Use evergreen branches and berries in containers

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

Garden centers will have lots of 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 as it works well to support the branches. Be sure to do this step before a hard freeze.

• It is time to make sure your exterior faucets are frost-free. A frost-free faucet is essentially a standard hose spigot with a long pipe on the back end that extends through the side of the house. It looks the same as a regular spigot from outside the house, but the connection and valve that controls the water supply is inside, where it's warmer and protected from freezing.

A properly installed frost-free faucet will have a slight downward pitch toward the spigot so water will drain out of the pipe when the water is turned off, leaving no water to freeze in the pipe. If you are unsure whether or not your faucets are indeed frost-free and installed properly, then it is a good idea have your plumber inspect them to avoid a broken water line when freezing occurs.

• Try pinning garden netting over freshly planted beds of bulbs to discourage chipmunks and squirrels from digging up the bulbs. This will not work very well when drifting bulbs into shrub and perennial borders as the bulbs will be spread out over a larger area and existing plants will be in the way of the netting.

Remove the netting in early winter when the ground has frozen or in early spring. A light layer of mulch over the netting with help hide it.

Spreading blood meal over the bed may also work to repel chipmunks and squirrels.

Though not feasible on a large scale, small pockets of bulbs can be protected by covering the area with chicken wire underground to protect the bulbs from being dug up. The bulbs will grow through the chicken wire in spring.

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