Branches also make interesting tabletop displays

Branches with interesting foliage, as well as flowering branches, can be forced. They then make beautiful displays to have in your home.

First, prune those branches that are not essential to your plant's basic shape or save branches from your winter pruning. Branches should be at least 1 foot long, full of fat flower buds and cut on a day above freezing.

Cut the ends at an angle and put the branches 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 out of direct sunlight.

Good choices for forcing this month include serviceberry (Amelanchier), magnolia (Magnolia), flowering quince (Chaenomeles), forsythia (Forsythia), crab apple or apple (Malus), flowering pear (Pyrus), flowering cherry (Prunus), spring-flowering witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) and redbud (Cercis).

• Consider saving some branches from pruned shrubs to use for pea staking in your perennial border or pots this year. Twiggy branches with lots of small stems and twigs will work best.

The base end should be a single stem that can be inserted into the soil around the perennials requiring support. The perennials will then grow through the branches that provide support for the perennials.

• Raspberries can grow into a tangled mess and produce poorly if not pruned properly. Prune fall-fruiting raspberries (fruit between August and October) back to ground now to produce one crop of fruit.

Most autumn-fruiting varieties are primocanes that produce fruit in their first year of growth. Cut the old canes as close to the ground as possible so that buds will break from below the surface of the soil. New canes will grow and set fruit later in the year.

If the canes are not cut low enough, fruiting laterals may form on any remaining cane portion. These fruiting laterals will not be as healthy.

Summer-fruiting varieties are usually floricanes, which fruit in the second year of growth and thus require different pruning techniques.

• Clean any bird feeders periodically, as moldy seed can make birds ill. It will be easier to do this on warmer days that are well above freezing.

Flush out old seed and debris and then scrub with a mixture of water and chlorine bleach (1 ounce of bleach per gallon of water). Rinse well and allow the feeders to dry out before adding new seed.

In between these cleanings, shake to dislodge compacted seed when refilling hanging feeders. Dump out all wet clumps of old seed. If possible, it is a good idea to sweep hulls off platform feeders on a daily basis.

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