Wildlife Winter Projects

[ysabetwordsmith]

Choose a holiday tree and recycle it after the season. 

Buy or make a roosting box to protect songbirds from bad weather.

Comments

[gatheringrivers]

We've got a tree from his mom that's probably.....50 years old? Ish? If not older. I got new decorations for it last year, because I dind't have the spoons to dig for the old ones in storage. I've got a few more this year, to have something different from colored balls on the tree.

I *like* the idea of a natural tree, but I hate the whole "cut a tree down, just to stick it in my house for a few weeks" problem.

Now if the artificial trees could be made MORE sustainably (say, recycle all those bottles floating out there in the ocean, and dye the bits green or black before turning them into tree bits....) I'd be MORE interested in one of those.

(Yes, I know, plastic + sustainability = oxymoron, but still...)

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>We've got a tree from his mom that's probably.....50 years old? <<

Awesome.

>>I *like* the idea of a natural tree, but I hate the whole "cut a tree down, just to stick it in my house for a few weeks" problem.<<

I can sympathize, although I tend to think of it as creating wildlife habitat.

>>Now if the artificial trees could be made MORE sustainably<<

Some options ...

https://inhabitat.com/6-eco-friendly-alternatives-to-the-traditional-christmas-tree/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Driftwood-Christmas-Tree/

http://freeplants.com/free-article-planting-a-balled-christmas-tree.htm

Re: Thoughts

[gatheringrivers]

A balled tree! Now THAT'S an option I like!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's how we got our Midwinter Grove. When I was little, we had live (cut) Christmas trees. But Mom got tired of picking pine needles out of the green shag carpet ... in July. So we bought a huge beautiful fake tree. We missed the smell, though. So Dad bought a ball-and-burlap tree that we kept inside for a few days. Then he built a bonfire to melt the frozen ground, planted the tree, and that became our tradition for several years.