Garden | Home Grown

Planning Your Garden Redesign

Image via Wikipedia

When you plan to redesign your flower garden, the first thing you need to consider is how and where you will be putting the plants. There are a number of reasons that a gardener may want to redesign a garden such getting rid of old flower beds or to prevent overcrowding. Moving plants that have already taken root is very similar to transplanting a seedling that began indoors then was transferred to an outside garden. Sometimes gardeners have to deal with the added expense of redesigning a garden. When extra cash is not available, using a prepaid credit card can be helpful to ensure all the supplies are available.

There are times when an old garden bed that has been constructed of wood may begin rotting or a plastic, cement or brick flower bed begins to crack or crumble. During these times, take the opportunity to redesign your garden and also save portions of your old flower bed in order to make a new one. You should also make sure you have adequate amounts of healthy soil which means if you haven’t practiced changing your soil or compost annually with a completely new supply, do so now.

After you have removed the plants that you plan to keep, removed unwanted plants, above-ground level soil, and bed structures, you can take apart your wooden flower beds and save the nails for reuse with your new bed later. You can also reuse cement blocks and bricks and any plastic bedding structure from an old bed, then dispose of broken or rotting materials. Your new bed can be made of new materials as well as old materials. If you are adding an in-ground flower bed, you can use a wagon wheel for added structure.

Filed Under: Environment, Gardening Tagged With: Garden, Plant, Soil

Gardening to get the Kid’s Outside

Kids were more active 20 years ago right? Unless your child is involved in an extracurricular sport, they’re probably less active than they should be. Sitting for hours on the couch watching direct.tv or playing video games have replaced playing tag in the yard which results in a good share of teenagers being sedentary and often obese.

Gardening is a great way for you to get out of the house, for your children to get out of the house and for all to reap the benefits from a bountiful harvest.

Gardening is one of those things that seems like a lot of work but pays dividends in so many ways. There are periods of the gardening process that are hard work and often feel like exercise masked as a torturous event. Hauling water from one place to the next can be hard work when it’s 100 degrees outside and bending over to plant something or pull a weed might seem like back breaking work but in all reality is truly exercise.

There is something to be said about reaping the benefits of your hard work. A teenager that learns how to plant and nourish a garden is garnering quality life skills. They see the fruits of their hard labor from start to finish, and reap the benefits with fresh quality produce that they are ultimately responsible for.

Couple of hints to get the kids in motion:

1. Plant some things they like! Find something your kids like and then capitalize on it. Planting spinach won’t do anyone any good if your kids can’t stand spinach, but planting cucumbers will be a good thing if your kids really like cucumbers.

2. Be consistent! If the kids are having trouble nurturing their little garden set some ground rules. Watering on Tuesday and Saturday and no television until they get the garden weeded might be a good start.

Most importantly have fun with it.

Filed Under: Gardening, Home Improvement Tagged With: Garden, Home, Plant

4 Tips for Starting Your Own Garden

When spring rolls around, people enjoy the warmth and being outside. This is the time of year that many think about starting a flower garden. If you’ve never planted one before, don’t despair! Here are four simple tips for starting your own garden.

1. Think small. Sometimes planting a garden is like eating a meal in which your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Don’t fall victim to thinking you need a huge garden with lots of flowers. A big flower garden could need more work than you have time and energy for. If you’ve never grown a garden before, start small, with a space no bigger than ten square feet.

2. Test soil. You need to know what type of soil you have because different types require different preparations. Take a handful of dirt and squeeze it. If it crumbles when you open your hand, your soil is a sandy loam. Bring in some compost to build it up. Clay soil is really sticky when wet. Bring in sand to break up your clay soil.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

3. Select plants. Because you have a small patch of ground, you should avoid plants that are big and spread out. Annuals are the easiest types of flowers to start with. Petunias, zinnias, marigolds, impatients, alyssum, cosmos, and verbena are easy flowers to grow. When you’re ready to buy your flowers, check canada 411 to help you find a local nursery.

4. Mulch. Your garden should be in a sunny spot in your yard so your plants will grow well. However, sun dries out the ground, so mulch will help keep moisture in.

Filed Under: Gardening, Technique Tagged With: Garden, Plant, Soil

Floating Plants for Your Backyard Pond: Floating Heart

Choosing the right pond plants is essential in creating the ideal ecosystem for your backyard water garden. Your plants must all be capable of working together in order to create an ideal environment, especially if you are hosting fish or amphibians in your pond, because they will have specific requirements in order to thrive. There are a wide variety of different plants that you can install in your outdoor pond or water garden, but some are more advantageous than others when you consider the benefits and the features that they provide your ecosystem with.

Floating Hearts

This is a floating plant that is also commonly referred to as Plafflheart, which is more of a scientific name for this type of plant than anything else. The term “floating hearts” is much more fitting for this plant, however, which is why it is the name that people use when referring to it. These are a floating plant that are especially suitable for backyard pounds because they are capable of spreading quite rapidly to create a lot of shade for fish and other plants. They can live very well in full sun or in partial shade, and so in general they are considered to be a very versatile little plant.

The floating heart plant has a waxy leaf that is shaped similarly to a heart, and the leaves float quite readily on the surface of the water, featuring boldly colored yellow flowers during the blooming season.

Filed Under: Gardening, Home Improvement Tagged With: Garden, Pond, Water garden

Nudging the Nosey Neighbor Out of Your Life

Unless you live in a remote area of the world, you probably have to deal with nosey or annoying neighbors. While the majority of the time you can ignore that rude or nosey neighbor, it is especially hard to ignore them when they ambush you while you are working on a gardening project and complain about anything from the position of your fence to the smell of your compost pile. It seems that these types of neighbors know that they have a captive audience and that you cannot get away from their complaining. If you are currently in a situation like this, there are a few things that you can do to try to ease the situation and improve your relationship with your neighbor.

The first solution to solving the problem with your neighbor is to try to appease them by doing what they ask. If your neighbor complains that they can smell the compost pile, try moving it to another section of the yard. If they complain about the tree branches, try trimming them off the neighbor’s yard. While it might not help your relationship, it will ease the tension a little.

Another solution to solve your complaining neighbor problem is to try to win them over with kindness. If you notice that your neighbor seems to complain a lot about your compost pile, consider offering to show them what they can do with the compost pile. Offer to give them a little of the compost so that they can see how well their plants will grow. This will allow them to see why you engage in the activities that you do and could help ease any tension that was growing.

If appeasement and winning them over with kindness don’t work, the only other solution to the problem is to start looking at moving quotes and find a new home with friendlier neighbors!

Filed Under: Environment, Home Improvement Tagged With: Compost, Garden, Home

How to be Creative With City Gardening

For many people that live in a city, finding a parcel of land big enough to support any kind of gardening can be a challenge. If you own a home with a decently sized back yard this is not a problem, but for the average city dweller, space is almost always a concern.

With some creative use of space, even folks that are strapped for space to plant a garden can grow their own produce and save money at the grocery store.

1. Use the balcony – Space might be limited but many people have access to a balcony on their property. By using planter boxes and hanging baskets, you can turn a corner of your balcony into an area that maximizes space and produces good quantities of vegetables. In those plant boxes, try to maximize space but planting veggies that grow vertically. Tomatoes are a great example of a plant that grows vertically and can often be tied off to produce more room for other plants at the base of the tomatoes.

2. Use any indoor space that gets light – Just about everyone has a room in their home that gets the best light. Bigger pots can support the type of growth you’re looking for in indoor planting. Herbs are a great idea to plant in the home. You can maximize space as herbs are typically fairly short in stature.

If you’re really serious about gardening many cities have taken to allowing residents to have space in unused lots. Guerrilla gardening is an urban idea that allows citizens to plant their gardens in those unused spaces. Often times the projects work in conjunction with city beautification projects.

Even residents that live in the cramped quarters of a city can reap the benefits of fresh vegetables by maximizing the space they do have access to.

Filed Under: Gardening Tagged With: Garden, Plant

Reduce Your Grocery bill with Active Gardening

If you’ve ever gone to the grocery store and been disappointed when the checker rings up the total, you have three options. Stop Eating, switch grocery stores or supplement your food supply with fruits and vegetables that you created through active gardening.

While switching grocery stores might help a little, not eating is out of the question so that leaves gardening.

If you’re a new homeowner, one of the first things you have to determine is what kinds of trees you are going to plant. Planting several cherry and apple trees might seem like a waste of time, they take at least ten years to bear fruit in some cases, but your family will be saving money when the fruit trees pays dividends. Who doesn’t like a fresh apple from the tree or the cherry or apple desserts that come with fruit trees?

Most homeowners cherish the space they have in their back yards. Even a 12 x 12 foot garden doesn’t take up that much space from the yard and the amount of vegetables produced can save the average family hundreds of dollars, especially during the summertime.

If you’re one of those non green thumbs that feel like you just can’t keep the house plants alive, gardening is usually pretty simple. Till a piece of land, make sure it is relatively free of weeds and grasses and start planting.

Some of the easiest vegetables to maintain are those that have already been started at the local store. Tomatoes that are six inches high, as opposed to planting from seeds, are likely to do better and reach fruit bearing state quicker. Carrots, cabbage, green beans, zucchini and radishes are all relatively easy to grow from seeds.

If the high price of fresh vegetables and fruits has you pinching pennies it’s time to do something about it. Many internet sites have tips that can be extremely helpful for the beginning gardener.

Filed Under: Environment Tagged With: Garden, Grocery store

Upgrade Your Yard by Installing a Water Garden

You know that sound a stream or river makes when you’re visiting the great outdoors? There is something about that ‘babbling’ brook sound that calms the nerves and makes every worry in the world seem to fade into the background.

By installing a water garden into your backyard, that same calm, peaceful feeling can be achieved all within the comfy confines of your own home.

Not only will the water garden upgrade the ambiance in your backyard, but birds and butterflies will inundate your living space, creating a much admired aviary right in your own backyard.

Sounds nice right, but there’s gotta be a catch like two weeks of back breaking manual labor or thousands of dollars to hire a professional for installation purposes.

Not necessarily!

Smaller water gardens can be installed by two people over the course of a weekend. If you’re handy with tools, that project can probably be accomplished within a day.

Couple things to be on the lookout during your pre-planning phase. For the very beginners, flexible liners are recommended. Do not just put plastic down, you need an actually liner that is supposed to be used for water gardens. Typical rule of thumb is, the thicker your liner is the longer it is going to last. Another thing to look for is the color of your liner! Over time, the natural light in your yard is going to degrade the liner so on your initial buy, look for a liner that has enhanced UV protection.

Not satisfied with a common pond? The internet is a great source for home improvement projects like water gardens. Whether it’s a fish pond or a waterfall, within minutes you should have access to some pretty good information and tips.

If there is one summer project that needs completing at your house this year, it’s the installation of a water garden.

Filed Under: Gardening, Home Improvement Tagged With: Garden, Water garden

Gardening to Improve Heart Health

By now a good share of you have fallen from your pedestal of New Year’s Resolutions. While the repetitive nature of the treadmill might not exactly be your thing, getting into gardening might be.

Let’s face it, exercise and eating right are well known to be the keys to staying or getting healthy, but some don’t like to go to the gym and others are convinced that shopping for healthy foods on a tight budget is just about impossible.

Why not kill two birds with one stone?

The repetitive motions that you do while gardening, for lack of a better term, are exercise. When you bend over and plant something or drag a hose across the garden, you are mimicking exercises that you would more commonly do in the gym. Exercise is all about sweating and being active and for many, gardening can be just the tool to up the heart rate and the get the blood circulating.

If you haven’t tried gardening in a while, the price of seeds and seedlings are not much more than they were ten years ago. While tomatoes that have been started are a little more expensive than seeds themselves, the price is worth it when you reap the benefits with delicious tomatoes in June as opposed to August. Most of your seeds for cucumbers and melons and carrots and radishes can be found for less than one dollar in many locations.

You don’t have to be held hostage by the high prices in your local grocery store, when you take advantage of doing some light gardening in your own home. Not only is the exercise you get tremendous for your health and the health of your heart, but the vitamins and minerals you get from freshly harvested vegetables.

If you’ve fallen off your New Year’s resolutions, there is still time to invest in yourself and your future by planning a summer full of gardening.

Filed Under: Gardening Tagged With: Garden, Health

Assembling a Pergola to Surprise My Wife

: Image via Wikipedia

While looking at some different types of gazebos on a website I found, I saw something that I was unfamiliar with but knew it would be the perfect addition to our yard. I saw a structure that looked like a passageway that was open yet somewhat protected. It had pillars that held up cross-beams and some of the photos showed an array of vines and flowers intertwined with the structure. After further research, I discovered that these were called pergolas. They often extended off a permanent structure like a home but they could also be free-standing as well.

I envisioned building one at the end of the path and close to the fireplace. I knew my wife would love to weave some of her favorite vines and flowers into it which would give us some shade and some protection from the environment. I ended up finding the perfect one online. It was not pre-assembled but it was pre-built and came with instructions for easy assembly. When my wife returned from her trip, it was up and in place. She was very excited when she saw the new structure in our back yard.

Just a few weeks ago, I was did some research into another garden project. My wife was away on business for a few weeks and I really wanted to surprise her when she came home from her trip. I knew how much she loved the outdoors and spending time in our back yard relaxing or working in her flower garden. We have a nice path that leads to a small area where we have an outdoor fireplace and I thought maybe some type of structure at the end of the patch would be nice. Of course, not being the do it yourself kind of person, I also thought I might need to get something pre-built. I have a nice assortment of tools but using them is another matter.While looking at some different types of gazebos on a website I found, I saw something that I was unfamiliar with but knew it would be the perfect addition to our yard. I saw a structure that looked like a passageway that was open yet somewhat protected. It had pillars that held up cross-beams and some of the photos showed an array of vines and flowers intertwined with the structure. After further research, I discovered that these were called pergolas. They often extended off a permanent structure like a home but they could also be free-standing as well.I envisioned building one at the end of the path and close to the fireplace. I knew my wife would love to weave some of her favorite vines and flowers into it which would give us some shade and some protection from the environment. I ended up finding the perfect one online. It was not pre-assembled but it was pre-built and came with instructions for easy assembly. When my wife returned from her trip, it was up and in place. She was very excited when she saw the new structure in our back yard.

Filed Under: DIY, Gardening, Home Improvement Tagged With: Flower, Garden, Pergola, Vine