Posts Tagged ‘Gardening’

In our hurried, stressful world, we’re often looking for ways to relax and enjoy the things around us. Your own flower garden is a terrific way to do that. As the saying goes, you can improve life simply by stopping to smell the roses.

And those roses smell even better if you grew them yourself!

You’ve probably noticed that some people just have a knack for growing nice, healthy flowers while the rest of us seem to mostly grow weeds. Often the difference between a lush, wonderful flower garden and a gnarly weed bed are a few simple factors. Do the right things and you’ll find growing beautiful flowers is easier than you imagined.

1. Plant flowers that do well in your area. Temperature, rainfall, and more that determine your local climate will favor some flowers, while making others almost impossible to grow. For example, if you endure the super hot summers of Texas or Arizona, you will have to grow different kinds of flowers than people in cooler New York or Utah.

To some degree, you can check the backs of seed packets to know which plants grow in your area and what time of year to plant. Gardening guides can also help. Your best bet is often to talk to someone who knows plants. Usually you can find these people working in smaller stores, greenhouses, and nurseries. It’s usually not hard to identify who these plant experts are, as just about everybody in town knows about them and repeats their advice.

2. Pay attention to the quality of the soil you’re planting in. Often adding richer potting soil or light fertilizer can give your flowers a much better chance of turning out healthy. The right soil is one of the major reasons why some people grow terrific flowers while others can’t get anything to sprout.
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Whether oriental in design, or a Southwest festival of color and flora variety, you can enhance your walkthrough garden with the use of wind chimes.

Nothing more perfectly enhances the garden yard decor and stimulates the senses like a quality crafted wind chime that has been precision tuned. Appealing to the eye, and alive with movement, wind chimes catch the wind and harmonize with nature; permeating the surrounding area with a tantalizing yet soothing aura of peace and tranquility.

The charm of a butterfly garden created to capture the color and activity of gossamer wings is further enhanced by the use of a wind chime. Stagger groups of wild and cultivated plants that are especially appealing to butterflies. But like wind chimes, all butterflies are not the same.

Butterflies have different nectar and flower color preferences. For instance, while the elegant Viceroy prefers milkweed and aster, the stately Monarch prefers goldenrod and thistle. Other favored flora varieties include butterfly weed, pink azalea, purple coneflower, marigold, and rosemary.

For longer garden life and increased butterfly activity, mix flower varieties that bloom at different times of the year. Groups of flowers are more appealing and easier for butterflies to locate than single specimens.

A bird bath for water, surfaces for basking in the sun on cooler days, shady areas for resting on hot days, and a trellis with nectar-filled honeysuckle or jasmine will help round out and bring balance to the butterfly garden yard décor.
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Adding edging around your garden or landscape is as important as the garden itself. The edging frames your garden much like a picture frame. A picture can be interesting and beautiful but it needs a frame to enhance its appearance, so it is with your garden.

There are various types of garden edgings. Many people prefer to use something heavy and permanent, like a low brick wall, or rocks set together with mortar. However, not everyone is physically capable of creating such a structure.

Bricks set freely can be just as effective. They can be placed in a simple line, end to end, or stacked in a double row, with gaps in between. They can also be set diagonally, leaning against each other for support.

Another attractive alternative is to decorate short lengths of board with old tiles. Tiles can often be purchased very cheaply from re-recycling places. Glue your choice of tile along the board using outdoor glue. On each end of the board, tack a peg with one end pointed. This will be used to push into the soil to support your board and keep it off the ground.

Bush rocks can also be used to give your garden that finished look. They need not be too big, unless you have plenty of muscle or help. You may be able to gather rocks from a friend’s farm, or from the bush if that is legal in your area. Otherwise, garden suppliers usually have plenty to choose from.

How about flowering plants or shrubbery to create a living border. Choose a plant that will be suitable for your climate and conditions. The pretty pink of alpine phlox is an attractive border and the plants can be divided and planted again and again. Many other plants can be propagated in this way, thus reducing the initial costs. Of course, your border will take a little more time to get established than if you bought all the necessary plants at once.
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In nature, pests are usually controlled by the presence of insect predators and parasites which keep the populations of the harmful insects in control.

Most of the insects in nature are either beneficial or at least harmless. There are many ways to encourage insect predators in one’s garden.

1. Create a suitable habitat for insect predators. Flowering shrubs and trees throughout the garden will attract many beneficial insects including parasitic wasps which require pollen and nectar for their growth and maturity. Plants belonging to Umbelliferae family are particularly effective in attracting natural enemies of pests.

2. Provide alternate hosts for pests. To ensure availability of food for the beneficial organisms, grow alternate host plants along fence lines and in between cultivated crops. The natural enemy populations on these alternate host plants will control pests attacking the cultivated crop.
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It is becoming more and more obvious these days that we need to recycle as much as we can, and anyone with a garden has a head start and can make a great contribution. To many novice gardeners, including myself, this subject can be somewhat difficult to grasp; but in fact it is really straightforward – there are just a few very simple rules:

You need a compost bin, and the type you decide on rather depends on the size of your garden, but there are a couple of options:

A purpose built plastic bin purchased from a garden centre, not too expensive; and you just fill up from the top and a few months later, you can take compost from a small hatch at the base.

Alternatively, if you can wield a saw and some nails, you can make a wooden slatted enclosure, one metre square – or you can buy them ready made – and cover it with a piece of old carpet to keep the worst of the weather off.

What you can compost:

- all uncooked vegetable and fruit peelings
- teabags, tea leaves and coffee grounds
- egg shells
- dead flowers from the house
- and from the garden, soft prunings
- spent bedding plants, dead leaves, lawn mowings
- spent compost from hanging baskets or containers
- some dryer materials such as shredded pape
- rabbit and guinea pig bedding.
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Butterfly gardens require several things to be successful: plants, water, and the right gardening attitude.

We can easily create lists of plants that butterflies love. Consider planting Asters, Joe-Pye weed, Black-eyed Susans, Lantana, Butterfly Bush, Butterfly Weed, Liatris, Pentas, Coreopsis and Purple Coneflowers. These are gorgeous plants and butterflies will flock to them in large numbers.

Gardeners can easily provide water by soaking the ground in an area next to favourite plants or by having small dishes/birdbaths with water in the garden. By providing water, you’ll attract butterflies. If you have a small pond, lay a stick on the edge so one end is in the water and one end on the shore. This will provide an easy entranceway for both butterflies and frogs. It also looks more realistic than bare edged ponds.
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10 Beneficial Insects For Gardening

1. Aphid Midge: These insects look like a delicate, small wasp. The larvae eats more than sixty varieties of aphids from the garden. You can attract them by growing plants with a lot of pollen and nectar.

2. Big-Eyed Bug: This is a fast-moving bug with large eyes and very small black spots on it’s head and thorax. They are usually found in field crops and orchards. The big-eyed bug eats leafhoppers, spider mites, plant bugs, aphids, and small caterpillars. This bug is a real asset to gardening.

3. Ladybug: The ladybug ranges in size from 1/16 to 3/8 inch and have round red, orange or yellow bodies with black markings. They prefer gardens that have a large amount of pollen and nectar-producing flowers. The ladybug is fond of aphids, mealybugs, small insects and scales. The Mexican bean beetle is related to the ladybug but is not beneficial.

4. Minute Pirate Bug: These bugs are 1/4 inch long in adulthood and feature a black and white pattern. Fast-moving like the big-eyed bug and attracted to gardens where goldenrod, yarrow, alfalfa, daisies, and other flowering, pollen-producing plants are grown. They eat small caterpillars, thrips, spider mites, insect eggs and immature leafhoppers.
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Container gardens can create a natural sanctuary in a busy city street, along rooftops or on balconies. You can easily accentuate the welcoming look of a deck or patio with colorful pots of annuals, or fill your window boxes with beautiful shrub roses or any number of small perennials. Whether you arrange your pots in a group for a massed effect or highlight a smaller space with a single specimen, you’ll be delighted with this simple way to create a garden.

Container gardening enables you to easily vary your color scheme, and as each plant finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether you choose to harmonize or contrast your colors, make sure there is variety in the height of each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves. Tall strap-like leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leafed plants. Choose plants with a long flowering season, or have others of a different type ready to replace them as they finish blooming.

Experiment with creative containers. You might have an old porcelain bowl or copper urn you can use, or perhaps you’d rather make something really modern with timber or tiles. If you decide to buy your containers ready-made, terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb water. You don’t want your plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these pots with a special sealer available from hardware stores.

Cheaper plastic pots can also be painted on the outside with water-based paints for good effect. When purchasing pots, don’t forget to buy matching saucers to catch the drips. This will save cement floors getting stained, or timber floors rotting.

Always use a good quality potting mix in your containers. This will ensure the best performance possible from your plants.

If you have steps leading up to your front door, an attractive pot plant on each one will delight your visitors. Indoors, pots of plants or flowers help to create a cozy and welcoming atmosphere.

Decide ahead of time where you want your pots to be positioned, and then buy plants that suit the situation. There is no point buying sun lovers for a shady position, for they will not do well. Some plants also have really large roots, so they are best kept for the open garden.
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