Three easy ways to beautify your landscape

The start of the new year is an ideal time for homeowners to begin making plans for creating more beautiful and greener gardens. Just like making resolutions, it's easy to dream big. But this might be a good time to focus on making one or two small changes. Fortunately, even small changes can be significant.

Here are changes with the potential to improve your quality of life this year and possibly leave a legacy spanning many years.

One tree Planting one tree in the right place is an easy and affordable way to create beauty and improve the quality of life. Trees enhance the landscape in all seasons, including winter, because they provide the "bones" of a landscape's design. They can also provide showy spring or summer flowers, a shady retreat from soaring heat, and exquisite fall colors or evergreen boughs.Trees don't need to be large or expensive to be worth planting. Smaller trees are often better investments because they typically need less time than larger trees to become established and resume growing, and often become larger in a shorter period of time. When planted strategically -usually to the north and west - trees of all sizes can save money by reducing winter heating and summer cooling costs. This year, consider planting a sapling that's right for the amount of sun and type of soil you have. No matter its costs, the tree will provide invaluable benefits for you and the environment. Over its lifetime, spanning many generations, one tree generally absorbs one ton of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, all the while producing life-sustaining oxygen.One into manyPerennials can be budget-friendly plants. Unlike annuals that must be replanted each year, perennials are able to produce new plants each spring from their winter-hardy, roots. One benefit of perennials is that each plant's root system becomes larger over time, and the clump eventually needs to be dug up and divided, giving gardeners the chance to turn one plant into several plants.If you have perennials in your garden, instead of buying new plants this year, why not focus on digging and dividing the plants you already have. Sharing or trading your extra divisions with other gardeners or neighborhood organizations will help everyone have larger and more beautiful gardens and increase plant diversity.If you don't have perennials in your garden, why not consider investing in one plant that it is native to the Midwest. If it likes where it's growing, soon you will have more to enjoy or share.Sow a bouquetA bouquet of fresh-cut flowers makes hard days seem easier, gray days seem sunnier, and puts a smile on the face of anyone who sees it. But fresh flowers can be a low priority for anyone on a tight budget. A less expensive way to enjoy fresh flowers is to grow a cutting garden from seed. For under $20 you can buy a collection of seeds for a summer's worth of flowering annuals that make excellent cut-flower bouquets If you want to assemble your own collection, good choices are cosmos, carnations, marigolds, and zinnia. Seeds of these and many annual plants can be sown directly into garden soil, making it possible to grow beautiful bouquets less expensively and, because you grow them a home, more energy-efficiently.For your garden in January:General garden carebull; Use a thick layer of Christmas tree branches, swags, wreaths and other evergreen material as mulch for garden and perennial beds. Lightweight, open evergreens permit moisture to reach the soil but also insulate the roots and crowns of plants from the freeze-thaw-freeze cycle of Midwest winters.bull;An alternate use for a bare holiday tree is to place it outdoors, away from the house, and decorate it with birdseed and suet ornaments that feed winter birds. Continue to supply fresh water for birds.bull;When clearing driveways or shoveling walks, distribute snow loads evenly on shrubs and garden beds. Always shovel snow before using de-icing products.bull;To protect plants, use potassium- or calcium-based de-icing products rather than sodium-based ones.bull;During periods of thaw, water garden beds, turf and plants that received salt spray from roads. bull;Monitor plants routinely for signs of animal damage; install additional physical barriers, if needed.bull;If small plants have heaved out of the ground, gently press them back with your hands; avoid compacting soil with heavy boots.Trees and shrubsbull;Light pruning of deciduous trees and shrubs can be done this month, weather permitting. Heavy pruning is best done in later winter or early spring immediately before bud break.bull;When tree branches become covered with ice, it's best to let the ice melt naturally. bull;If heavy snow anchors evergreen branches to the ground, gently sweep off snow with a broom and then elevate the branches from underneath. bull;During periods of thaw, water newly planted trees and shrubs, and all evergreens.bull;Check plants that host Eastern tent caterpillars over winter: crab apple, apple, hawthorn, mountain ash, flowering cherry and other members of the rose family. If necessary, make plans to prune out any dark, iridescent egg cases encircling small twigs you find.Flowering plantsbull; Amaryllis bulbs that have finished flowering will now send up leaves. Keep bulb and leaves in bright light and continue to water. Remove the flower stalk only after it turns yellow and withers.bull;Flowering azaleas will bloom for months in a bright window when provided even moisture, occasional misting and quick removal of spent blossoms.bull;Cyclamen plants will continue to bloom for a few weeks when plants are kept in a north window of a cool room (55 to 60 F), soil is kept evenly moist, never soggy, and spent blossoms are quickly removed. Avoid splashing the crown of the plant and foliage with water. Most people add spent plants and their soil to a compost pile after blooming stops.bull;Start seeds indoors for cool season annuals that can be planted in garden beds or containers beginning in mid-April. Follow directions on seed packets to determine proper timing and germination techniques.Houseplantsbull;Many houseplants are semi-dormant during winter and require less water and much less, if any, fertilizer.bull;Succulent plants like cacti and jade plants are dormant in winter and may require no water for up to two months. Give plants bright light and a cool room.bull;Continue to monitor houseplants for insect problems associated with stress from challenging winter conditions: insufficient light, low relative humidity, and improper watering and fertilizing techniques. Common pests to scout for are spider mite, scale, mealybug, whitefly and fungus gnat.bull;Denise Corkery is a horticultural writer at the Chicago Botanic Garden.False20001872Perennials, like Joe Pye Weed, above, can be a good investment because they produce new plants each year and can be divided into many plants after their root systems grow over time.Robin Carlson | Chicago Botanic GardenFalse