Bring life to your winter garden with greens and berries

I like having containers with greens in them over the winter to add interest to my garden. It’s best not to use terra cotta containers as they can absorb water and crack over the winter.

Remove frozen plants from containers and hanging baskets and replace them with evergreen boughs, branches with colorful berries, and interesting seedheads from perennials and ornamental grasses.

Garden centers have many options to choose from for decorating your containers if you do not have materials available in your garden. Push ends of the stems into the growing medium in the container to support the branches. You may need to move the containers to a warm space to thaw out the growing medium, because you will not be able to insert branches into frozen soil.

Clean out your gutters once all leaves have fallen. Leaves can clog gutters and become very difficult to remove once they are frozen in. Leaf drop is running late this year — at least in my garden at home before the recent cold and snow.

Turn off water to any faucets that are not frost-free and disconnect garden hoses from the house. Frost-free faucets have a valve inside the house that shuts off the water and prevents the line from freezing. Thus, they can be used during cold weather. It’s best to turn the water off to the outside spigots if you are unsure if they are frost-free.

Bring in any liquid chemicals from an unheated garage. They may freeze over the winter if there is an extended period of very cold weather.

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