sustainable landscapes

O-H, tannenbaum! CFAES expert shows you how to plant your own live Christmas tree

Here’s a pro tip: If you’re planning to decorate and later plant a live balled-and-burlapped Christmas tree, dig the hole ahead of time before the ground freezes hard. That means, in Ohio, you can do that as soon as right now.

Another option: Make a pile of leaves or straw in the spot where you want to plant your tree. Doing that can keep the ground from freezing—and the hole from filling with water—before you plant.

Want more pro tips? Watch this video by Paul Snyder of CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum. It’s an easy-to-follow 10-minute how-to on what to do.

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Celebrate winter’s ‘subtle beauty’

Staff members from Secrest Arboretum and Ohio State ATI’s Horticultural Technologies Division, both part of the CFAES Wooster campus, have teamed up to build and host a display garden at the Great Big Home + Garden Show in Cleveland, which continues through Sunday, Feb. 9. Attendance at the show is expected to top 100,000 people.

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He gives (real) buckeyes to Buckeyes

Doug Malone, pictured above, is an Ohio State “Redcoat”—a part-time worker-ambassador at university athletic events—who gives gleaming, rich-brown, actual Ohio buckeye nuts to Ohio State football players right before home games. It’s a tradition he’s carrying on from his late father. The Ohio State News video above tells his story.

The Ohio buckeye, Aesculus glabra, is Ohio State’s symbol, Ohio’s state tree, and can be grown as part of a sustainable landscape. But it takes a couple of considerations about how you tend it and where you plant it—worth it if you’re a fan of native plants, the Buckeyes, or both. Read tips from CFAES experts on how to grow your own Ohio buckeye tree.

See signs of spring in Secrest Arboretum

CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum in Wooster hosts a Guided Spring Walk at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 24. “Take a stroll through the arboretum and listen as our experts point out the signs of spring,” the event description says. “Keep an eye out for early bloomers.” Find further details.

A good sign: Wednesday’s forecast by the National Weather Service calls for sun and a high of 63 degrees. (Photo: Saucer magnolia, Getty Images.)

We want … sustainable shrubbery

CFAES’ Secrest Arboretum in Wooster will give a Shrubs for the Landscape workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Feb. 22. The event, its website says, will cover “the many kinds of shrubs and how to combine them for beautiful, sustainable landscapes.”

Registration is $40 for members of the Friends of Secrest Arboretum and $45 for nonmembers.

Find out more. (Photo: Rhododendron, Getty Images.)