By early December, the garden is freezing up and most northern gardeners are settled in for the winter. Besides checking for garden catalogs, taking classes and enjoying a good garden book, what’s a gardener to do? We have three suggestions to end our year of 150 tips from the 150 year-old archives of MSHS.

Buy a challenging houseplant, such as croton. Croton plants, native to Southeast Asia, will brighten up any winter windowsill with its vibrant foliage. This tropic is the centerpiece of Gregory Sytch’s article in the Minnesota Horticulturist January 1997 issue, where he provides a detailed growing guide. Crotons do best in full sun with at least four hours daily of direct light, high humidity, and need an environment with temperatures that don’t dip below 50 degrees F at night in order to grow. Sytch’s picks in the article include ‘Norwood Beauty,’ ‘Super California,’ ‘Excellent,’ and ‘Yellow Petra.’

Transform your garden photography into thoughtful gifts to share. This is a tip from the last decade. Regular contributor Eric Johnson offers this tip in his DIY holiday article from the November/December 2014 Northern Gardener®. While our gardens are always changing, photography is a wonderful way to remember and treasure beloved green spaces. With the use of a photo printing website, you can easily transform these images into gifts to share with loved ones. Eric suggests using garden photos to create personalized note cards, a tote bag or even a calendar.

Measure your sunlight! In the 2010 gift guide, Northern Gardener® recommended a sunlight calculator, perfect for deciding where to plant part-shade and part-sun plants, but also for watching the sunlight increase over the months. This inexpensive gadget is easy to use. Early in the morning, you  poke it into the ground and then check it 12 hours later to find out how much sun/shade that specific growing spot offers and what plants will thrive there.

Enjoy the long winter!