Prepare your porches & patios with gorgeous evergreen shrubs perfect for winter containers

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Tis the season for the Chicagoland area to try to keep our holiday greens looking their best. Per Jennifer Brennan, with Chalet stop by ABC 7 Eyewitness News to share tips and tricks to get your evergreen winter containers together. Brennan is a Horticulture Information Specialist at the garden and nursey center.

Ingredients for outdoor evergreen winter containers:

• Spruce tops, small or medium size
• White pine tips
• Noble fir tips
• Blueberry juniper
• Incense Cedar
• Winterberry
• Redtwig dogwood

Other tools needed:

• Top soil, placed in container and watered
• Polyurethane container 12" diameter (best size to insert into urns)
• Pruning shears
• Wire cutters
• Wilt-Pruf

Step by step directions:

• Select a spruce top that is twice the height of your container and insert into the middle of the container.
• This is your "foundation", the basic form of your arrangement.
• Select 5 white pine cuttings to insert through out the spruce top foliage for texture and color variation.
• Add 3-5 Noble fir tips
• Place 3-5 Incense cedar tips throughout the arrangement to accent with the yellow color; one in the middle of the arrangement, 1-2 cascading over the edge of the pot, and 1 echoing the central spruce top.
• Do the same with the Blueberry juniper.
• Use 5 redtwig dogwood as color extensions, placed throughout the arrangement
• Place 3 winterberry stems for the final accent, use as you would use lipstick - the focal point, to draw the eye into the most interesting part of the arrangement.
• Spray the entire arrangement with Wilt-Pruf, place outside to enjoy until March.

For more information and how to connect with Chalet Nursery Home & Garden, click here