plants, these are followed by colourful crops of red fruits which last all winter. You need to plant male and female together to be sure of fruit, unless you go for a hermaphrodite such as S. japonica subsp. reevesiana. Other good varieties include ‘Nymans’, ‘Rubella’ and ‘Veitchii’. Skimmias like to be in semi shade in well-drained acid soil which has been enriched with organic matter. The shrub is neat and compact, about 1m (3ft) high, so is ideal for smaller gardens or planting in pots. Remove dead branches in spring, but further pruning is not necessary.

Good enough to eat… Leeks

Leeks are a really useful winter vegetable because you can leave them in the ground until you need them to make delicious soups or to add to comforting casseroles or as an addition to a meal, baked with tomatoes and a cheese topping. They are easy to go from seed and can be planted without a problem.

Start them in pots ready to plant out later in the season to follow other crops that have been harvested. They can be sown from March onwards, following on from early potatoes, early peas or broad beans in late June or July. Sow them thickly in a seedbed, as the thinnings can be used for salads. In borders, start the seeds off in small pots and keep them somewhere cool but frost free. After hardening off in April and May, move plants raised inside outdoors and prick them out into modular trays to grow on. In June or July they can be planted into the bottom of a shallow trench and should be watered in well. From October to spring you should be able to harvest them as you need them. Good varieties include ‘Autumn Mammoth 3 Snowstar’ and ‘King Richard’.

Three ways to… Keep houseplants in shape

1. Don’t forget to deadhead. Plants with large flowers, such as hibiscus, look tidier with old flowers removed and this stops fallen petals resting on and rotting the foliage.

2. Keep on top of trimming and tying in new shoots on climbing plants such as jasmine and passion flowers to ensure they look their best.

3. If you have a formal shaped plant, it is likely to need regular clipping. Foliage plants can be cut back at any time during their growing period, but with flowering plants it’s probably best to wait until they’ve finished blooming before cutting them back.

What to do this week

• Build screens to protect newly planted evergreens from cold winds.
• Place forcing jars over clumps of rhubarb to encourage early stems for picking.
• Clean empty greenhouses, scrubbing the frame and staging and cleaning the glass.
• Clean, oil, sharpen and service your tools.
• Invest in a water butt to save the water from the down pipes of the house.
• Lift and store swede and turnip for winter use.
• Continue to refill bird feeders and bird baths regularly.
• Prepare beds for planting new asparagus in late winter or early spring.
• Finish cutting back dead perennials and tidy up borders by removing plant debris which could harbour slugs and snails.
• Place orders for potatoes, onion sets and shallots.
• Cut back dahlias once the frost has blackened the leaves.