A garden that is too time-consuming to look after, or expensive to maintain, is not going to stand the test of time. Here are some tips for the home gardener.
Most homeowners are looking for ways to reduce the amount of time and money expended on the garden. The demand for a garden that is low in its maintenance requirements is one of the first things the designer or garden contractor tends to hear from prospective clients. Yet on the other hand, most people associate the term garden with the growing and enjoying of plants, which invariably involves at least some care, attention and maintenance.
This article discusses how to winterize your garden and prepare it for next spring’s planting.
When the leaves have turned color and are beginning to fall off the trees it is time to prepare your garden for winter.
Winterizing your garden is an important step to ensuring a healthy garden next year.
Start winterizing your garden by removing the dead plant remnants from this year’s garden. Dig up all of the plants, including their root systems and either remove them from the garden or pile them on top of the garden.
While one should be reluctant to use herbicides at the best of times, there are two kinds that are especially worth avoiding altogether.
Chemical weed killers or herbicides should be used as sparingly as possible in gardens as a whole, but especially in private ones. Excessive use of them is bad for the ecological balance in the garden itself, as much wild life is deterred from establishing itself, and in the wider sense, is a serious form of pollution.
Cheap is dear is a well-known and well-worn expression. Nowhere is it more relevant than in plant nurseries and garden centers.
With the rising cost of plants today, many home gardeners are understandably tempted to seek out less showy garden centers, and buy their garden plants at cheaper establishments. This is all very well, but as with most things, cheap can prove to be very dear indeed. While a cheap plant nursery is not necessarily a bad one, it should pass three tests before you consider buying plants from it.
The essence of effective pests control is to do two things that seemingly contradict each other. One is to be constantly on the ball, and the other to try to do as little as possible!
As with everything else, effective results in controlling garden pests depends on the approach or the attitude that is adopted. Broadly speaking, there are two aspects to pest control. At first sight, they may seem in contraction with each other, but on closer examination, they can be seen as two sides of the same coin.
Indoor gardening is a great way to grow your own organic vegtables and herbs. Even with limited garden space, you can have a nice healthy garden with the use of grow lights.
Indoor gardeners and horticulture enthusiasts alike can benefit from the added value that grow light systems provide. While many gardeners have the luxury of spaces available outdoors for gardening, others live in ideal climates the majority of the year. Then there are those of us who have neither perfect conditions or the landscape available for outdoor gardening. But for every challenge, there is a solution. Grow light systems not only enable indoor growing during colder months, but for city dwellers where space is limited, they provide the ability to literally turn an enclosed patio, basement or even a closet into a garden. Plants that are fairly easy to grow include berries, tomatoes, herbs and flowering bulbs such as daffodils, onions and lilies.
During drought years, it is more logical to think that the lawn and flowers have to be watered, while the trees and shrubs, can get by without. In fact, the reverse is true.
In Mediterranean and other dry or semi arid regions, regular irrigation is an integral part of having a garden. Usually, the amount of water available to the home garden is severely restricted, but within known limits, the garden plants can nonetheless be grown satisfactorily.
If you’ve never heard of the Dodder weed, this would be good place to start. For if it gets into your garden, it could ruin it!
The most problematical garden weed that I am familiar with, could quite easily be the star of some dreadful sci-fi horror movie. Commonly known as Dodder, its botanical name is Cuscuta. Originally from North America, it has spread to Europe, the Mediterranean countries and beyond. If you’ve ever seen yellow or reddish string-like filaments, wrapping themselves around low?growing plants, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Cuscuta has been known to ruin complete crops ? it could ruin your garden.
We usually think of a weed as an unwanted plant in the garden. However, a far greater problem is caused by garden plants that escape into natural habitats.
When people hear the word “weed? they usually think of some nasty, ugly herbaceous plant ruining their flowerbed, such as bindweed or Mallow. Weeds are most commonly unwanted plants because they are deemed “ugly?. Actually any plant, wild or cultivated, is a weed if it is growing where it is unwanted. The worse types are those that are difficult to control. The very worst, are those that are virtually uncontrollable and as a result do tremendous damage not only to parks and gardens, but to the local environment as well.
Despite the fact that some birds may nibble a bit at the fruit on your trees, attracting birds to the garden is vital for effective and sustainable pest control.
Birds should be considered principle allies of the gardener, in his or her efforts to control pest insects that damage the garden plants. Put simply, the more birds that visit the garden, either as permanent residents, or as temporary sojourners on their migratory path, the less the infestations of pest organisms.
