Tips & Guides
Backyard Composting
Popular and effective way of recycling organic waste is backyard composting. Compost is used by gardeners since long to improve garden soil. Garden composting process transforms lawn debris into a soil amendment product. Composting includes biological cycle of growth and decay. Microorganisms feed upon dead organic matter (forming the composting heap) and the nutrients from the decaying plants are recycled into their own bodies which in due course make way back to the soil. Remaining material from the decaying process exhibits properties similar to that of organic matter found naturally in the soil. This organic matter makes the soil porous, allowing the soil to retain sufficient water and making digging part easier while planting seeds or seedlings.
Sowing Seeds Indoors
Gardeners often need to give plants a critical head start by germinating and growing seedlings in the warm indoors in early spring. Then when it warms up outdoors in late spring, we can plant out sturdy, well-established seedlings to bear fruit before cold weather sets in. Favorites like tomatoes and peppers are both plants that need a long warm growing period to set and ripen a good crop. Except in the most tropical areas, all U.S. summers are too short for them to complete their fruiting cycles before summers end if started directly in the ground, since seeds won’t germinate until frosts have ended and weather warms up.
When to sow seed indoors? Generally, the time to start your seeds is about 8 weeks before the last expected spring frost date in your area, planting the seedlings outdoors about 2 weeks after that date.
Water, Wood, Fire – Elements Of Garden Decor
Decorating a garden is largely a matter of personal taste. There are several elements that tend to be recognized to create a given mood or enhance the look of the area. Water is often used. Japanese gardens have traditionally used water to draw the eye to various focal points in the garden. These ancient designs derive influence from Taoist or Shinto values. Japanese gardens tend to fit in with their surroundings. It is common for a Japanese garden to mimic the landscape of rural Japan, with features resembling mountains, forests, rivers and prairies.
A stream with real water requires significant infrastructure, including pumps and filters. Sometimes a simulated river will be created out of river rock, complete with bridges and other features exclusive to a riparian environment. These simulated rivers are much easier to maintain, and require only an occasional pass with a leaf blower to look put together.
How To Be A Successful Urban Gardener?
If you live in a big city, it does not mean that you do not need to have a beautiful urban garden. It is always nice if you can have a special place where you can just appreciate the scene and enjoy the fresh scent of plants and flowers. Gardens are definitely great. These days, more and more people are having their own gardens, even those who are situated in very urban areas.
Do you live in a big urban city? Do you want to be a successful urban gardener? Here are some tips on having your own urban garden:
Midwinter Gardening Tasks
Midwinter is mainly a time for indoor gardening jobs including ordering seeds and plants for the upcoming spring, writing labels and designing improvements for the year ahead. These are not unimportant gardening tasks, and by attending to them in good time you are more likely to make the right decision and have everything ready for late winter and early spring when gardening begins in earnest.
In small pots sow seeds for summer flowers – spread them thinly and as evenly as possible. Take chrysanthemum cuttings from a clump of roots that has been overwintered in a greenhouse or cold frame. Choose shoots coming directly from the base of the plant. Space the chrysanthemum cuttings evenly around the edge of a pot containing a potting mixture that is suitable for cuttings.
How To Create Movement Around The Garden
Creating space has much to do with movement around the garden. The way in which different areas are linked together, by paths, pergolas, bridges, steps or terraces, can enormously increase their apparent size and interest.
However, it is equally true that a linking element positioned carelessly and without proper regard to its surroundings, or the random placing of too many elements together, can confuse the eye and appear to diminish, rather than expand the available space in the garden.
Many elements in the garden encourage movement: entrances and exits, a disappearing path, a covered walk, a focal point, a pierced screen; or something as mundane as the washing line, dustbin or greenhouse.