Tips by the Month

Tips for December

1. Garden mouse says "Happy Holidays!"

   If you haven't mulched your perennials already, now would be a good time, before it gets much colder. Shredded or unshredded leaves, straw, and evergreen boughs make good mulches.
   
2. Decorate your house and get the lights up.
   
3. Shop for gardening books for all your friends for Christmas. Buy yourself a couple while you're at it.
   
4. Buy a cyclamen, african violet, Christmas cactus, or other indoor flowering plant to cheer up your windowsill. Cyclamen in reds, pinks, and whites look especially Christmasy.
   
5. Make gardening presents—herbal tea bags, potpourri, dried flower arrangements, even custom seed packets. Give 'em to your friends.
   
6. Handmake Christmas decorations out of pine cones, holly, candles, and such. Spray with gold paint, and use a lot of glitter. Your kids will love you.
   
7. Take a walk on a cold snowy day and be amazed that in just a couple months, the first bulbs will be coming up.
   
8. Feed the birds.
   
9. Put a penny in the poor man's cap.
   
10. Enjoy the holidays!

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