Fresh holiday greens such as wreaths and garlands have a definite life span, but with the following tips you can keep them looking good so you can enjoy their wonderful scent and beauty throughout the holiday season.

If you aren't hanging or mounting your greens right away, lay them outside on the ground (best side up) in a cool shady location until you are ready to use them. Try to avoid getting the greenery wet.

Sunlight, heat and wind are the worst enemies for holiday greenery, so keep that in mind when hanging them up. Outdoors, wreaths will last much longer on doors with northern or eastern exposures. Southern or western exposures can cause greenery to dry and discolor much more quickly.

If hanging or mounting greenery indoors, be sure to keep it away from heating vents, and try to maintain room temperatures of 70 degrees or less. Also shutter direct sunlight window exposures to prevent excess discoloration.

Anti-transpirants help to slow down moisture loss, helping to maintain the color and reduce a potential fire hazard. Be sure to apply anti-transpirant outdoors at least one hour before decorating the greenery, so it can dry before you add all those personal touches to it!

Happy Holidays!

• Choose and plant sasanqua camellias and early long-blooming azaleas.
• Purchase poinsettias early in the month.
• Continue to plant winter vegetables.
• Cut off flower spikes that have bloomed from dwarf foxgloves and delphiniums.
• Don't prune tropicals.
• Prune grapes, low-chill raspberries, and native plants.
• Prune wisteria by cutting off unwanted long twiners. Prune roots of vines that fail to bloom.
• Mow cool-season lawns, including Bermuda that's overseeded with winter ryegrass.
• Do not mow warm-season lawns, except St. Augustine (if it continues to grow).
• Continue fertilizing cymbidiums until flowers open.
• Feed cool-season flowers with a complete fertilizer for growth and bloom.
• Feed shade plants for bloom; give adequate light.
• Feed cool-season lawns, but don't feed warm-season lawns (except for Bermuda that's overseeded with winter ryegrass).
• Don't water succulents growing in the ground.
• Keep cymbidiums damp but not soggy.
• Remember to keep all bulbs, especially potted ones, well watered.
• Water dichondra if rains aren't adequate.
• Turn off the irrigation systems of all other types of warm-season lawns once they have gone brown.
• Spray peach and apricot trees for peach leaf curl if you didn't do so in November.
• Protect cymbidiums' bloom spikes from snails.
• Control rust on cool-season lawns by fertilizing and mowing them.
• Control aphids with insecticidal soap and beneficial insects.
• Prepare beds for planting bare-root roses next month.
• Harvest winter vegetables as soon as they mature.

One needn't be a professional gardener to appreciate a houseful of greenery. In fact, most of us are stumbling along, learning a bit more each day about the plants with which we share our lives. And in return for the pleasure of form and color they add to our living environments, not to mention the fresh oxygen they release into the air, we often are too eager to reciprocate by over-tending them.

Root rot in houseplants is most commonly caused by over-watering. When a plant wilts, our first instinct is to water it, but if it does not respond to watering, and the lower leaves begin to yellow and drop, these are sure signs of root rot. The roots need both water and oxygen, and if they are given too much water, the oxygen cannot reach the root.

When first choosing your new plant, pick one with a healthy green color and which shows signs of new growth. Check the bottom of the pot to ensure that the plant is not root bound, and avoid plants with white or brown lumps on the leaves or stems.

There is no one way to water all plants. Succulents have fleshy leaves and stems that enable them to store water, while plants with large or very thin leaves usually require more frequent watering.

If you're planting in clay pots, remember that they are more porous, thus water evaporates rapidly from the sides. Plants placed in glazed or plastic pots will require less water. Plants in warm, dry, sunny locations need more frequent watering than those in cool, low-light environments.

A large plant in a small pot needs more water than a small plant in a large pot. And after rewarding you with a flush of flowering, plants may slow in growth and become dormant, hence needing less water.

Here's an easy way to tell if your houseplants are thirsty; insert your finger into the soil up to the first joint--if it is dry, time to water. Rap your knuckles against the side of the pot; if the sound is dull, the soil is moist; if the sound is hollow, time to water.

Look closely at the soil of your plant; if it is lightening in color, time to water. And lift up the pot; as the potting mixture dries, the plant lightens in weight.

Of course, choosing easy-to-care plants is the most efficacious manner of filling your home with the outdoors. We have a variety of easy-to-care-for plants that are wildly different visually, but which all provide the sense of nature that we strive for when filling our homes with plants.

We all look forward to the many traditions of the Christmas season, in particular the arrival of the tree! We bundle up the family, drive out to the country to the tree farm that we visit each year, where every member of the family has a different opinion as to which tree to cut down, and bone-rattling cold usually drives us to go back to the tree lot by our house, which is where we should have gone in the first place to purchase our tree!

Then we look at each and every tree, carefully shaking them (as we've been instructed) to ensure that no needles fall off, and once our choice is made, home we head, dragging our wet tree behind us, or freezing as we've secured the unwieldy growth to the top of our car and the windows are open for the ropes. Before the act of trying to get it to remain upright in the stand, we carefully cut the base, and religiously replenish the water in it daily.

After what seems an incredibly short time, the season is over, our tree is dropping its needles all over the carpeting daily, and now it has become a fire hazard, due to the warmth of the home. So we drag it out to the curb or wrap it in an old sheet and take it to the nearest dump.

Say goodbye to the limit of Nature's designs.

Remove the hassle from this part of your holiday decorating; why not try an artificial tree? They have come a long way from the aluminum whimsies of our youth, with their rotating color wheels. Whether you live in an 8,000 square-foot mansion, or a 900 square-foot apartment, there's a perfectly sized artificial Christmas tree awaiting you. Gone are the hassles that twelve months made us forget. Also gone, for those with allergy and asthma sensitivities, are the sneezing and watery eyes.

Today's artificial trees are so realistic it's unlikely that your guests will even know the difference! And they come in such a vast array of choices; traditionalists can experience the extraordinary beauty of a decorated Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Noble fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Balsam fir, or white pine. These contemporary LED trees can come pre-lit, the tree stand housing the electric wires. They are not only fire-retardant, but because the LEDs produce more light per watt than traditional bulbs and can last up to 30 times as long, they are a welcome energy-saving choice. This writer's office is home to a 36" high fiber optic tree that employs the concept of the color wheels of the 1950s--softly shimmering multi-colored lights that please and inspire.

Which is not to say that you can't enjoy both! Place your new artificial tree by the fireplace, where it won't present a fire hazard, and coordinate the tree's decorations with those on your mantel! And add a cut tree to the family room, or place a table top cut or artificial tree in the dining room where all can enjoy the salubrious spirit of the season without being locked into remaining in one room. While the initial price may give you momentary pause, remember that today's artificial trees have a lifespan of a decade; compare that to the cost of purchasing a cut tree year after year.

With artificial trees that come pre-lit or ready for your own personal touch, slim and corner trees for homes with limited space, and flocked, gold, and even tuxedo black trees available, your only hassle remaining will be in deciding which ones to buy!

We wish you the happiest, and safest, of holidays!