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Welcome to GrowCook Eat Arrange with me, Sarah Raven and my mate Arthur Parkinson.

Arthur is very brave in my view in that he is a great forager of material throughout the year

but particularly when we're heading towards Christmas.

And I used to be when I was younger, I used to sort of rather naughtily go and pick things on

motorway sidings and in the lanes, but I don't do that anymore.

And neither does Arthur, of course, he only ever does it if he gets permission, but he is a great forager.

And we thought it would be nice to just talk about what to forage and to think about bringing

in now to make a beautiful Christmas wreath. And I reckon, as soon as December starts, it's fine,

not just to have a Christmas tree, but also to have a lovely, lovely, twinkly, wild and wacky

garden wreath on your door. So that's what we're going to do today.

So Arthur, what are your favourite plants for for foraging? I think if it really is foraging, if you haven't been able to collect seed heads and things earlier in the year,

which you really need to be storing them before they really get ragged by the first weeks of winter,

I do think going back to evergreens is the way to go, and there are some nice ones.

And to be honest, some evergreens that

I'd never think of planting can be transformed when you pick them for this kind of thing so

Portuguese laurel I actually really like it's a very good cut it doesn't go limp like Ivy does

and I know ivy's really to get and people are they normally very happy for you to pick it

wherever it's growing the issue with it is it is one that goes limp quite quickly if it's not in water,

whereas things that have got a more waxy leaf, so Portuguese laurel, which has got a lovely

shimmer actually to its leaf. So it's quite similar to bay in that respect in that if it's got

a waxy leaf, it's going to be able to hold the water better, and they dry quite nicely. So on the Christmas roof, for example, once you've stuffed

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