Shade Gardening
June 30, 2008
First visit? Welcome! Most visitors grab our Container Gardening Secrets Blueprint. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Shade Gardening
Tired of looking at that barren dark spot in the yard? Do you think it is impossible to grow beautiful plants in little or no sun? Shade gardening is not as complicated or difficult as you believe. In fact, there are several varieties of plants which thrive in little to no sunlight; it’s just that most people aren’t botanists and end up picking plants requiring partial to full sun and that’s why they die. All it takes is some preparation, a little plant information and a desire to add a little more greenery to your life.
So let’s first head outside and take a look at the area you want to use for a shade garden. There are a few questions you need to answer in order to choose the best plants:
Sphere: Related ContentThe Lo Down on Caring for House Plants (Even if You Don’t Have a Green Thumb)
June 30, 2008
The Lo Down on Caring for House Plants (Even if You Don’t Have a Green Thumb)
The term “house plant” covers just about anything that grows and will fit through the door of your home. From lush, exotic orchids to common ordinary philodendron to unusually shaped and prickly cacti, if it can be grown in a pot, you can call it a house plant!
To choose a house plant best suited to you, consider the light in the room you want to place it. Rooms with northern light will provide good homes for low-to-medium light demands of plants such as orchids and ivy, while those that receive stronger western and southern light make excellent hosts for cacti and succulents.
Sphere: Related ContentRose Gardens
June 28, 2008
Rose Gardens
Rose gardens are not as difficult to care for and maintain as many people seem to think. In fact, roses tend to be one of the easier plant species to grow. This is due in large part to the excellent plant stock that growers are now offering for sale. Couple that with the superb plant food and pest control products and you can begin to understand why growing and caring for roses is really quite easy and a lot of fun. Their beauty is unsurpassed as is their fragrance and variety of sizes and colors. Do you know that roses date back to almost 35 million years ago? Setting up and maintaining your roses take a few simple steps to offer year round care.
Good healthy plants ? this is a must. Inspect your roses prior to purchasing and make sure there are no bugs, dead or diseased limbs, and no fungus.
Sphere: Related ContentRock Gardening
June 26, 2008
Rock Gardening
Rock gardening is an easy way to make your lawn and garden beautiful, yet keep it very low maintenance. Rock gardens are particularly useful for areas of your yard which tend to be quite dry, but they’re also quite beautiful in water run off areas too, because you can design them to look like miniature river beds.
Creating a rock garden isn’t too difficult, but there is some planning involved. The first step to planning your rock garden is to select the area which you plan to place it. You’ll also want to decide on the types of plants you’ll have in your rock garden, and what kind of rocks you’d like to have as well.
Sphere: Related ContentPlanning a Raised Flower Bed Garden: Perfect for the Elderly and Disabled Gardeners
June 24, 2008
Planning a Raised Flower Bed Garden: Perfect for the Elderly and Disabled Gardeners
Raised flowerbeds are perfect for older or disabled gardeners as well as for anyone who dislike doing a lot of hard-on-the-back bending. An easy way to mark where you want your beds to be placed is by sprinkling flour on the ground, then measuring the area you?ve marked off with a tape measure to determine how much lumber you will need to purchase for the sides of the bed.
Raised beds should be sufficiently deep to comfortably grow the plants you wish to grow but narrow enough to make reaching the middle from either side easy, especially important if you plan to grow vegetables or flowers for cutting. And remember to leave a comfortably wide path between beds as well.
Sphere: Related ContentGeraniums: The Many Varieties and Where They Work Best in your Garden
June 23, 2008
Geraniums: The Many Varieties and Where They Work Best in your Garden
Among the post popular flowering plants, geraniums can be grown indoors in pots or outside in hanging baskets, planters, window boxes and the ground itself. Common geraniums are actually correctly called pelargonia; true geraniums include wildflowers and herbaceous perennials such as pineapple geranium or lemon geranium that can be used in cooking.
The most common varieties of geranium are:
Garden Geraniums (Pelargonium x hortorum): Compact plants used in flowerbeds, these often have fancy leaves marked by dark pigments in distinctive patterns. They can also have tri-colored leaves or leaves with silver or white markings. Blossoms are clustered into heads and may be either single or double, ranging in color from white through pale pink to darkest red.
Read more
Sphere: Related ContentTips for Pruning Trees and Bushes
June 22, 2008
Tips for Pruning Trees and Bushes
Pruning and trimming a bush or tree will help it stay healthier. In fact, many bushes and trees will start growing like crazy after they’ve been pruned well, and if they produce flowers you may find that you’re getting many more blooms than usual after a trim too.
Trimming is important for the bush or tree’s health and vitality, but it’s also very important for general safety too. Leaving a dead branch on a tree in a residential area can potentially invite harm to your house, your vehicles, or your friends and family because that dead branch will eventually fall to the ground… or whatever is underneath of it.
Sphere: Related ContentSeed sowing tips
June 20, 2008
Seed sowing tips
One of the best ways to start a large garden of almost any kind, for very little or sometimes no cost at all, is to start your plants and flowers from seeds. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of plants which can be started from seeds. Technically all plants start from seeds, but not all plants are easy to start from a seed, so those are started from cuttings and other forms of propogation instead.
For the purposes of this article though, we’ll focus on starting plants and flowers from seeds instead of other forms of propogation.
Read more
Sphere: Related ContentPlants which are poisonous to pets
June 18, 2008
Plants which are poisonous to pets
Most people who love to care for and nuture plants, also have an all around caring and nuturing personality. And because of this, they often tend to be pet lovers and owners too. If you have a cat or dog though, and particularly if you do indoor gardening, you need to be aware that there are many different types of common household plants which are poisonous to your pets.
Some plants effect primarily cats while others cause more problems for dogs, and there are some which can make your beloved pet die while others may simply make them sick. So know what you’re growing in your home, and be very careful about placing these types of plants out of reach from your pets as much as possible.
Sphere: Related ContentOrganic Gardening: Natural Pest Control
June 16, 2008
Organic Gardening: Natural Pest Control
Another thing that new organic gardeners become confused about, and sometimes even frustrated with, is figuring out how to control pests and bugs in their gardens. It doesn’t matter if you’re growing roses, annuals, perennials, bushes, trees, vegetables or something else… all plants have one or more bugs which seem to like to feed on either the plant leaves and stems, the flowers themselves, or both.
The most natural way to control pests in your garden is to simply hand pick the bugs off of leaves and flowers as you find them. This is a time consuming process for large gardens though, and many people do not like controlling pests this way alone. Thankfully there are many other things you can do to help with the process naturally though.
Sphere: Related Content
