Decorating for the Holidays
With the most wonderful time of the year upon us, it is time to break out the holiday decorations to create a winter wonderland. Decorating your outdoor living space and garden is a great way to get into the holiday spirit.
Enhance the appearance of your garden or house with LED lights. There are endless options for LED lights with the options for colors, shape, style as well as setting them to flash and blink on a timer. Use them on the exterior of your house as well as in plants and trees. Because LED lights give off little heat, you can string them through greenery and planters with no worries.
Ornaments are also great to decorate outdoor trees with.
Decorating on a budget? Old, broken lights and decorations can be reused if you do them right. Using old ornaments or broken ornaments are great on outdoor trees as they are seen at a farther distance and create a nice effect as headlights flash them. Take broken ornament pieces and add them to fairy gardens or potted plants for flashes of holiday colors. Broken lights on a string of lights can be strategically placed to hide the missing lights.
To add some plants to your indoor decorations, consider poinsettias as the go-to plant. There are more than 100 varieties of poinsettias including the traditional red and white. Be sure to keep the plant in a pot that drains into a saucer, as overwatering is dangerous to the plant. Placing the plant away from drafty areas such as doors and windows will help the plant last longer at the end of the holiday season.
Use garland and wreaths to decorate larger décor items such as fountains and statues. Avoid decorating bird feeders, birdhouses and birdbaths, as these decorations could be hazardous.
Poinsettias are not poisonous to humans, as some may think, as a 50-lb child would have to eat more than 500 leaves for it to have a harmful effect. However, if your pets eat the leaves, it will leave them with diarrhea and nausea. Poinsettias do however ooze a white sap that can cause a latex allergy reaction.
Decorating for the season is one of the best parts of the holidays. Adding plants indoors and decorating the outside as well as inside brings a sense of welcome and warmth to your home during the holidays.