Winter can still be a busy time in the garden

If you choose to compost in your garden, be sure to use a free-standing plastic composter. Continue putting organic material from the kitchen in the composter during the winter. Because the container keeps the material secured, dogs and other animals cannot get into it.

Compost is the end product of composting - a process where organic matter is collected, mixed and allowed to decompose. Compost can be used to amend soil, or as a mulch layer on garden beds and around trees.

In nature, deciduous leaves create a mulch layer that eventually decomposes. Like human-made compost, this natural recycling process returns nutrients to the soil and improves soil structure, and it is one reason why native plants growing in natural ecosystems usually do not need more fertilizer than nature provides.

Composting also reduces the amount of garden debris that ends up in landfills and improves your garden's soil.

• Continue cutting buckthorn out of native and garden areas during the winter. It is best to time your work so that the ground is frozen in order to minimize damage to other plants during the removal process. There will be less impact on herbaceous native plants when this work is done on frozen ground. Be sure to treat stumps with an herbicide such as glyphosate or triclopyr herbicide to kill the root system.

Glyphosate needs to be used at a high-enough concentration to work as a stump treatment. Some recommend a 50 percent concentration - the Chicago Botanic Garden staff has had success with a lower concentration, around 30 percent.

One of the drawbacks with glyphosate is that it is water based and will freeze at low temperatures and is only effective on the cut surface. Triclopyr is the preferred method because it is oil based, effective through the bark and on the cut surface and will not freeze.

• Branches with interesting foliage, as well as flowering branches, can be forced.

Prune branches that are not essential to the plant's basic shape or save branches from your routine winter pruning. The branches should be at least a foot long, full of fat flower buds and cut on a day above freezing. Cut the ends at an angle and put into water in a cool room out of direct sunlight.

When the buds color up or the foliage begins to unfurl, arrange the branches in a vase and display them in a cool room in bright, but not direct, sunlight.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.