Keeping cats out of your garden
August 18, 2008
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Keeping cats out of your garden
Whether you love cats or not, having them use your garden beds as their bathroom can be downright annoying. And it’s especially frustrating when you’ve spent money, time, and many hours of loving effort to care for your flowers and plants.
Now if the cats causing the problem are your own, the best way to stop them from using your garden beds as toilets is to simply keep them inside at all times. What’s more common though, is that stray cats, or cats who belong to someone else, are running loose around your neighborhood, and have taken a liking to your pristinely cared for flower beds.
There are a wide variety of tools, products, and techniques which can be used to keep stray unwanted cats out of your garden though. Some, such as automatic water sprinklers which will squirt anything that moves, might be more costly than you’d prefer.
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Sphere: Related ContentHummingbird gardens
August 13, 2008
Hummingbird gardens
If you’ve ever watched tiny hummingbirds hovering around a flower bud, you were probably in awe of them. These tiny little birds flutter their wings so fast you can hardly see them, and many gardeners feel so strongly about this wonderful little critters that they believe their garden is not complete until they’ve attracted at least one.
Attracting hummingbirds to your garden can sometimes be done just by placing a simple hummingbird feeder in a tree, or mounted to the outside of a window. This doesn’t always do the trick though, and there are much better ways to get these tiny little birds coming to your garden regularly. The best way of course, is to simply create a hummingbird garden.
Sphere: Related ContentButterfly gardens
August 9, 2008
Butterfly gardens
Creating butterfly gardens is another wonderful way to enjoy nature in your yard and garden. Like birds, creating gardens which will attract butterflies is as easy as putting out plants, water features, and housing areas designed just for them.
One of the best kinds of plants you can have in a butterfly garden is a butterfly bush. These grow quite fast and large though, so you’ll need to make sure you have room before planting them.
Sphere: Related ContentBird houses and feeders
August 5, 2008
Bird houses and feeders
Putting bird houses, bird baths, and bird feeders throughout your garden is a wonderful way to enjoy more of nature every day. Birds love beautiful gardens, and if you provide them with water, housing, and additional food - particularly in the winter time - they will continue returning to your garden for years to come.
Birds love water sources of any kind, and they particularly seem to enjoy moving water sources. Even putting a water hose out into the middle of the yard and turning it on low to medium stream strength is enough to attract many birds to your yard very quickly.
Sphere: Related ContentWindow Gardens: A Beautiful Option for Small Space Gardening
August 4, 2008
Window Gardens: A Beautiful Option for Small Space Gardening
Window gardens are a wonderful way to enjoy the beauty of a garden when you have little to no space in your home. Apartment dwellers for instance, who have no patio space, often resort to having indoor gardens only. Window gardens can help them expand their gardens into an outdoor area, while making their apartment all the more attractive in the process.
Window gardens aren’t just for apartment dwellers though. They make a wonderful accent to stand alone homes as well, and they’re quite decorative too so they can dramatically enhance the overall curb appeal of your home.
Sphere: Related ContentLove Butterflies? Include the Plants that Attract them in your Garden Design
August 1, 2008
Love Butterflies? Include the Plants that Attract them in your Garden Design
Butterfly gardens filled with plants that attract those gorgeous, multi-colored little creatures that float so airily from plant to plant?don?t have to contain the huge eucalyptus trees so beloved by Monarch butterflies. They can be any size, from a smallish container planting like a window box to a small section of a perennial bed that boasts other plants beloved by butterflies, or even a bit of property you?ve let go ?back to the wild.?
The trick in designing gardens for butterflies is learning the species that frequent your part of the world and then planting their favorite flowering plants, including plant varieties that supply nectar and those that provide fodder for pre-butterfly caterpillars. If you have a university agricultural extension or USDA office nearby, ask the people there which species are common where you live and what plants they fancy. Otherwise, an Internet search will provide you with the similar information.
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