Home > Outdoor Living & Landscape > Article Archives: Liven Up Your Landscape 
1. Plant berried shrubs. 
2. Light a cloche. 
3. Fill a birdbath.
4. Hang up color. For the outdoor-minded, early spring is a time of waiting. But why not paint your monochromatic landscape with light, colorful fabric and ornaments right now? Early spring is also the best time to review your landscape for spots to add berrybearing shrubs to liven up your landscape.
SPRING
1. PLANT BERRIED SHRUBS You can’t improve on Mother Nature, so plant lots of berried trees and shrubs to provide natural color during the early months of spring. The bright-red berries, right, grow on a shrub called a Highbush Cranberry, also known as viburnum. Crab apples, serviceberries and elderberries provide colorful fruit that also feeds migrating spring birds.
2. LIGHT A CLOCHE A cloche, also called a garden glass or a cold frame, is an object used in gardens to protect tender young sprouts from frost. You can create another use for these lovely glass bell jars by filling them with light for your patio or porch. Try an upright cloche set into a wire base with a lighted candle inside or a pair of cloches lit from within with a loose stand of twinkle lights.
3. FILL A BIRDBATH Once the birds have flown south for the winter, you can borrow their birdbath for a colorful yard ornament. Fill the base with greens and a grapevine ball lit with twinkle lights. These twinkle balls also look great suspended from the open branches of trees.
4. HANG UP COLOR Give spring color a leg up by adding your own baubles and sweeps of color to your outdoor living spaces. Suspend globed ornaments from tree branches or from pergolas or arbors. Like pendulous fruit, these ornaments add color in a dormant landscape. You also can add color to a pergola arbor or other outdoor structure by unrolling a striped or floral awning canvas. Add grommets to the edges of rectangular or triangular-shaped cloth and attach wherever you crave a little color.
Spring is just around the corner, but there are a number of gardening activities you can do right now.
Do a Mulch Check Make sure your mulch is evenly spread and 2 to 3 inches thick. Reapply in places where wind, water erosion or animals have disturbed it.
Survey for Salt Damage If you use salt to melt snow and ice on your sidewalks, make sure that the melted water isn’t flowing into your garden beds. The added salt to the soil is damaging for trees, shrubs, bulbs and perennials planted there.
Watch for Sun Scald Check the wrap on tree trunks to make sure it is snug and firmly in place. Sunscald, an early and blistering warming of a tree trunk in cold weather, can damage your trees.
Assess Animal Damage If you’ve noticed deer or rabbits hanging about your yard, there’s a good chance that they are there for a meal. Check your trees and shrubs for animal damage, and spray with animal repellent, if needed.
Watch for Spring Bulbs If you planted early-blooming spring bulbs such as anemones and crocuses, they may be showing their cheery faces soon. The earliest blooming bulbs, snowdrops (also called galanthus), are known to flower in February. They can sprout and bloom even through a snow cover.
