By the Extension Master Gardener Volunteers

• Use wood ashes on your vegetable garden, bulb beds, and lightly on your lawns if soil pH is below 6.0. The maximum amount to incorporate per year is 20 gallons/1000 ft².
• Fertilize only actively-growing house plants as needed. Houseplants
• If the weather is mild, fertilize pansies, snapdragons, and other winter-blooming outdoor flowers.

• After Christmas, plant live Christmas trees in the landscape. Keep live trees indoors for no more than 14 days.
• Plant bare-root trees. Planting trees and shrubs

• Prune ornamental shrubs and berry-producing plants to make holiday arrangements and decorations. Don’t prune edible berry plants at this time. Pruning woody ornamentals
• Remove "weed" or undesirable trees from your landscape.

• Take leaf cuttings of your favorite house plants including African violets and begonia.
• Divide Boston fern and re-pot.
• Hardwood cuttings of your landscape plants including forsythia, flowering quince, weigela, holly, and hydrangea can be taken this month. Propagation from cuttings

• Keep tree leaves from collecting on your lawn; use a leaf blower on newly seeded lawns. Mulch the leaves and put them on or incorporate them into the garden.

• Put pine needles, wheat straw or floating row covers over your strawberry plants.
• Put a floating row cover or straw around edibles still in the garden.
• Continue to harvest leeks and kale.
• Cut back asparagus fronds.
• Apply broadleaf herbicide to control annual winter weeds if needed.
• Keep your living Christmas tree outside until you are ready to decorate. White pine is a type of living tree that will do well in much of North Carolina.
• Greenery will last longer if sprayed with an antitranspirant.
• Keep your cut Christmas tree in water throughout the holiday season.
• Remove the branches from your cut Christmas tree and lay them atop perennial beds for extra protection from the weather.
• Make a list of needed repairs on garden tools and equipment. Repair or have them repaired after the holidays.
• Shop around for garden products as gifts for your favorite gardener.
• Order fruit trees and grapevines for February and March planting.

Blooming house plants in December: Amaryllis, Cyclamen, Poinsettia