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Plant Life Valerie Easton

White Christmas

Seek comfort and joy in luminous shades of pale

Just because it rarely snows in December doesn't mean we can't have a white Christmas. Indoors and out, white looks clean, fresh and festive. This most sophisticated of shades evokes pearls, the full moon, sparkling lights, frost and ice. Yet white is also the comfort food of color, offering a chance to relax into its pale luminosity. We all need comfort this dark and busy time of year, and white is pleasantly soothing, even while it reflects all available light.

Some friends and I were sitting around recently grousing about Christmas obligations, not the least of which is to deck the halls. We all tried to remember what we'd loved most about the holidays when we were kids (besides the gifts). Right up there after stockings and cookies came those white stencils of Santa, reindeer and pointy trees we used to spray onto the living-room windows. Remember those?

We were all feeling nostalgic about frosty cartoonlike cutouts when we ambled across the street to Lavender Heart, a botanical shop in the Madison Valley. Here, proprietress Holly Henderson has captured the essence of bringing the outdoors in, with dried and faux materials both natural and extravagant.

We were all enchanted by her display of white on white — who knew a monochromatic scheme could be so elegant and sumptuous? Rows of white candles, glittery bottlebrush stars, birch-bark trees and fluffy white feather wreaths light as snow were set off with silver candlesticks and mercury glass. It was like a festival of light, right there on the shelves. We left reassured that even after years of making Christmas for others, we could still be stirred by the possibilities.

White works its magic by giving back more light than it receives, like if you throw a ball to someone and they throw you back several more. White actually bends invisible ultraviolet and infrared light into our visible spectrum, brightening any scene. No wonder we crave light now at the darkest time of the year. Next week, on the winter solstice, the sun will rise at 7:55 a.m. and set at 4:20 p.m. That's less than 8 ½ hours of daylight out of 24.

So bring on the white. Christmas roses (Helleborus niger) are just coming into bloom with large, snowy blossoms centered with a spray of yellow anthers. Plant these earliest-blooming hellebores around the base of evergreen shrubs, pair them in pots with dwarf conifers or, for a double hit of winter pale, try planting them through a grove of white-barked birches.

Evergreens variegated in white show up in the winter landscape, like hedgehog holly (Ilex aquifolium 'Ferox Argentea') with green and white leaves so twisted as to look ruffly. Consider the ghost bramble (Rubus cockburnianus), which doesn't look like much in summer, but after the leaves fall the canes of these leggy brambles glow white in the winter gloom. Since these are brambles, it might be an effect best appreciated growing somewhere besides your own garden — there's a fabulous thicket of them in the Witt Winter Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum.

Decking the halls with fresh flowers and live foliage is a fine excuse for not leaving decorations up a tediously long time. Perhaps the showiest of all pale winter flowers are pristine amaryllis like 'Winter Nymph' and 'Calgary.' If you didn't think to pot up an amaryllis bulb eight weeks ago, you can find them in many nurseries that offer them already sprouted and budded. The same is true for delicate paperwhite narcissus, with perfume strong enough to scent a room. You can even stick a pot of paperwhites out on the front porch to greet guests; just remember to bring them indoors if it's going to freeze overnight.

Who needs snow angels when you can have vases overflowing with ethereal Casablanca lilies? Add iceberg roses, and pots heaped with magnolia leaves, holly and pine boughs that smell like the outdoors when we most need to be reminded of it. Garnish with stout white pillar candles and maybe a creamy poinsettia or two and you have yourself a decorating scheme.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Steve Ringman is a Seattle Times staff photographer.

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