Back in the early ages of gardening, someone realized covering a plant could protect it from frost and wind chill, preserving blooms and protecting foliage from the ravages of ice crystals and dropping temperatures.

Celebrate the season with your feathered friends by decorating a tree in your yard, or even one in a container, with special treats they’ll love.

Winter provides us the opportunity to examine our landscape silhouette, the flowing lines and overall shape of our landscape design. Combining varying heights, shapes and forms not only increases winter interest, but it also provides the framework for summer leaves, flowers and colors. So, how’s your garden’s silhouette shaping up?

A poinsettia plant is the quintessential holiday decoration and hostess gift for holiday parties or visits. They’re great as a centerpiece, decorating a step or filling in any empty space with bold holiday color and cheer.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.