Bird Feeding       If your yard is abundant in plants with seeds and fruits for birds, you may not need to supplement their diet with store-bought seeds.  If not, early December is the time to set up feeding stations.  WARNING: this is a winter-long commitment.  It is not fair to accustom wildlife to feeding then withdraw the supply.  If you start now continue putting out food until April.

Snow Stamping    After a heavy snowfall, trample down circles around young trees and shrubs.  This will protect them from tunneling rodents; the packed snow is hard to dig.  Also, imagine the good exercise this will be for the gardener!!!

Needled and Broad-leaved Evergreens    Until the ground freezes water newly planted needled evergreen trees and shrubs.  Their roots are still actively taking in moisture and nutrients. Once the ground is frozen, give them a thick mulch of straw or leaves to reduce damage from freeze-thaw cycles.

Salt Advice    Salt for melting snow and ice should be used with great discretion.  As an alternative, try a light application of commercial fertilizer.
AVOID salt burns to lawns and other plants by using sand, ammonia-type fertilizers, or bird seed to de-ice walks.
The two salts widely available are sodium chloride (effective to 10 degrees F) and the more expensive calcium chloride (effective to -40 degrees F).  Often calcium chloride is mixed with sodium chloride to boost its potency. WARNING: Both of these salts will damage lawns and many plantings.  They do even more insidious and long lasting damage if they are used where they can percolate through groundwater into wells, streams, and lakes.  GO EASY ON THESE IF YOU USE THEM. 
 

Provide birds at your feeder with a source of sand or gravel if the ground is snow covered.  Fat helps many birds keep warm.  You can even make homemade suet by combining melted bacon or meat fat with birdseed and/or stale bread.

WARNING:  Squirrels and starlings love this mixture.  You will need to be very clever to make a suet holder they cannot access.  TRY THIS… just put out solid pieces of fat (no additives) in your suet holder.  Chickadees, woodpeckers, and other suet loving native birds will like this very much, and it will not be as attractive to squirrels and starlings.  There will be enough at the feeder for them too.

Mulches    Use evergreen boughs from Christmas or from winter pruning to mulch over evergreen perennials, bulb beds, and rock gardens…any of the smaller, more shallow rooted plants in your garden.

Another way to recycle Christmas greens: collect a few neighbors' discarded Christmas trees and stack them together into a teepee for the birds.  Birds will appreciate both the dense protective foliage and the resulting bare patch of ground underneath for foraging and scratching.
  

Bird Feeding   Just when the days are lengthening and spring is around the corner, nature's supply of food for birds is at its lowest.  Birds need food, water, and grit.  In addition, suet keeps birds warm; but beware of peanut butter or soft fats.  The glue-like consistency can be dangerous to them.  If you wish to use these items, mix cornmeal with them so the consistency is rougher.

Mulches    Check mulches over perennials or rock garden plants and replace any that have become dislodged.  When and if the soil thaws this month, tamp back into place any small perennial plantings that have been heaved up by frost; then mulch to protect for the duration of the early spring.

Dormant Pruning    February is the time for dormant pruning of fruit trees, evergreens, and any ornamental trees and shrubs that bloom from the END of June onwards.

DO NOT prune early spring flowering plants if you want to see any bloom this year.  They bloom on growth that they made the previous season.  If you cut it off, they will not be able to produce blooms. Wait until they have completed their blooming period for the season.

Information Sources:
The Victory Garden Landscape Guide by Thomas Wirth
The Garden Timetable by Nancy J. Butler; published by the Washtenaw Cooperative Extension Service