Winter is the perfect time to think about attracting bird visitors to your yard. Bird watching is a great hobby that can be enjoyed by both younger and older members of the family and getting started is both easy and inexpensive.

Blooming baskets and pots of brightly colored forced bulbs make a fabulous holiday or winter gift for others and ourselves. What better way to dress up the holiday home or cheer up a long, cold winter, reminding us of impending spring?

Houseplants transform a house into a home, purify the air, promote relaxation and improve concentration. The ficus group includes four popular small trees grown as houseplants, each looking very different from one another, and each incorporating these and other great benefits.

Have you noticed the odd-looking plants with neon bright flowers blooming since Halloween? You may know them as Thanksgiving cactus, Christmas cactus or Crab Cactus. Whatever you call them, they’re certainly bright and cheerful, and bring a bold bloom of color indoors during the winter months.

Hold onto your gardening hats, folks! Remember terrariums? A new trend revitalizing this old style is now better than ever. Creating a theme for your terrarium is easier too, with the all the miniatures now available. Remember those skinny-necked bottles and what a hassle they were? New container styles make terrariums easier to plant, simple to maintain and more beautiful in your home.

Is your space a little too tight for a full-sized Christmas tree? Do you dread the thought of lugging a seasonal evergreen up those narrow apartment or condo steps? Does the thought of vacuuming up all those pointy brown needles and disposing of the debris when the holiday is over provoke panic attack? Do you prefer a living decoration instead of chopping down a tree for a temporary ornament, but you don’t have anywhere to plant a larger pine? Fear not, a Norfolk Island pine may be the solution.

All containerized plants that are considered hardy in your zone can spend the winter outdoors, but you do need to take a little special care to keep them safe and comfortable as temperatures drop. Despite their hardiness, winter is still a challenging season, but it is possible to keep your container plants healthy until the days grow longer and warmer again.

A compost pile should be part of every gardener’s yard, since it adds so many benefits for recycling and providing organic material in the garden.

Ideal for fall gardens, pansies offer a colorful display for almost six months – in the fall when they are planted, in the winter during a stretch of sunny days and again in spring! Winter pansies may be planted anytime starting in mid-September and continuing through October.

We’re certain you’ve heard it numerous times: fall is the best time to buy your Japanese maple. Have you come into the garden center to pick one? Did the varieties overwhelm you? Let us make it easier for you by explaining Japanese maple differences.