Homemade Holiday Decorations From Your Garden

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Filling up pots with greens and goodies from your yard is an affordable way to decorate your home for the holidays. It's also a great way to make gifts for friends or family who don't have a garden or the time to do it themselves.

Take your pruners and go out and see what you find. Evergreens - from pine, juniper, and arborvitae to large-leafed magnolias - all make great pot-fillers. Spray greens with a wilt proofer to help keep them fresh for weeks. Boughs of holly can be pricey at the store, but growing in your garden they give you loads of Christmas color at no cost - from winterberry shrubs with big berries on leafless branches, to tall trees of American holly with classic green leaves and red berries.

Totally bare branches add height and contrast too; from dramatic red-twig dogwood sticks, to small branches from almost any tree - dab on some white paint for a snowy look. Dangle pinecones and acorns as decorations on the branches to complete holiday gift planters that could cost you a pretty penny to buy - but created from materials you find in your garden, are free.

Reported By Phran Novelli, KYW Newsradio