If you didn’t even get a peck on the cheek this Christmas, fear not. You can grow you own mistletoe for next year with this simple gardening hack – and it won’t cost you a penny
Christmas is well and truly over – but you shouldn’t bin your mistletoe.
Even if you weren’t offered a cheeky kiss under the festive plant, there is always next year… or the year after. Many people do not know that Mistletoe (aka Viscum album) is a hemi-parasitic shrub. This means it obtains some of its food from the plant it’s attached to, and partly via photosynthesis – rather than growing on its own like most other blooms and trees.
“It has a bushy, globose shape and can parasitise more than 200 trees and shrubs – apples, lime, poplar and conifers are frequent hosts,” experts over at Gardeners’ World explained. “Mistletoe doesn’t kill the plant, however, so you needn’t remove if you spot it growing in your garden. It’ll provide you with fresh mistletoe at Christmas, too!”
The gardening aces says January is the perfect time to ‘press mistletoe’ berries into the bark of apple trees to help establish your own mistletoe plant. To do this, simply pluck the berries from the mistletoe sprig and mash them into a paste with your hands, before smearing the pulp over the joints of your tree. It mights sound bizarre, but it does work!
“Some folks suggest cutting into the bark of the tree to create a flap under which to stuff your berry mush,” said the pros over at Two Thirsty Gardeners. “But, my mistletoe managed to germinated just by basting a particularly gnarly armpit of my old apple tree. Don’t pucker up just yet – as mistletoe germination can be rather hit or miss, especially if you are using the underdeveloped berries from a plant that was entwined within a Christmas wreath.”
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It can take up to five years for the white berries we have come to associate with Christmas to develop, so this really is a long-game gardening task. However, if you have dogs, cats, or horses – it might be worth avoiding mistletoe altogether as it can be toxic if ingested.
If your post-Christmas attempt to grow mistletoe didn’t go well, it might be worth buying fresh berries in March/ April and placing them underneath bark flaps on a suitable tree. Try and place the berries as high as you can, as mistletoe needs as much sunlight as possible to get growing. Of course, none of this will guarantee you’ll get a peck on the cheek next Christmas…
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