Christmas is here! Well, not quite – but it’s close enough that you’re already planning out the specifics of your Christmas dinner. The season is a jolly one and feels all the more so when you set to decorating. But all too many people neglect a key part of their home when decorating for Christmas – the garden! So, what should you do to make your garden Christmassy and rope it into the festive season?

Let there be light

A fundamental ingredient in any festive garden decoration is light. We festoon our Christmas trees with fairy lights and lean into the ambience of lamps and candles, so why not bring that warm magic out to your outside space?

Your trees and hedgerows could be enhanced by adornment with outdoor Christmas lights, while the front of your home could become a canvas for light-based installations – whether ready-made neon Christmas missives or creative uses of fairy lights to bring your garden to life.

Even the less glamorous forms of outdoor lighting can help to serve your vision. Some well-placed solar lanterns along lawn sidings or garden pathways can help you create a real ambiance, especially if in service of a path to a secret grotto space in a secluded corner of your garden!

Inside, out

Another unique way to guide your garden decoration plans could be to consider the various embellishments and adornments we use for our Christmas trees and table settings. Might there be a way to decorate your garden as if it were a cosy living room?

With the bigger trees and shrubs in your garden, you could take the opportunity to ‘go big’ with your ideas. Oversized baubles and massive ribbons could be utilised to fancy up your garden trees, while leftover tinsel can highlight hedges and bushes.

Do it DIY

Not many people will have the right decorations for a full garden makeover to hand, of course – which lends more strength to the possibility of taking a DIY approach to garden decorations. For your tree baubles, you could fashion your own from tinfoil – or, more creatively, from frozen by freezing coloured water in balloons.

Natural materials can be used to make other kinds of decoration, too. You could fashion stars from twigs and branches, or build your own household wreath from berries and leaves harvested in your own garden.

Every little helps

Lastly, while festive garden decorations can quickly become about the big installations and gestures, it’s also the little things that make the scene. As well as your lawn and house lighting, and on top of the tree and hedge decorations, why not add some season-appropriate props to complete the vibe?

These could be comical things in the form of small signs for Santa’s elves, pointing them to the chimney – or they could simply be little aesthetic things to elevate the mood, in the form of candy canes and nutcracker dolls.

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