H: Katy Pullinger, Host
A: Andrea Caldecourt, Flowers and Plants Association

H: Hello and welcome to today’s Christmas edition of our Lifestyle Show, bought to you by the Flowers and Plants Association. I’m Katy Pullinger and today we’re joined by our plant expert – plant and flower expert - Andrea Caldecourt, how are you today?

A: Hello Katie, hi

H: Now we’ve got plenty of things to get through today, loads and loads of plants and you can submit your questions to us about how you want to look after your plants or perhaps some festive ideas about how to dress them in your home. Now there’s a little box at the bottom of your screen where you can submit your questions to us, and here live in the studio we will get through as many as possible. Now it is Christmas, it’s a busy time of year and perhaps you’ve got the tree ready, you’ve got the turkey booked – hopefully. I hope you’ve got through your Christmas shopping already, but there’s plenty of ways to put finishing touches to your home, and turn it into a winter wonderland, and that is what we’re going to be talking today with Andrea, so I hope you’ve got lots of questions for us – let’s get started, where shall we start, there’s so much to get through?

A: Yes, I’ve got a lot to show you today but I think first of all we’ll start with the traditional Christmas plant, which is your poinsettia

H: Beautiful

A: Named after a guy called Charles Poinsett who was an American captain in the army, and it’s named in his honour, and I think we all know the sort of classic pillar-box red form

H: Yes

A: But what I’ve bought in today as well to show you is the number of different colours of poinsettias that you can have. We’ve got this sort of cherry red vermillion colour, there’s this gorgeous pinky one which is so pretty

H: Beautiful, I haven’t seen that colour before actually, that’s –

A: No it’s really nice, a kind of make-up colour. This lovely peachy one which has got sort of splashy marbling on as well, just beautiful and looks really good against this sort of steel grey / blue container. And then at the front we’ve also got the very pale lemony cream ones, you can see these in the supermarkets –

H: Very pretty

A: As well as in florists and garden centres, so if you track them down you can get different colours. You can also get different sizes – this is a sort of average size of your poinsettia then the medium ones here, but I’ve seen ones that literally this big –

H: Little mini ones

A: Yes tiny, really sweet, and we’ve dressed them up in different ways. The one at the front, the creamy one is nice and rustic if you have a very traditional looking cottage house that would work well. Put it in a wicker container and just dress – like any twigs just lay them on top as a framework, whereas this one if you like something a little more blingy and Christmassy –

H: Ooh that’s pretty

A: We’ve just dropped that into a glass vase, put some tiny Christmas baubles in the bottom and wrapped the pot in a bit of fabric just to disguise it. You could even use Christmas wrapping paper if you’ve got some shiny paper –

H: And it’s also readily available those kind of things –

A: Oh completely

H: To be able to dress them up – easy to get

A: I mean certainly, the Flowers and Plants Association tries to make things easy, it tries to say to people you don’t need special equipment, you don’t need fancy things – you can dress up your plants with stuff you can find on the high street

H: Brilliant. Well actually our first question today is from Kiara and it’s about poinsettias, “when did the tradition of poinsettias come about?” Do we know?

A: Very good question, I don’t know. I’ll ‘fess up! I don’t know everything, but I’m pretty sure there’s something on our website, so if you go to flowers.org.uk and click on the A-Z and find poinsettias, I’m sure that the information is up there but I don’t have it in my head I’m sorry!

H: Well I expect they’ve probably been around as long as anyone’s got into red for Christmas

A: Certainly

H: Because it’s such an obvious colour choice of flower for your home

A: And they originate in Mexico so it wouldn’t have been before the first European seafarers went to Mexico and saw them growing there so I mean within the last 2-300 years

H: It’s a long time

A: Yes. And because it’s red it sort of fits that whole red robin, Santa Claus kind of Christmassy thing that goes on at this time of year and the colour suits well

H: Now something that I’ve actually wondered about poinsettias is that – is the red part actually the flower, because it looks so similar to the green –

A: Yes

H: I’m always a bit confused with that

A: It’s actually what botanists call a bract and it’s a leaf that has adapted itself and changed colour

H: Ok

A: So it’s, effectively it is, it’s exactly the same as a leaf. The flowers are really really tiny inside, I’m not sure if John our cameraman can pick that up, but right inside there is like little tiny yellow dots, very insignificant –

H: Right

A: And that’s botanically what’s called the flower, but obviously from our point of view a flower is anything that’s bright and colourful and different to the leaves so –

H: Yes

A: Don’t be too worried about the differences

H: Are they easy to look after because I did admit to you before we started that I’ve already killed mine off, I’ve only had it for two weeks and it’s gone a bit black, and most of the leaves have fallen off it

A: Oh no

H: What have I been doing wrong – have I over-watered it or what?

A: No they don’t like over-watering, they do like to get almost dry before you water them again, they come from Mexico and –

H: Maybe that’s it

A: They’re used to dry conditions. They do like a bit of misting around their leaves and bract

H: Just spray them?

A: Yes

H: Oh ok

A: Just spray them with a bit of water that keeps the humidity up, particularly if your room’s really really hot and dry. What tends to happen when they’ve dropped their leaves is where they’ve been stored outside in the cold or you’ve taken them home and you know you’ve been walking along with your shopping in the cold and they’ve got draughty, that tends to make them drop, and so that could be a reason for it. The other thing with poinsettias is, when Christmas is over, throw them away

H: Oh really why?

A: Yes, because you can get them to re-flower, if you have infinite patience, if from September to Christmas for exactly 12 hours a day you can put them in bright light, and then exactly 12 hours a day you can put them in complete darkness and you’ve given them a drying off period beforehand and you don’t –

H: A lot of work! We have had a lot of questions about you know, do you keep them or do you throw them away, so that answers that

A: They’re like a fiver, they’re less than a gin and tonic in some London pubs you know be done, throw it, start again next year

H: Ok, fine

A: They’re more trouble than they’re worth to try and re-flower. I’ve known some growers lose whole crops just because a bit light’s chinked in through the blackout curtains

H: Oh gosh so can be very very temperamental so persevere for this time of year and then bin them!

A: Yes please

H: Right then, what else have we got to look at – it smells wonderful in here, it smells absolutely gorgeous. What’s next?

A: I think the next thing is, if you are really bad with houseplants and you just kill everything –

H: Me, guilty

A: Then the plant to go for is the bromeliad family, it’s a massive family and it originates in the south American jungles and these are an example we’ve got here which is guzmanias, this particular one. As you can see it comes in a range of colours from sort of like a burgundy, tomato, yellow, and sort of a very pale cream

H: But again very festive as well with the greens and reds

A: Yes, I think it’s like a little trumpet, they look like they’re going kind of “tat a” –

H: Look at me

A: Yes. All guzmanias have this sort of central rosette and then a spray of leaves coming up, long strappy leaves and then a central spike, sometimes like this, like a trumpet and sometimes more like a sort of pointy sphere. Or we have an amazing one of here

H: Wonderful big one

A: Also a bromeliad, this one’s called an aechmea

H: See if I can move this over – oh, here we go

A: And we’ve put him in a nice silver champagne bucket, just because we think he deserves it

H: Oh is that what that is?

A: Yes it’s a champagne bucket, I bought it in –

H: Shows how creative you can be, it’s brilliant

A: A department store, just drop the pot in. This is a bit of sizel; it’s like a straw, a natural straw that they dye in different colours

H: Ok

A: And if we can just tip him down you can see that inside, his colourful rosette is like a spiky pink

H: Oh can you see that?

A: And eventually this will open up and spread out –

H: That’s so pretty

A: Into a sort of almost circular flower spike, and they last for ages. These flower spikes go on for months and months, all they need – because they live in the jungles up in the tops of trees they’re what we call epiphytes which means they live in the tree tops –

H: Ok

A: So they don’t need a lot of watering, they just need a lot of misting and maybe a little dribble of water into the centre of the rosette just to keep them on the moist side of dry. And they’ll just carry on and on, they’re brilliant plants –

H: Oh so they just last a long, long time?

A: Yes they’re brilliant for anyone who thinks, “oh I just kill everything” – they’re just great

H: I like that

A: And as you can see it’s quite space age as well, quite minimal and funky

H: It’s quite a statement one as well so you know instead of just having a little – not insignificant, but a little small wallflower, it’s going “hey look at me, I’m here”

A: Good value for money. With an aechmea or a guzmania, you definitely - and some of – they all have very long tongue-twisty names, I mean in the same bromeliad family you’ve got neoregelia, and just – oh all the names –

H: They sound like different types of pasta!

A: Yes really - so sorry about that but they’re worth tracking down, any bromeliad is great

H: And from pretty much any sort of garden centre or – well just flower stall –

A: Yes and most of them should, no problem at all. Ok the next thing –

H: What’s next?

A: I know they’ve got so much to choose from, and like you say all beautiful smells. Next one, another traditional one is the cyclamen. And just to show you here –

H: In the middle

A: The colours the cyclamen come in –

H: Gorgeous

A: We’ve just planted that one up in a low kind of Japanesy bowl, but you’ve got everything from white, pale pink, peaches, a purply-lilac, plum, magenta – just fabulous shades

H: Really pretty. And they go so well together

A: Oh completely

H: All those colours go well together

A: And if you don’t have a nice, low Japanese bowl like that we’ve used a baking tin (or something very similar to a baking tin) and just drop those in –

H: And you can find so much in your home that you probably didn’t even think of –

A: Completely

H: To use as a flower arranger

A: Put those in. This one at the front is in a tiny goldfish bowl and we’ve just wrapped that round with fabric to disguise that part, and then the one next to it in a little martini glass – which is very nice for a dinner party

H: That’s really cute. Now while we’re on the pinks, we’ve actually got a question from Kristen and she says “can I use pink and red together?” because she hears that clashing colours is cool this season

A: If pink and red makes your heart sing, cheers you up, gets you really going in the Christmas spirit – no problem

H: Why not?

A: Why not?

H: I’ve seen a lot of it, I’ve seen a lot of it on display in the shops, the trees all dressed up. I think it looks brilliant and it is a good clash. I think you’ve got to be careful you can get a really bad clash or you can get some really lovely clashes can’t you?

A: Well certainly if you’ve got a clash go for a real mix of a clash –

H: Yes

A: So everything is all mixed up together. As well as the martini glass what we’ve got on the end here if I can just turn this around, is a quite straightforward idea if you’re worried about your plant getting knocked by pets or you’re having a dinner party and you want to protect it this is a display we did for an awards ceremony recently, we put that in the centre of the dinner tables and just dotted inside a larger vase and put some little glass bubble baubles around the bottom – you could also add some little sparkly gems or something, just to jazz it up

H: Yes

A: Very simple to do

H: Simple is the key isn’t it?

A: Yes –

H: Rather than over-complicated-

A: Especially if you’re having a dinner party, you don’t want to be faffing about with the flowers for a long time so –

H: Yes exactly

A: So we try and make everything really straightforward – I mean all of this was prepped in about half an hour before the show so that’s how quick it is!

H: So it’s that easy? Now Louise wants to know “I’m trying to make a centrepiece for my dining room table – any suggestions?”

A: Yes I think the baking tray was a nice idea, definitely

H: And it kind of brings it into the whole kind of cooking thing as well by using a baking tray –

A: Or you want something low like the Japanese bowl we had here, I mean that’s quite good because it’s low and you can talk over the top of it, you don’t want anything too high. Or the glasses are quite fun, I think we’ve got a red one here –

H: They are good fun

A: Like a wine glass or a martini glass and just drop a little tot plant, one of those plants inside, and that’s quite fun too because that sort of sits in with the wine glasses on the table.

H: Yes

A: The other thing I want to show you, if you’ve got space above your dining room table and you’re feeling quite extravagant, if I just disappear under here –

H: One she prepared earlier

A: If you’ve got a hanging basket from summer, what you can do –

H: Great

A: Spray it white, and we’ve put again this is this sizel that’s dyed pink –

H: Can you not really get white hanging baskets?

A: I don’t know. If you can it saves a lot of time definitely. And inside, these are Christmas cactus schlumbergera, and like the guzmania, they’re another plant that lives in the treetops, they’re what’s called a forest cacti

H: Great colours there

A: I wonder if the camera can zoom in there –

H: Oh wonderful

A: And they’re lovely, they’re almost like little sort of ribbon flowers made of shiny kind of curling ribbon like you used to dress up a parcel and they’re wonderful –

H: They are –

A: They go on and on flowering; the buds come either side of the flowers when they’re –

H: Really pretty

A: Finished

H: You sort of forget that cactus do flower some beautiful flowers

A: Yes even the desert cactus the flowers are amazing, and again really easy to look after. These need a lot more watering than a normal cactus

H: Ok

A: That’s the only thing to remember – treat them like a normal houseplant, water them regularly

H: Look after them a bit like any other –

A: Yes

H: We do actually have a question regarding that from Laura –

A: Ok

H: Who wants to know more about Christmas cactuses?

A: Yes, it is a Christmas classic, definitely and they’re either called Christmas cactus or they’re called Easter cactus, depending on –

H: What time of year it is

A: Yes when they’re being prepared to flower really. If you want to get them to flower again it’s a bit tricky

H: Ok

A: Once they’ve flowered give them 2 months rest somewhere cool, somewhere where you’d need a cardigan or a jacket to be in – about 10 degrees

H: Ok

A: And cut back a lot on the watering, don’t dry them out completely but cut them back and then put them outside or somewhere sort of warm and shady where you water them regularly through the summer and then 2 months before Christmas give them the same rest and cool period again and they should pop back flowering

H: Ok brilliant

A: They just need kind of a spa break! Just a rest up

H: They need a bit of a holiday! Well we do have plenty of time left for you to get your questions in and we really want to hear from you, so at the bottom of your screen there’s a little square, a little box basically where you can submit your question, put your name and where you’re from and you simply press submit and that will come through to us here in the studio, and we will be able to get through as many as possible. And while you’re doing that or having a think about what you want to ask, have a little look at this, we’ve got some beautiful arrangements, a little bit of footage that Andrea’s done for us of ideas that you might want to use to dress up your home - have a look at this

Footage

H: So there we go, some beautiful beautiful arrangements there – I think my favourite is the one with the candles towards the end that was really lovely

A: Yes I like the Italian poinsettia tree with about 200 poinsettias

H: Stunning

A: Hey if you’re feeling extravagant – it’s better than a Christmas tree

H: Why not – oh gosh can you imagine all the presents round the poinsettia, that would be great! Right well keep your questions coming in, perhaps that little bit of footage there has inspired you even more to ask some questions, so submit those and while you’re doing that let’s carry on ploughing through the flowers here

A: Ok next one up is azaleas. Now these are a plant for anybody that’s a bit heavy-handed with a watering can, and there are a lot of people, it’s not that they forget to water, it’s just that they water and water and another bit – why not, and they think it needs a little bit more – perfect, and azaleas are the plant for you if you do that

H: Ok

A: Now some people might know you get much larger forms, and I was in the wholesale market this morning and saw some lovely ones that were what they call standard, which is they’ve grown a trunk and then on top they’ve grown the azalea plant, so they look really cute but what we’ve got here is these tiny little ones, just because I couldn’t resist -

H: They’re great!

A: They’re so sweet. This is just a little Moroccan-style tea glass; you can get these in any department stores and high streets

H: Charity shops and things like that

A: Charity shops, yes, boot sales – so that’s quite – again for the table centre if you’re looking to do something there

H: You can do one in front of everybody with their place setting perhaps, with their nametag

A: You’ve got a lot of time on your hands, but yes! If you do that would be perfect

H: If you’re feeling inspired!

A: Completely. At the front we’ve got it in a little hatbox, I mean I’ve found these in a large store

H: Oh yes?

A: And it’s basically, they’re Christmas gift boxes, they’re a bit shiny and different colours, and we found one that fitted three little azaleas there and just dropped that in, so it’s almost like an old-fashioned hat box, that’s an idea -

H: They’re quite cute little gifts actually the little mini ones I think

A: Oh yes, very dainty and if you keep watering them and put a little plant food into the water, they’ll keep on flowering for ages

H: Yes

A: And then if you have one of those nice cake stands as well, what you could do we’ve got this one here, sort of on a little foot – it’s a bit of a Japanese-style tea set rather than your normal tea set, and we found some in the supermarket, some muffin cases -

H: Oh is that what those are, I was trying to work out what those were!

A: Yes they’re just the little cases that you put -

H: Brilliant

A: Muffins or jellies maybe – or anything for a children’s tea party, and then just drop them in onto a doily -

H: Simple

A: It’s just quite a cute little idea. Or if you had larger, the white muffin cases, again you’ve got little top plants that are great for that sort of thing

H: Really nice

A: And really quick and easy -

H: Ok

A: To do

H: I do have a question to get in here, Louise wants to know “I’m trying to make a centrepiece for my dining room – “ oh we’ve had that one, let’s see – here it is Josephine wants to know “I like to have colour themes at Christmas and this year it’s going to be gold and silver. Can you think of any plants that would fit the theme?”

A: Very organised, gold and silver. I’ll tell you the best thing to do if you’re looking for gold and silver – well the aechmea will be fabulous because it’s got those lovely silvery leaves and it just looks so dramatic

H: Yes

A: So we’ve also got our winter trend up on the website, flowers.org.uk and the trend is called Vintage Glamour, and the whole of that trend is gold and silver and pearl and pale pink, and everything there will give you some great ideas, and I’d say yes that’s the best -

H: Perfect

A: Or another alternative is we’ve got the little pot roses on the front here -

H: With a bit of tinsel round it?

A: Yes with a little bit of tinsel round the pot just to hide the soil, and the pot roses come in a range of pale colours and they would also come in a creamy yellow, depending which side of gold you want to do

H: Ok

A: And you can also find them in a bluey-lilac, which would go nicely with the silver theme

H: Yes

A: So that’s a good option too

H: And again you just find silver pots and things to put things in

A: Yes exactly and dressing things up as well, like with the silver sizel we had -

H: This is great

A: If you’re just adding a little bit of decoration

H: And can you get that from flower shops, or is that a craft shop job?

A: Yes flower shops or craft shops yes, some garden centres as well -

H: Ok

A: Stock sundries and accessories

H: Brilliant

A: Hobby shops, that kind of thing

H: Now it’s this one that we’re going to talk about next isn’t it, the wonderful smell that’s going right in front of me, it’s great -

A: Everyone in the building’s going “it smells fabulous in here, what is it?”

H: It is great

A: It is hyacinths, they are just wonderful, and they’re only around in the springtime so make the most of them, so make the most of them through winter and spring in the cold months. Now the key problem with hyacinths and we have it here, especially with what growers call the forced hyacinth which is the ones that have been prepared to flower earlier

H: Ok

A: Through winter rather than later on in spring, is they get all over-excited and they shoot up, and they have these huge dense flower heads and sometimes their little stems can’t stand the weight -

H: Oh no

A: Especially in a hot room they tend to -

H: Falling over! Bless them

A: So what you need to do, basically we’ve just stuck some little sticks in there and tied it on with a bit of nice sparkly -

H: Ribbon, it’s pretty

A: Yes just to dress them up a bit

H: Lovely

A: Because if you have to support the head you might as well make it pretty

H: We’ve actually got a question about hyacinths from Nicola, and she says, “I like the look of the hyacinth but the smell is strong and I’m worried it will trigger my hay fever, will it?”

A: I wouldn’t have thought so because it’s the pollen that triggers the hay fever rather than the fragrance, I’ve not heard it before – certainly it depends on the – some people are susceptible to things with lots of pollen coming off of them.

H: Yes

A: And other people are affected by everything, so it depends how strong it is. Yes I wouldn’t have thought too badly

H: I think it’s going to have to be just trial and error isn’t it?

A: Exactly it’s whether your -

H: Just try it -

A: Fine with it or not. I wouldn’t have thought so. If you have really really bad hay fever then the guzmania’s probably your best bet, the bromeliad family because you’ve got all that colour, but it’s leaf colour it’s not flower colour

H: No flower, no pollen, nothing to worry about there. This is my favourite today, the feathers. I’ve dubbed it the Moulin rouge flower because it’s all very dramatic and Cannes Cannes style

A: We should be wearing feathers in our hair as well just for Christmas. Yes this is a Phalaenopsis orchid

H: Beautiful

A: All orchids are great at Christmas and they have that kind of glamour and exotica about them, and this one’s particularly nice because what’s called the lips in the middle are a nice contrasting colour. And it’s dead easy to do, all we’ve done is stuck – people that watched the Vintage Glamour webchat are going “I recognise those flowers they were in an arrangement” so you can use this stuff again, some nice feathers to contrast with the – orchids are great especially Phalaenopsis orchids, really easy to look after, very undemanding, flower for weeks on end and then when they’re finished flowering you basically look at where the last flower was and you snip the stem just below where that last flower was -

H: Do you know what that ties in perfectly with a question we’ve got from Lucy in Darlington -

A: Am I psychic?

H: You are, you read her mind, she’s actually saying she always buys orchids at this time of year and throws them away after they’ve flowered, but do they re-flower if I hang onto them?”

A: Yes they should do, yes, as I say yes snip it a bit below where the last flower came off, that stalk, and then just keep looking after it as you did before, misting it. Give it a little bit of a rest period, this one’s not so fussy, some of the orchids need a bit of a spa break like the Christmas cactus did, but generally keep feeding them – feed them with orchid food though because it’s a different preparation to normal plant food

H: Oh really? And again you can get that from the garden centre?

A: Yes it’s much weaker and it’s got different chemical balance in it

H: Is there a specific place in the house that’s really good to keep them – bathroom, living room -

A: Orchids will like a bathroom because it’s nice and humid and so they enjoy it a bit more, but the beauty with the Phalaenopsis type of orchid is they’re a lot less fussy, so they’re a bit more easy going

H: Ok

A: But it will love it in the bathroom, while you’re laying back in the bath, you know the bubble bath, it’s nice to look at

H: It is. Now I’ve spotted a good little tip here – what have you used here to hold them onto the actual sticks?

A: You can get ones that are fancy as well, that have got dragonflies and butterflies on – basically like the little tiny hair clips. I mean these are quite prosaic grower-type green, but if you did fancy something more fancy, you know in the sort of teenage jewellery shops -

H: Yes

A: Those sorts of shops, accessory shops

H: And they’re really cheap as well, but it’s probably a bit easier than fiddly bits of wire and things -

A: Oh yes, very straightforward

H: Love it. Now we’ve got a lovely plant down the front, this is another favourite of mine, they’re all gorgeous, it’s just kind of nesting this one

A: Yes in fact just to show how quick this thing is, this is sort of twigs on a roll basically for want of a better word

H: Ok

A: And we were looking for a pot to put this polyanthus primula in and we thought “oh we don’t have a pot – I know roll that round there” same with putting the fabric on that we rolled the cyclamen in, roll it up to disguise it, and we’ve just put it on a little plate there. I mean this is lovely kind of rustic, like you say nest – it just reminds you of spring if you’ve had enough of Christmas excess this is a great one to turn to

H: Or you just spray it silver

A: You could, yes and the polyanthus come in a huge range of colours, just like everything except jet black, and probably you can get a jet black one now by the time I say this because the breeders have developed it, but they have huge range of colours, virtually everything and they always look really bright and festive so you can plant them outside as well, so have them indoors and then plant them outside to welcome you as you come in the door. We’ve got sort of that nice choice there

H: Brilliant. So we’ve got a huge range of flowers here, I hope you have been inspired. We do still have time for you to get some more questions in so make sure you submit one in that little box at the bottom of your screen, press submit and we’ll try and get it in now like the one we’ve got from Elizabeth who says “I’m decorating the church this year. Can I have some different ideas for something to hang on the end of the pews?”

A: Oh I tell you what’s a really nice idea and we’re promoting it for our spring fashion trend which will be going up on the website later on, but you can get a sneak preview, and they’re almost like you know the Hawaiian lays or the Indian flower garlands, sprigs of lilac and sprigs of freesia and sprigs of spray roses in the spring one, but you could adapt that, if you’ve got flowers like the azalea flowers, carnations are great for that kind of thing because they really last and you can stick the wire, or the string, through the calics, but if you make sort of long flower lays you can always drape them over the ends of each pew

H: Oh that would be nice, and easy to drape as well wouldn’t it -

A: Yes, because you’ve got – it’s just a question of sewing little flowers together as you -

H: It would be quite fun and you get all the, well whoever else works in the church you can all sit around and sew them together which would be nice

A: Yes and the individual flowers off the hyacinth as well, I don’t know if I just pull it apart – you’ve got the tiny individual what are called florets -

H: It looks like a little trumpet individually

A: Yes and you could string those all together into long garlands -

H: Oh nice

A: And they would smell really beautiful as well in the church

H: So what would you do, literally with a piece of string and a needle?

A: Yes a piece of string or -

H: There you go

A: Or you can get like jewellery thread which is a bit more plasticky, a bit stronger, but yes just thread them all through and drape those -

H: That’s a really lovely idea, that would be so pretty. And for weddings and things, I mean so much of this can be carried on throughout the year it’s not just Christmas is it?

A: No, table centres, weddings

H: Yes

A: Or garden parties,

H: Lovely

A: I mean these could be adapted with some flowering plants to use for a garden party

H: I love those in martini glasses they’re brilliant. Next up we’ve got Jane, she says “I see you have a flowering primular there –“

A: We do

H: We do “are the spring flowers flowering earlier due to this mild winter we’re having? Will this affect plants we can buy in the shops?”

A: No because all of the plants are grown in glass houses, so they’re -

H: Right

A: Not affected by the weather so much because they’re grown inside in temperature-controlled environments their watering program is controlled by computer very often -

H: Ok

A: So that won’t have an effect. Where it does have an effect are crops that are grown outside so it’s more the foliages and the blossoms. Bulb flowers, tulips and daffodils tend to be grown outside, so they do have an effect as to how warm or cold the winter’s been

H: Ok

A: As to how early or late we get the daffodils and the tulips in

H: Right. Ok we’ve got one from Jenna as well – “what would make a nice bouquet as a Christmas present for my mother-in-law?” That would be nice

A: It depends how much she likes her! I would say – lovely – that I saw in the wholesale market this morning, just absolutely beautiful, if you really love your mother-in-law tubarose, which is a beautifully fragrant flower, it’s only around in the winter months, it smells absolutely gorgeous. It’s what they use in very high end perfumes, and it’s sort of a long stem with white flowers, very like the hyacinth flower, and that and hyacinth would be fragrant, it would be very pastelly coloured, it’s very pretty, it’s very feminine and it’s only around at this time of year so it’s a great way to kind of celebrate this time of year

H: Something a bit more unique for this time of year. Now give us your top three tips for decorating your home with flowers this year, or any year

A: Well I think the top tip was the one I said at the beginning and I’m going to plead again – if you have poinsettias, enjoy them through the Christmas, chuck them away at the end. Please don’t keep them on and on

H: I think this has got to be the best display – it’s very Christmassy, the Christmas baubles in the base

A: Yes it just says Christmas

H: Yes

A: The second thing I would say is for a lot of the Christmas flowering plants, they will flower longer and stronger if they’re cooler and often at Christmas we tend to heat the rooms up really hot, and that doesn’t help so try and keep the plants as cool as possible

H: Ok

A: And the third thing is have some fun, enjoy yourself

H: And try something different

A: Exactly, give it a go

H: Trial and error, see what works

A: Click on the website, flowers.org.uk

H: Brilliant well listen thank you so much for bringing all your flowers in today -

A: You’re welcome

H: And for all your brilliant tips, I would like to thank Andrea for joining us today and of course the Flowers and Plants Association

A: Thank you very much, I’ve enjoyed it

H: And do you know what I’d quite like to see that beautiful beautiful footage of all those flowers you had on display for us before, so thank you so much for joining us today, I’m Katy Pullinger I shall see you at the next chat, have a look at these beautiful flowers