Christmas is coming,
The nut roast's getting fat,
Please put a penny in the old gardeners hat.
If you haven't got a penny
A fir cone will do,
If you haven't got a fir cone,
May god bless you.
Gather your kit. You can use natural fir cones, but I have some that I sprayed last winter. Any easy to use wire will do, as long as you can twist it tight with your fingers. One small orange box, well filled, will make a plumsiously packed garland of about 2.5m and will take about 2.30hrs to complete.
Wrap wire around each fir cone, near the base (usually about a quarter or a third of the way up from the base works the best), hiding it near the core of the cone. If your cones are very dry, they will be open which makes this easy. Twist the wire once or twice to secure and cut, leaving ends of 1 to 4cms long.
Keep half a meter/18" string at start and finish for tying up your garland. Twist the wires tightly onto your string, so that the fir cones don't slip up and down the string at all. Cut off the spare ends of wire and tuck in the tail end bits of wire.
Hang up, or spiral in a tree shaped pile. Run a string of lights through them for sparkle, and/or add other decorations to taste.
Failing all that, I have to admit that they do look good chucked loose into a bowl, after they've had a dash of spray.
