Welcome, everyone, to the first issue of The Evergreen Mart News. We thank you all for signing up and are very excited about all the information this newsletter will offer.

Our goal is for you, our valued customer, to use the newsletter as a tool to answer many of your gardening questions. As we celebrate another year, we look to you and say thanks for helping our business thrive.

The Evergreen Mart offers prime material from the best growers, as well as the best products for all your gardening needs. Stop by our garden center any time and let us help make your dream garden a reality.

Your comments and questions are very welcome. We look forward to hearing from you.

Popular years ago, indoor plants are making a huge comeback. Their lush, green foliage can truly perk up a dreary interior environment and can be a beautiful addition to any home or office. Not only are they attractive to look at, but indoor plants also convert the carbon oxide that we breathe out into oxygen, thereby refreshing our indoor surroundings.

Most indoor plants are hybrids that grow wild somewhere in the world. The key to successfully growing plants indoors is to replicate the environment they naturally grow in. The main factors are location, lighting, water, humidity, and feeding. A few minutes of care each week help your plants flourish, providing years of enjoyment.

Bright windowsills are a perfect location for a number of indoor plants to thrive and help chase the winter blues away. (Just make sure to move them in the summer if the area receives direct afternoon sun.) Rotate each container after a few days so that all parts of your plants get an even amount of sunlight.

As a rule of thumb, keep the soil moist but not soaking wet. Ensure that the pot has good drainage for excess water. Too much water locked in the pot rots the roots. Most indoor environments are dry and have little humidity. So, use a mister to spray water on the leaves on very dry days. You can also place your pots on containers full of pebbles. Pour water in the container often. This will hydrate your plants from the bottom.

Even though indoor plants tend to grow much more slowly than they would outdoors in their natural environments, they still require an infusion of nutrients throughout the year. We recommend using a balanced plant food (use as directed).

Indoor plants add color and can dramatically cheer up a home or office, especially during the dog days of winter.

We invite you to visit us and pick up a few of these gems today!

In the rush to celebrate Halloween, and do the early shopping for Christmas, often Thanksgiving becomes merely about football and feasting. In the colder climates, we need to think ahead to be prepared not only with fine food and football snacks, but with an ambience that truly reflects the meaning of this holiday.

Most garden centers that remain open in the north stock pre-made decorations, as well as all of the ingredients you need to out-do Martha Stewart herself. In fact, holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas provide the primary income off-season for such centers, and you will find that they are often so creative that your own imagination is inspired.

Take a walk around your home. Start collecting colorful leaves that have just drifted to the ground. They should be sturdy leaves with thick stems. When you've collected 30-40 of them, staple them to an orange or red ribbon and hang them across the front of your mantle. A walk in the woods will yield lots of pine cones, which can be used in your table's centerpiece; buy an inexpensive cornucopia made of woven reeds and fill it literally to overflowing with pine cones, gourds, mini-pumpkins, even pears, apples and citrus. The goal is color and plenty. The original cornucopias were made of a curved goat's horn filled with fruit and ears of grain, a decorative motif emblematic of abundance.

Don't wait until December to put your mini-lights to use; drape them across the center of your table, or along the top of your mantle. Curve the wires and in each "alcove" place a pine cone that you've spray painted white. Adorn with red berries that you've either found in your outdoor wanderings, or purchased in the craft department of your local garden center. An alternative idea is to collect small branches, spray paint them white, and create a forest of "snowy" branches that can be tied with a bright ribbon and hung on the front door.

Place cards may be fancy or a family affair. Print out personalized place cards that you can find on many websites. Or to give your guests a sparkly and homemade welcome, several days before feast day, write each guest's name in glue onto cardboard place cards. Then sprinkle the glue with glitter in colors of gold, bronze, or red. Tip to get rid of the excess glitter, and allow the cards to dry for at least 24 hours. Then sit the kids down with seasonal magazines and have them cut out the images that most remind them of Thanksgiving. Pasting the overlapping pictures around the edges of the guest's name card will give it the look of collage.

Using the good napkins? Roll up each one and wrap it with some raffia rather than a traditional napkin ring.

And here's a fun and fabulous family tradition to begin this year. At the beginning of November, buy a large piece of white poster paper and some brightly colored construction paper. Draw a tree with as many different branches as you can manage. Cut the construction paper into leaf shapes (the children can draw an outline of their hands for the perfect leaf). Every day, one member of the family selects a leaf, writes something he or she is grateful for, and pastes the leaf onto the tree. On Thanksgiving Day, the entire family may offer thanks for the items listed on the tree.

In between the madness of removing and storing the Halloween decorations, and choosing and decorating the Christmas tree, take time this year to rediscover Thanksgiving, and celebrate it with the beauty of both handcrafted and store-bought decorations. Our garden center experts will be able to guide you towards the creation of what will become your favorite day of the year!

What does the term conifer mean?

Answer:
Conifers are a diverse group of plants and trees, ranging from tiny dwarf specimens to the tallest trees known. They produce narrow needle-like foliage instead of leaves and often produce cones or berries.

Most conifers are evergreen--for example, arborvitae cedars, cypress, firs, junipers, pines, redwoods and spruce. But there are some species of deciduous conifers that lose their leaves in the winter, including varieties of larch, dawn redwood and swamp cypress.

Conifer foliage color comes in tones of greens, blues and yellows. Some are variegated and some are a different color in winter and summer.

We will be returning to Standard Time on November 1st. Remember to set your clocks back one hour Sunday the 1st, at 2 am. Or set them early and enjoy that extra hour of sleep!

Smoke detector batteries should be changed yearly; the change to Standard Time is also a great time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors. Properly functioning smoke detectors save thousands of lives every year.