Gardening
Dress Up Your Landscape with Winter-Inspired Container Gardens
Winter container gardens brighten up the landscape all season long.
Photo credit: MelindaMyers.com
Clear out your fall containers and make room for some winter greenery. These planters are sure to brighten those dreary winter days and add life to your landscape.
Transform weatherproof summer and fall containers for winter. Fiberglass, plastic, cement and wood will hold up to the cold, ice and snow. Don’t subject terra cotta and glazed pots to the harsh elements that can cause them to crack. Remove faded fall flowers and add a bit of potting mix to fill the container within two inches of the top. Or select a new weatherproof container and fill it with potting mix.
Consider your overall landscape design and other outdoor winter decorations when creating or purchasing a holiday planter. Place a couple of winter planters on your front steps or dress up your patio, deck or balcony and enjoy the view from the comfort of your home. Don’t overlook those hanging baskets. Fill them with winter greenery to elevate your winter containers to a fun new level.
Fresh-cut needled evergreens like spruce, white pine, fir and broadleaf evergreen boxwood and holly combine nicely to form the backbone of your container design. Make it easy by using spruce tips to create vertical interest in a container. You only need to set a few in the center of the pot to look like a pro. Surround these with graceful white pine boughs to anchor the arrangement to the container.
Add sprigs of other evergreens for additional texture and shades of green. Next, it’s time to put your creativity to work. For those that prefer a natural look, consider white birch branches and stems of red twig dogwood, corkscrew willow or contorted hazelnut. Add a bit more color with berry laden winter holly branches and dried seed rudbeckias, allium, and coneflower seed heads or hydrangea flowers. Finish off your arrangement with a few evergreen cones and a bow.
Or add a bit of glitz with painted and glittered cones, twigs, ornaments, or other holiday adornments. You can purchase these or create your own with a bit of paint and glitter. Just make sure your materials will hold up to the winter weather.
Once your arrangement is complete, water thoroughly. The moist soil helps keep greenery fresh and in place. Once the soil is frozen you can stop watering. The cold weather will help keep your greens looking good throughout the holidays and beyond.
Extend the life of your greenery with an organic biodegradable antitranspirant. These materials help seal in the moisture, delaying the browning of cut greens. Always read and follow label directions carefully. Most need to be applied to evergreen boughs outdoors and allowed to dry before bringing it indoors or beginning your arrangement.
For additional ideas and a bit of inspiration, watch my Create Beautiful Outdoor Evergreen Containers video (YouTube, autoplays). You will find more ways to enhance your landscape with winter containers.
Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books, including Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” DVD series and the Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio segments. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
What Makes Estate Personal Property Valuable?
There are many components of estate assets, with home and land typically being the most valuable. Stocks, bonds, or bank accounts may be worth more in certain situations. Personal property is typically the least valuable, but there are times when there are some very desirable items in the estate.
Being an antique estate auctioneer, I focus on antiques, collectibles and other estate personal property and will explain in this column what we look for in determining whether estate contents are potentially valuable.
One factor is how long the family has been in the country. We’ve handled at least one estate where the family came over on the Mayflower. There were books and documents dating back to the 18th century. In an estate where items have been passed down through generations, you can usually expect to find some valuable objects.
The family's wealth is another important factor. Some families have the financial means to buy Rolex instead of Timex watches and to buy large sterling silver flatware sets instead of silverplate or stainless steel. Even though formal dining isn’t as popular today, sterling silver flatware can be worth thousands.
One of the rules that most collectors follow is to collect what you like. Collectors typically don’t look at their collections as an investment. However, when the collection is auctioned and converted to cash, having collected popular items will benefit the collector or their heirs. Some common collectibles like coins, 1960s and earlier baseball and other trading cards, and comic books can be worth a considerable amount. We recently sold a collection of mainly gold and silver coins that brought nearly $40,000 and sold a baseball card collection a few years ago that sold for over $20,000.
The time period that the person collected their items also impacts the value of personal property. Over 20 years ago, we were contacted by a woman who had a large collection of Barbie dolls and other toys. She was at the age where she could’ve begun collecting when some of the first Barbies were manufactured and we had high hopes for selling her items after our conversation with her. Unfortunately for her and us, she collected all of her toys later in her adult life and they had little value. When you’ve collected something in your youth, you don’t have to worry about fakes and reproductions in your collection that have become more prevalent now.
Many people are uncomfortable when we first meet if the estate they are handling is packed with items. I assure them that there are never too many items as far as an auctioneer is concerned. Even if there aren’t a lot of valuable objects, sometimes the sheer volume of items can make an auction or estate sale profitable. Around 15 years ago, we auctioned a collection of items from the 1920s through 1960s that a collector had acquired over many years. There was enough material to fill a box truck. Although there weren’t any big-ticket items, 1950s hair dryers, 1940s household items and even circa 1930s rolls of toilet paper combined to bring in tens of thousands for the consignor.
We have a small online auction taking place with items from a Worcester estate. Included is a commercial tractor, dump truck, motorcycles, other vehicles, a large Coke sign and Ford Mustang pedal car. The first session of the large toy collection from a West Boylston estate will soon be ready for online bidding. Session I will contain diecast toys. Antique and vintage toys will be in later sessions. You will also be able to bid online for equestrian and other paintings from artist Fay Moore’s estate after the holidays.
Contact us at: Wayne Tuiskula Auctioneer/Appraiser Central Mass Auctions for Antique Auctions, Estate Sales and Appraisal Services www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com