The holidays are upon us and if you haven&8217;t considered your decorations, you&8217;re running behind.

Here are a few ideas that you might be able to pull from your own garden.

Greenery for your mantle: Small leaved magnolias or southern magnolias will work for some larger applications. (Larger mantles or armoire toppers.) Also, you may want to consider large branches of a holly bush/tree. The red berries on the holly will add a nice festive splash of color.

For a pleasant scent, try wax myrtle branches. The bayberry scent will permeate throughout the house/room. Wax myrtle will need to be kept in large weighted vases.

Another decorative foliage plant that had a pleasant scent is juniper. There are many cultivars of juniper. In fact, there are so many that I&8217;m sure you&8217;ll find the perfect one for your decorating application. They have different scents too. Did you know that an Eastern Red Cedar tree is a juniper?

How about the silver dollar eucalyptus for a colorful, scented addition to your holiday spread?

For a creative quick fix for holiday decorations, prune some limbs from one of your deciduous trees and spray paint it any color you like. Place the painted branch in a bucket of sand and decorated it.

Basically I&8217;m suggesting that you bring in some of the outdoors for the holidays now.

Here&8217;s a safety tip for you … please keep your greenery sprayed with water on a daily basis and if you use candles this season, keep them safely away from the foliage and never leave a candle unattended. During the holiday season, I check the charges on my fire extinguishers and get them refilled, if needed.

Hanukkah began last week, Christmas and Kwanza are next week and the Winter Solstice is in a couple of days. Get busy!

For those of you who celebrate the Winter Solstice as I do, it officially occurs at 6:22 p.m., CST, Dec. 21, 2006 in the northern hemisphere. The days start getting longer then. I usually leave my decorations up until the day before Groundhog Day.

Happy Holidays everybody!

For more on these and other gardening tips log on to the Home Grown Tomatoes website @ http://HGTradio.net