You’ve decorated your home for the holiday with live greens and a gorgeous tree, but their usefulness doesn’t need to end with the holidays. The Growing Place offers these simple and practical ideas for re-purposing your evergreen trees, holiday wreaths, and boughs.

Trees for the Birds
After the holidays, place your cut tree in the garden as a shelter for birds. Choose a back corner or out of the way place and birds will welcome the additional shelter from winter weather and predators. Or, stake it upright, add a bird feeder in or under the tree and a heated birdbath nearby and you’ve created a backyard bird sanctuary. Come spring the tree can be cut up and added to the compost pile.

Protecting Plants

• Place branches over shallow-rooted plants such as mums, coral bells, strawberries and spring bulbs to insulate their roots through freezing and thawing.

• Christmas wreaths, stripped of their decorations, are just the perfect size to place around sensitive perennials for added insulation.

• Acid-loving and shallow-rooted plants such as rhododendron and holly appreciate a layer of evergreens as the needles add a slight acid boost. When removing boughs in the spring, give them a shake to let the needles fall and mix in with your mulch.

• Mulch ‘Endless Summer’ and other varieties of Hydrangea macrophylla with evergreen boughs. They will add another layer of protection for next year’s sensitive buds.

• Now that we’ve had a couple of hard freezes to set dormancy, tender roses such as hybrid tea, grandiflora, and floribunda benefit from a layer of compost, then leaves or straw and a final layer of evergreen boughs.

Outdoor Decorating
Re-purpose your evergreen boughs to easily create a natural winter look you’ll enjoy until spring. Instead of leaving large expanses of mulched beds where last year’s annuals were planted, spruce up your beds, especially around your entranceways, with a layer of evergreen boughs. Mix and match different kinds for a richer look and perhaps add some red or yellow twig dogwood stems or a birch log for a little bit of color.

The holidays may be over, but your live greens and trees can keep on giving.