Sowing vegetable seeds during winter can be an enjoyable family activity. There is also a fantastic range of trees, shrubs, and other plants which thrive in cold temperatures such as holly (which bears fruit that attracts birds), birch trees with colorful bark, and dogwood trees with vibrant leaves – great choices!
Tending indoor houseplants can be an enjoyable garden activity during winter. Don’t forget about feeding wildlife!
1.Decorate Pots
Many flowering plants wilt during winter, but your green thumb doesn’t have to go dormant! Stock your planters with cold-tolerant flowers, shrubs, and trees that will keep your garden looking vibrant year-round. Another fun and easy way to fill winter containers is mixing frost-resistant vegetables like Tuscan kale with frost-tolerant blooms such as pansies and parsley (Panaea sativa) alongside deep green Tuscan kale and sweet alyssum (Lobularia majuscule).
Garden care doesn’t end when the growing season concludes – in milder climates, indoor planting can continue until frost arrives and provide one of the most enjoyable winter gardening activities that’ll pay dividends come springtime! Tending houseplants is also one of the most satisfying winter activities – your reward for all this care will be healthy, vibrant plants!
Winter foliage plants like Hedera helix ‘Silverdust’ English Ivy (Hedera helix ‘Silverdust’; zones 5 to 9) add beautiful silver-streaked leaves to window boxes and other displays, adding elegance to their silver-streaked leaves. Other cold-hardy specimens with stunning leaf colors include Glaucous Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) and Variegated Winter Daphnes such as Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’; zones 5 to 7) cold hardy specimens with their colorful leaf colors.
Winter container arrangements can add a splash of color by using deciduous evergreen trees and shrubs with berry-lined branches that feature the same hue as their foliage plants, like red holly or dark-blue holly berry ‘Blue Boy’ as examples of such flowers.
Burke Brothers Landscape Design/Build created a festive display by adding three narrow white birch (Betula pendula) branches that resemble candles as simple yet fun garden decoration that also helps birds survive winter weather. This simple and fun garden decoration also serves to protect birds.
2.Go for a Walk
Garden images usually evoke images of lush green flora with vibrant blooming flowers, yet gardening activities continue year-round, even in winter gardening. Although this might seem counterintuitive, visiting gardens during colder months can be just as rewarding; you get closer views of intricate structures of shrubs and trees while hard-to-read interpretive signs become easier to read without all those colorful leaves blocking your view.
Visitors to Ithaca, New York’s Whitey Mullestein Winter Garden will find themselves charmed by its picturesque winter beauty. Designed to feature appealing bark textures and colors of various plants as well as their stems, winter fruit, ornamental branches, and clipped evergreens – not forgetting a totem pole and gazebo as well as a small rhododendron and azalea garden on an island in Lake Ithaca – visitors are in for an enjoyable stroll through it!
Heading out into nature might just do the trick! Explore your local park or botanical garden, taking time for a stroll on its grounds can give you views of farmed fields, woodlands, and suburban houses that might otherwise go unseen during active growing seasons. And maybe you’ll even witness more wildlife than during summer.
Winter Garden lies west of Orlando and Central Florida’s theme parks, boasting old Florida charm with an attractive downtown, an array of restaurants and shops as well as the West Orange Trail – part of Florida’s Coast to Coast Trail system – which can be safely enjoyed for walking, jogging or bicycling. Once an old railroad line, this safe path has since been converted to accommodate walking, jogging, and cycling enthusiasts.
3.Have a Spot of Winter Foraging
Winter may appear to be an inactive season for your garden, but that doesn’t have to be the case! There are numerous tasks you can undertake without planting; many of these activities are also perfect for children!
Honey locust and redbud trees store their seeds throughout winter. Wild plants such as sassafras and field garlic hold onto their roots until the ground thaws, making them easier to spot in early spring.
Cattail, burdock, dandelion, and Jerusalem artichoke can also be found year-round foraged as wild edibles or earth medicines; it is important to know your limits when foraging during winter as even a brief thaw may make things accessible; otherwise, you’ll need to wait for conditions to improve before continuing.
Winter is also the time for sowing seeds – like lettuce and early peas in cell trays or containers and sweet peas in containers – or sowing garlic ahead of spring planting season.
And if you really want to bring wildlife into the garden, why not add some special touches such as building them a birdhouse or creating logs or leaf piles as hiding places for them? Plus, it would never hurt to continue providing winter feedings!
4.Have a Spot of Stargazing
Stargazing may seem like a summer activity, but winter stargazing can be equally fulfilling. Cooler temperatures make the stars and planets easier to see clearly while long nights provide ample opportunity for exploration. To assist with finding celestial targets quickly and easily use an online star map or download an app onto your phone for use while on the move.
Winter may seem an unusual time to visit a garden, but its barren branches and stark outlines offer you a closer look at shrubs and trees’ intricate structures. Additionally, the low winter sun creates magical effects, silhouetting leafless trees while backlighting tall plants and grasses – not forgetting bark colors that add depth of hue. Winter gardens can be enhanced further with ornamentation such as Cornu’s seedheads and willow seedheads or delicate flowerheads of miscanthus or Pennisetum flowerheads!
Many people suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, more commonly referred to as winter blahs, but studies have demonstrated that exposure to greenery and florals help alleviate these feelings. To create a winter garden throughout the winter months, plant fast-growing shrubs or trees in autumn or early winter while the soil remains warm before its first frost has occurred.
5.Create a Worm Bin
Worm bins are an easy, fun, and educational way for kids to gain insight into the composting process and how worms help create soil. Worm castings make ideal potting soil mixes for houseplants as well as top dressing for garden beds.
A worm bin can be comprised of multiple shallow bins stacked one on top of another or one large bin fitted with a screen at its base. With multiple bins, the idea is for the worms to move up through them as they finish digesting their food; when one becomes full it can be taken out and its contents moved to an empty one; its former bin can then be filled up with fresh bedding material or kitchen scraps for recycling.
To build your own worm bin, choose a sturdy plastic or wooden container with ventilation holes on its sides and top. Cover its bottom with wire mesh sheeting; raise it off of the ground by stacking bricks or blocks so “worm tea”, liquid fertilizer that drains from underneath can drain freely from its depths.
Prepare the bedding by shredding newspaper into 1-inch strips, moistening it with dechlorinated water (preferably), and keeping it damp. This will prevent odors, fruit flies, and other pests from accessing your worms’ habitats. Coir or leaf litter may also be used; just ensure it’s well-moistened so as to avoid clumping; add some dirt for additional grit!