Christmas at Longmeadow

With the festive season upon us, Monty shares his plans for Christmas at Longmeadow - read on for sprouts, mistletoe, Christmas trees and more.

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Christmas starts late for us here at Longmeadow, around about the 20th of December, as two of my children have birthdays in December, and when they were little it seemed only right they enjoyed their birthdays before Christmas was mentioned at all. But when the solstice comes on the 21st, I fetch the biggest Christmas tree I can fit in the back of the pickup, usually about 12 to 15ft tall, and that’s when we start decorating. Like everyone's, our tree is covered in lights and decorations - it's not a time to be too tasteful or restrained and we really go for it.

We also collect as much from the garden as we can, and use holly, yew and ivy to make wreaths to decorate the house, where it stays religiously until Twelfth Night. Over the past decade, climate change has really affected our mistletoe, and it has increased enormously meaning we now have far too much. So we bring great bunches indoors and I always have a huge bunch, of at least 3ft across, which I hang from a rope in the centre of our hall. That goes up a week before Christmas and stays until February.

After the fun is over and it's time to take everything out of the house, we start to shred. We shred the branches from the Christmas tree and, although there is some debate about how effective it is, we treat it as an ericaceous mulch and use it around camellias and azaleas. Sometimes I mix it with leafmould and use it as an ericaceous compost.