Mark Cox, of Weston's Baytree Garden Centre, shares how to make a Christmas wreath

Our regular columnist Mark Cox gives his top tips to make a Christmas wreath

I thought I would have ago at making a Christmas wreath as an early gift for the present Mrs Cox this week. Number one daughter said I stood no chance with my sausage fingers - and even if I did manage to create one it would be awful.

I fully accept my Christmas wreath may not look as good as those you can buy from Baytree and other garden centres because they have the skills and experience to make them.

I can take solace in the fact that even if it is ‘awful’, at least it will have been made with love.

To begin with you’ll need to assemble a number of vital ingredients - just like when you bake a cake.

You’ll need: florists wire, a wire wreath ring, moss, holly, ivy, evergreen foliage and any other embellishments that take your fancy like pine cones, dried orange slices, cinnamon sticks etc.

The first task is to wind about 5cm of florist wire onto a section of the wreath ring, please don’t cut the wire. Make sure though that the wire is fixed on nice and tightly.

Next, take a good handful of moss and spread it over a section of the wire ring (don’t spread it too thinly).

You’ll notice that moss has a dark underbelly and a vibrant green top. Make sure the vibrant green is facing upwards as you carefully wind the wire around the moss and wire ring thus securing the moss to the ring.

Following so far? Keep wiring more moss around the wreath ring until the whole ring is covered in a neat Swiss Roll of moss.

Now we can take our evergreen foliage such as Conifer trimmings and layer it with pieces of holly or ivy or whatever foliage you have chosen. These layered bunches or sprigs should be no larger than about 30cm.

Take the florist wire and begin winding the wire around the base of the first sprig or bunch. Try not to wind the wire to far along the sprig as you really want them to fan out slightly. Ideally the hole in the centre of the wreath should not get smaller whereas the outer edge of the wreath gets wider.

Reach for another selection of evergreen material and lay it over the wired end of the previous sprig so that top 1/3rd of green mater is overlapping the bottom layer. Continue adding layers and wiring them in place until the moss is covered with your chosen plant material.

At this point I was really quite pleased with what I had created and was worried that I might ruin it by adding embellishments. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Using the florist wire I wrapped the wire around the base of some pinecones that I had collected.

I threaded the wired into the pinecone by winding it around the opened sections of cone. The free end of wire was then wrapped around the wreath to secure.

I did trip up at this point as I couldn’t tie a nice bow out of ribbon to save my life - so I asked for help from number one child who created the most beautiful red bow for me.

I presented the wreath to Mrs Cox who thanked me and said it looked wonderful then asked if Elizabeth had made it!