Decorating your home for Christmas is just another way of sharing your holiday spirit, and with fresh flowers readily available, you don’t have to rely on silk or artificial arrangements.

There are all sorts of beautiful holiday table centerpieces you can cerate.

Don’t think that you must stick to the more traditional Christmas flowers such as poinsettias. Any pretty red and white flowers will do quite nicely for Christmas flower arrangements.

There are many types of greenery, too. Holly and mistletoe are always nice, but you can use fragrant evergreen boughs, spiky pine cones, ivy, or almost any greenery in your arrangements.

Carnations make lovely holiday bouquets and centerpieces!

Besides being readily available, carnations are inexpensive, as well. With big, ruffled, frilly blooms, a centerpiece of red and white carnations with greenery accents is a charming addition to your Christmas dinner table.

You may also use beautiful red and white tulips for Christmas flowers. There are bicolored “candy cane” varieties that are striped red and white—so festive for the holidays!

Dramatic red roses with greenery and delicate white baby’s breath combine for an elegant, yet cheerful, centerpiece for your table.

A particularly showy Christmas table floral centerpiece may be created using fresh potted poinsettias and shiny Christmas ornaments inside a large basket decorated with a Christmas ribbon bow on the handle.

The possibilities for Christmas flowers to be used in table centerpieces are numerous!

Use your imagination and let your creative juices flow to come up with some winning ideas for your holiday décor!

For instance, a large blooming Christmas cactus would make a stunning table centerpiece!

Many hostesses like to arrange Christmas flowers with candles for a bit of holiday ambience. Floating candles, for example, along with floating poinsettias or other fresh Christmas flowers makes a stunning and extremely stylish floral centerpiece for a holiday table.

You might also arrange shiny, brightly colored ornaments in a big, clear vase holding a tall Amaryllis or orchid!

Paperwhite Narcissus make gorgeous Christmas flowers, especially when combined with red flowers such as tulips, carnations or cyclamen.

Regardless of which Christmas flowers you decide to use for your holiday table centerpiece, the addition of fresh flowers will add a big helping of charm and holiday cheer!

There are so many beautiful types of Christmas flowers available to use for your bouquets, arrangements, wreaths, swags and centerpieces.

Azaleas, cyclamen, Christmas cacti, and poinsettias are all simply gorgeous, but keeping them at their best requires a small investment in time and effort.

These particular Christmas flowers will fare best under cool conditions.

In fact, these plants will flower best and longer if they are kept cool. You can prolong the bloom of your Christmas flowers past the holidays if you keep them in the sort of environment that is most conducive to flowering.

In general, temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit are optimum for these plants. However, poinsettias might be happier being just a bit warmer.

You don’t want the plants to get too cold at night. You should also be careful and not set them too close to a heater or heating duct or fireplace, because they will dry out under those conditions.

Here are a few tips on caring for some of two popular types of Christmas flowers:

Poinsettias:

Poinsettias can last for a long time if cared for properly. These Christmas flowers, which are actually bracts, are colorful and showy. They thrive in bright light but don’t place them in direct sun as this can be harmful. They want to be moist, but don’t over-water them. When the top of the potting soil feels dry to the touch, water thoroughly.

Be careful not to place poinsettias where they will be in a draught, or too close to a heat source such as a fireplace or heating duct, because this can dry the soil and plants too much. Poinsettias like being misted with water, and this will help to keep the flowers at their best.

Cyclamen:

Indoor cyclamen make gorgeous Christmas flowers and will put on an extravagant display of blooms for several months if tended to carefully. Always select a cyclamen with lots of flower buds and nice, healthy leaves.

These beautiful plants are happiest in cool, bright conditions. Avoid placing them in direct sunlight, however, or too close to heat sources.

Be judicious in watering, cyclamen dislike being overwatered.

You should remove spent flowers from the plants to keep them tidy. When blooming is complete, the leaves will turn yellow. Keep watering sparingly until the plant goes into summer dormancy. When the cyclamen begins showing new growth, resume watering and feeding for another season of beautiful Christmas flowers.

Poinsettias and indoor cyclamen are fantastic Christmas flowers that will reward you with abundant blooms if you care for them correctly.

However, lovely though they may be, you might want to think about going beyond poinsettias for your holiday flower arrangements this year.

There are a lot of other truly beautiful Christmas flowers!

The traditional Christmas colors of red, white and green can be found in gorgeous abundance on many other plants and flowers besides the well known and much loved poinsettia.

For example, red and white roses make fabulous Christmas flowers, and are favored for holiday weddings, as well as home decorating.

Azaleas make charming Christmas flowers! The red and white varieties sold as blooming potted plants for the holidays are usually Belgian Indicas that will provide abundant blooms for several weeks.

Amaryllis are breathtaking Christmas flowers—tall, stately, elegant and oh-so-beautiful! Huge trumpet shaped blooms on narrow stems make Amaryllis perfect to arrange in the center of an arrangement; with smaller, shorter flowers and/or greenery surrounding them.

White Chrysanthemums combined with red carnations or any other red flowers make for a stunning arrangement of Christmas flowers.

Red and white carnations are charming with ivy and baby’s breath to provide the usual colors of Christmas.

Big red tulips are a holiday favorite when combined with paperwhite narcissus and greenery such as mistletoe or holly with its cheerful red berries!

Caladium are traditionally grown outdoors, but with some care the bulbs can be forced into bloom just in time to brighten your holiday décor. Caladiums are available in many colors, but the beautiful reds, greens and whites…plus the variations of these colors….make enchanting Christmas flowers.

Christmas cacti are showy and always dependable for loads of Christmas flowers. These tropical type plants can live for many, many years with proper care and will burst into bloom for your Yuletide decorating!

Miniature roses make lovely Christmas flowers and lend themselves to decorating your home for the holidays. These plants are usually potted when sold, and you can plant them outside after the holidays for years of pretty flowers in your perennial beds.

Freesia are among the most fragrant of all bulbs, with beautiful white flowers and a scent that is just heavenly. These bulbs can be forced into bloom along with paper whites and tulips for elegant Christmas flowers.

So, do have the old standby poinsettias, but have some fun trying out some other Christmas flowers, too!

Christmas flowers can be fresh cut bouquets or dried arrangements, silk, or potted bulbs and/or plants. Regardless of which types you choose for your decorating, rest assured that they will provide beauty and charm to your décor!

There are endless ways to use Christmas flowers. Here are a few suggestions for decorating your holiday home this season with Christmas flowers:

• Evergreen boughs, either real or artificial, look beautiful when they’re swagged from a mantel with dried roses of deep Christmas red and white liberally entwined among the greenery.
• Big, bountiful bouquets of green holly with bright red berries make a statement all by themselves, but adding a few long stemmed red and white roses or other flowers lends added Christmas cheer and color.
• Potted Poinsettias in festive shades of red, white or pink add some pizzazz to your holiday theme, especially when you wrap the pots in brightly colored foil paper and wrap it all in a great big poufy bow in Christmas colors!
• Baskets and sleds crafted from grapevines or twigs are so festive with Christmas flower arrangements inside! You might add Styrofoam covered with a layer of dried moss as a base, and then add pretty silk Christmas flowers to make your holiday statement.
• Wreaths can add so much to your entrance door or inside on any wall you choose to hang one! You can make a living wreath with dampened sphagnum moss wired to a wreath frame, then fresh cut Christmas flowers and greenery all around for a splash of color.
• Don’t forget your holiday dinner table! Christmas flowers can make any meal a festive affair laden with good cheer. Be sure to use a rather low arrangement, so that you and your guests can see over it during the meal.
• Stair rails and banisters were made to be decorated! These can look ever-so-festive with the addition of some garlands of greenery and pretty red and white Christmas flowers.
• A few pots of Amaryllis with their huge, regal blooms will lend an air of distinction to your Christmas flowers for decorating! They come in a wide range of colors, with red or white being favorites for the holidays.

Decorating with Christmas flowers is a great way for your home to say “Happy Holidays!”

There are many different varieties of Christmas flowers available from florists both online and traditional brick and mortar establishments.

You can find lovely, festive arrangements in a wide range of prices.

For example, you might select a gorgeous bouquet of fresh flowers such as Christmas red and white roses with holly or evergreens as greenery, and perhaps a pretty spray of dainty baby’s breath. This would provide a nice holiday themed flower bouquet in the traditional Christmas colors of red, white and green.

Or, you may choose an arrangement of beautiful, life-like silk flowers that have been expertly crafted to look real. This would be a nice gift if you would like the recipient to be able to enjoy your gift year after year.

Along the lines of gifts that keep on giving are the Christmas cactus plants and regal Amaryllis.

Both of these Christmas flowers will rebloom during the holidays every year if so desired, and come in a wide variety of lovely colors.

The Christmas cactus is an extremely popular flower for the holiday season as it is very low maintenance, requiring only sufficient light, fertilizer and water to put on a show of beautiful blooms every year.

Christmas cactus are also quite easy to propagate, so whoever you gift with one of these popular plants can soon have several from the one plant provided by you.

Amaryllis with their tall, regal, exotic blooms have been perpetual favorites for the Christmas holidays for many years.

Amaryllis grow from large bulbs and often produce up to a dozen huge, tropical type flowers during one blooming season.

These plants, like the Christmas cactus, can be propagated fairly easily by potting up the small “bulblets” that form from year to year, and they are dependable telomeres every year!

Amaryllis come in a flamboyant array of colors.

The variety known as Red Lion, with its huge, trumpet shaped, deep red blooms is one of the perennial picks by many folks for a dash of Christmas color.

There are many other types of Christmas flowers available. You might prefer to send a charming potted Poinsettia, always a favorite among Christmas flowers.

Whatever your choice may be, an arrangement of Christmas flowers will be a gift of beauty, sure to be appreciated by anyone on your list!

Fresh flower arrangements are always beautiful and add so much ambience to your home regardless of the season, but flowers at Christmas really add that extra touch that says “Merry Christmas!” to all who enter.

There are several beautiful types of flowers that are considered traditional for Christmas.

One of these is the poinsettia.

Poinsettias have long been one of the best loved fresh flowers for the yuletide holidays. A deep red color is the norm, but variations of color have been developed through the years, and now poinsettias can be found in other shades as well.

The poinsettia is indigenous to Mexico and Guatemala, and has a rather interesting story associated with it.

The poinsettia’s association with the Christmas holidays is said to have begun during the 16^th century in Mexico, when a young girl who was too poor to provide a gift to Jesus was told by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside, and place them at the altar. From those roadside weeds, legend has it that crimson blossoms appeared and thus the beautiful poinsettia came into being.

Contrary to urban legend, poinsettias are not truly toxic. Ingestion of the plant may cause diarrhea and vomiting in both animals and humans, and if the sap from a poinsettia gets in the eye it can cause temporary blindness.

However, the poinsettia plant–while having some unpleasant side effects— is not fatal if ingested as we have been led to believe by folklore.

When buying poinsettia flowers for your Christmas decorating, here are a few tips that will help you choose wisely:

• The plant should be approximately 2-½ times taller than the diameter of the container it is growing in.
• Don’t buy poinsettia plants that are displayed in paper or plastic sleeves, as this causes them to deteriorate quickly.
• Don’t choose poinsettias that are wilted or drooping as they will begin dropping leaves and be unattractive, or they might be diseased.
• Choose plants that are dark green all the way down to the soil line.
• If you keep poinsettias outside, be sure to cover them at night if the temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Choose bracts that are completely covered without a lot of green around the edges.

Poinsettias are perhaps the best known and most popular of all Christmas flowers, and will lend a lovely, festive look to your holiday décor!

You can count on having beautiful flowers on your Christmas cactus in time for the holidays year after year, and they make wonderful, long lasting gifts.

In fact, if properly cared for, a Christmas cactus can live and bloom for hundreds of years! How’s that for a gift that keeps on giving?

The Christmas cactus is not, as the name would suggest, from the desert. These cactus originate high in the mountains of Brazil, and they are actually forest plants.

You would typically think of a cactus as a plant that doesn’t like moisture, but this not the case at all with the Christmas cactus. It needs to be kept consistently moist for the best growth and blooming.

A Christmas cactus might even drop its flowers or flower buds if the soil becomes too dry.

Due to being called a cactus, one might also think that this flowering plant would thrive on heat. Not so. Your Christmas cactus should be kept away from sources of high heat such as fireplaces, heating ducts and heaters.

A Christmas cactus is extremely easy to care for. It does appreciate some fertilizer during its active growing period. Any fertilizer suitable for blooming houseplants will suffice.

Keep your Christmas cactus in a sunny location! While it can be kept alive in low light locations, it needs a lot of light to realize its full potential and produce abundant growth and beautiful blooms.

You can move your plants outside during warm weather, but don’t set them in direct sunlight or allow the soil to become too dry.

If your Christmas cactus has started to dry out rapidly and/or wilt quite frequently, this is a sign that it needs to be repotted into a larger container.

You should use a potting soil made especially for succulents, or you can make your own potting soil by mixing two parts plain commercial potting soil with one part clean sand or vermiculite.

Your Christmas cactus should be pruned after blooming for best results. Simply take off a few sections of each stem by pinching at the joint. Alternatively, you can prune by using a sharp knife to remove the sections.

Christmas cactus will root very easily, and you can use the pruned cuttings to propagate new plants just by rooting them in moist vermiculite.

To force your Christmas cactus into bloom for holiday flowers, it should be kept in a dark place for 12 hours every night. You should begin this process around the middle of October to ensure blooms by Christmas.

It usually takes around 6-8 weeks to see flower buds beginning to form at the tips of the stems, after you start the forcing process.

Christmas cactus come in a variety of gorgeous colors, and make beautiful, festive Christmas flowers!

To many prospective brides and grooms, a Christmas wedding just makes sense. Friends and family that live out of town have come home for the holidays and won’t have to make a special trip for a wedding. School is out for a couple of weeks. Everybody is in a happy, holiday mood—so why not take advantage of these circumstances and have a Christmas wedding?

Naturally, a wedding anytime of the year calls for flower arrangements. Christmas flowers arrangements lend themselves quite nicely to decorating for a beautiful wedding!

You may choose to go with the traditional red, green and white…..red and white….or other colors of your choice. But the traditional Christmas flowers can be counted on to provide a wealth of decorating ideas for lovely wedding arrangements.

For example, masses of potted red poinsettias and garlands of holly would be stunning wedding flowers!

Also, red and white roses with baby’s breath and evergreen boughs would be fabulous.

You will only be limited by the scope of your imagination when it comes to decorating the church and reception area with Christmas wedding flowers.

Many brides love the look of tiny, twinkling fairy lights woven through evergreen garlands. Faux snow, once pretty chintzy and tacky, has been improved over the years and would look gorgeous liberally applied to evergreen decorations with red and white roses.

Christmas wedding flower arrangements seem made to order for using lots of pretty, flickering candles, also.

There are many beautiful, fragrant evergreens to choose from as accents for Christmas wedding flower arrangements and decorations.

Blue spruce, for instance, with clusters of red holly berries and white roses makes a breathtaking flower arrangement for a Christmas wedding. You may also use pine boughs, fir, balsam, cedar or almost any evergreen.

Mistletoe is another plant that is popular for Christmas wedding flower decorations. Tall, elegant red or white Amaryllis with their strap-like foliage and huge trumpet shaped flowers are especially beautiful to use in Christmas wedding flowers, too.

Small potted evergreen trees can be strung with tiny clear fairy lights and dusted with artificial snow.

Regardless of which Christmas flowers you choose to decorate for a wedding during the holidays, you will be assured of having arrangements that add grace, elegance and beauty to the ceremony.

You can always use silk flowers instead of fresh, but if you have access to fresh flowers, these are preferable.

First of all, decide where you want to use your Christmas flower arrangement. For instance, if you want to place one on a hall table, it could be tall. On the other hand, if you want to use it on your dinner table, you would probably want a relatively short arrangement so that people could see over it.

Where and how you intend to use your arrangement will determine the size.

Let’s say that you want a beautiful arrangement of Christmas flowers on a table in your entrance hall, so that holiday visitors will see it as soon as they come into your home.

For this location, there are several possible flowers and plants that would work quite well in creating a charming arrangement.

You might begin with a large poinsettia in traditional red, or choose one of the new shades of white or even pink.

Place the potted poinsettia, pot and all, into a large rustic type basket that is large enough to hold the poinsettia and other flowers. Line the basket with heavy plastic first, and then place a round clay flower pot drainage bottom of the kind that sits under a regular clay pot. You will need the plastic and the clay flower pot bottom to prevent water from seeping out onto your table when you water the fresh poinsettia.

Make sure that the basket you choose is large enough to hold other flowers that will be around the poinsettia.

Next, add sphagnum moss all around the pot, surrounding the poinsettia, and moisten it well.

Then, start adding some fresh greenery such as ivy or holly branches with berries, sticking the ends down into the moist sphagnum moss, all around the poinsettia.

Use whatever greenery you have at hand or can pick up at the local nursery. If you don’t have holly or ivy, you can use small branches of almost any sort of evergreen bush or tree.

At this point, if you want to; you can add some small Christmas ornaments such as bells, balls or whatever, among the greenery surrounding the poinsettia.

If the basket has a handle, wrap some festive Christmas ribbon around it and tie a big bow on top or at one side.

If you have access to other fresh flowers, you can insert the stems into the moist sphagnum moss, and the entire arrangement will stay fresh and pretty for quite some time. Just be sure to keep the moss moist at all times.

If you don’t want to use a rustic basket and want a more sophisticated look, you can use a big crystal or cut glass bowl or almost any container that is large enough to hold the potted poinsettia in the center.

Christmas flower arrangements say “Happy Holidays” to all!

These beautiful flowers, native to South America, are of the genus Hippeastrum, and grow from a large bulb. Each plant can grow to a height of up to approximately 3 feet, with huge, lavish, tropical-look trumpet shaped blooms.

Red, white, and variations of those colors are the favorite for Christmas flowers, but Amaryllis bulbs are available in a very wide range of gorgeous colors and bi-colors.

Amaryllis are extremely easy and rewarding to grow because they always produce such magnificent results!

If you want to have Amaryllis blooming indoors for the Christmas holidays, you should start watering the bulbs around 8 weeks beforehand.

When you purchase a pre-potted Amaryllis, it will usually come with a pot without holes, a pot with drainage holes, potting soil mix, and the bulb itself.

If you buy the bulb by itself, without a planting pot, then choose a pot that has a diameter of about 2” wider than the bulb at its thickest part.

When you pot the bulb, do not cover it completely! You want to leave about half or one third of the bulb out of the potting mix. Supposedly, you should make sure that you plant the bulb right side up, but experts disagree on whether this makes a difference or not.

Don’t over water an Amaryllis bulb, or it may rot, but do keep the soil moist at all times during its active growing period.

Don’t fertilize your Amaryllis until new green leaves appear.

Keep the Amaryllis in a room temperature of approximately 65-70 degrees while it is actively growing.

The Amaryllis bulbs or bulbs with potting kits usually found at garden centers and retail stores are pre-programmed to bloom in about 8 weeks after they are potted and watering has begun.

However, unlike some bulbs, Amaryllis do not require a period of dormancy and you can keep your plant growing year round if desired.

It can be forced into bloom at almost any time provided that it has had a long enough growing period (normally 6-7 months) and put into dormancy by either storing it in a cool 40-45 degree room or withholding water.

If you live in a warm enough climate zone, you can plant and grow Amaryllis bulbs outside with great success!

You can keep your Amaryllis bulbs and force Christmas blooms from year to year. An Amaryllis bulb can live and bloom for up to 75 years!

Wowza!

That is a fantastic return on a very minimal investment, as Amaryllis can usually be purchased for between $5-$10.

Pots of gorgeous blooming Amaryllis make perfect Christmas flowers, and will lend grace, elegance and beauty to your holiday home!