Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
Saturday, April 16th, 2011 |
A lot of gardeners are hesitant to order plants from catalogs or order online. This is because they want to see personally what they buy, they want to inspect the plants before buying which is reasonable enough. When buying from nurseries, garden clubs and plant stores, you can see and inspect the plants, you can also select the perfect time to purchase the plants in time for its perfect planting time. The down side of this is that often the choices are limited and most often than not, the choices are the same year after year. This is okay if you want to have the same kinds of plants every year. This is where buying plants from catalogs and online come in. Catalogs and online stores offer a wide variety of plants to choose from. Aside from this, they offer money-back guarantees. Very often these companies allow you to pick your own shipping date, which is great because you don’t want the plants to arrive weeks before the ideal planting time, or worse yet, during a time when you happen to be on vacation.
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Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 |
The tools or equipment that the gardener enjoyed most for gardening depends on the the size of the garden, how much time you spend on your garden and the money that your going to spend in your garden. But every gardener has some type of gardening tools. Many gardeners don”t have expensive equipments and tools. But gardeners who has money or make profit in the garden have expensive and high-tech tools.
In gardening, the basic tools that a gardener use is a gardening equipment for cultivating. The tools for cultivating are hand held tools and power tools. These hand tools are spading forks, rakes, shovels, trowels, diggers,wheel cultivator, pickax, and mattock. These tools can get the garden ready for planting. The power tools can get your work done in a jiffy and cutting out the hard labor in gardening. But the power tools are very expensive. The most essential power tool that is used in gardening is the tiller. The tiller breaks up the ground and get the garden ready for planting. Not only that, it chops up any debris and help mix in the fertilizer and compost. Other power tools that are very popular include chippers and garden shredders. Because these tools are expensive and maybe you cannot afford it, you can rent power tools like tiller.
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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 |
Fertilization is a major factor in maintaining and achieving a terrific lawn and garden. Make sure that you are familiar with the fertilization process because it can be tricky. To help you by, here are some do’s and don’ts of fertilization:
DO’S
* Deeply water the lawn, giving the grass enough water to moisten the soil to the grass roots’ deepth. This will help in the development of deep roots hat will aid the grass to resist disease, drought stress and insect damage.
* Mow the grass according to the grass’ growth rate. Mow the grass when the grass reaches the height that would produce the desired height if 1/3rd of the blade was removed.
* Plant new grass at the start of grass growing season. New cool season grass seed should be planted when summer is over and new warm season grass should be planted in late summer to early fall.
* Regularly check your lawn and garden for presence of pests. This means getting down on your hands and knees, part the turf and pull the thatch. Inspect the stems and leaves and look for insect damage, infestation, discoloration and any obvious sign of disease.
* Water the grass in the morning when water pressure is high, temperatures are cooler and winds are lower. This will allow water to percolate into the soil, and the excess will dry off quickly when temperatures and wind speeds rise.
* Start the season’s fertilization program with a complete fertilizer (15-5-10, 16-4-8, or 12-4-8). These 4:1:2 or 3:1:2 analyses provide grass with complete nutrition including phosphorous for stem and rhizome development, nitrogen for growth, and potassium for root growth and disease resistance.
* If you have centipedes you should use the 15-0-15 unless soil analysis suggests otherwise.
* Fertilize the grass at the right time of the year for the grass that is growing which is at the beginning of its growth cycle.
DON’TS
* Never water at night because evening hours are prime fungus growing hours. The grass needs the heat of the sun in order to control disease.
* Mow the lawn when needed and definitely when it is needed.
* Only treat a pest problem that actually exists. Pesticides can cause a lot of damage when they are used unnecessarily.
* Warm season grass will not need fertilizer to go dormant; cool season grass will not need fertilizer in the summer.
* Planting cool season grass seed in the spring causes the seedlings to be exposed to fusarium blight and other various disease pathogens.
* Watering the lawn with lightly frequented watering should only be done with new grass, otherwise the grass will grow with shallow roots and be more susceptible to disease, drought, and insect damage/fungus.
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Thursday, September 17th, 2009 |
We all make mistakes, even the experts and professionals. The following are some gardening pitfalls and its solution.
1. Pitfall: Planting too close to a wall means that there’s just a little air circulation between the plant and the wall and fungal diseases can run rampant.
Solution: Allow at least a few feet between a wall and your plants for good air circulation. Make sure to take the mature size of the plant into consideration.
2. Pitfall: Planting in straight lines (or curved lines, for that matter) isn’t a mistake per se, but very often one plant–or whatever reason–doesn’t perform the same as others. One plant may grow at a slower or faster rate than others in the line and in some cases die outright, which ruins the entire planting scheme. Finding a replacement plant of the same size as the others can be difficult if not impossible.
Solution: f you plan on planting five plants in a line, then buy six or seven plants at the same time, and stick the extras somewhere else in your landscape. Then, if something goes awry with one of the plants in the line, you can dig up one of the reserve plants to replace the one that died.
3. Pitfall: Planting on a slope can be a problem primarily because water tends to quickly run off the slope before it has a chance to seep into the soil. That can lead to erosion on steep slopes. It also means that whatever is planted on the slope may not get enough water.
Solution: Regardless of what you’re planting, create a level planting area. For example, James planted a young dogwood, raising the low side of the slope with soil so that the tree is actually growing on a level surface. If you are forced to plant on a steep slope, then chances are you’ll be better off to actually create terraces and stair-step the planting area. This requires a lot of digging and very often constructing retaining walls, which means a lot of work.
4. Pitfall: Planting on easements, which are areas of your property owned by the city, can create problems. Easements are areas of your property that extend out from both sides of the property line a few feet and very often run the entire property line. To find out where the easements are on your property, check your plat, title or abstract. Easements are there because there’s some sort of gas, water or power line below the ground. Although it might be legal to plant on an easement, if the city should need access to the easement to repair lines, it has no responsibility for your plants.
Solution: Don’t plant anything on an easement (unless you don’t mind losing the plants), and don’t place a shed or other garden building, especially one that’s built on a cement slab. Such a structure is not legal in most cities, and you might have to move the building and slab if you ever decide to sell your house. It’s best not to plant trees below power lines, because the power company contractors have the authority to trim them back.
5. Pitfall: String trimmers are a threat to trees and shrubs (especially young ones), and also to turf (especially if the grass is cut too short). Accidental hits by the string leads to unsightly dieback around trees, borders and other areas that are routinely trimmed.
Solution: Try to trim the grass roughly the same height as you cut the lawn to create a cleaner look and avoid nicking tree trunks.
6. Pitfall: Kids can litter the lawn with all sorts of things by the end of a summer day. If left on the grass for more than a day, especially in hot weather, these items can damage the lawn, sometimes permanently.
Solution: Try to remove toys and other items from the lawn as quickly as possible.
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Saturday, September 12th, 2009 |
Mulches are natural organic and inorganic materials that are used to cover the soil in the garden. The application of this material to the garden soil is called mulching with the main purpose of protecting the soil. Other advantages of mulching are better moisture retention, lesser strain on the soil during heavy rain and most of all, it prevents weeds from increasing fast so you will have a neater garden longer.
There are two categories of mulch, the organic and natural mulch and the inorganic mulch. There are many kinds of mulches that are readily available and all you have to do is to apply them to your garden. Organic mulches, as the name suggests are natural and come from plants which will decompose over time. As these organic mulches decompose, they release nutrients to the soil thus fertilizing it. They boost the soil’s ability to retain drinking water, which makes it much more absorbent and porous, which aids roots growth. Natural and organic mulches contain garden
compost, bark, bark chips, leaf mildew, grass clippings, straw and hay. Inorganic mulches, on the other hand, do not decompose. They mainly give protection to the soil and add beauty to the garden. Inorganic mulches last a long time because they do not decompose.
Kinds of Organic Mulch
Leaves Leaves are the most common, popularly used mulch and are freely accessible. You can collect the fallen leaves in your garden and put them around the trees and other plants. Once the leaves decompose, they give the soil an absorbent porous structure. Dry leaves are used like a winter season protection to shield plants from freezing. These are typically removed when spring arrives.
Grass clippings Grass clippings are collected whenever you mow your lawn. Grass clippings can be unaesthetic to look so you can put them in your vegetable garden instead where physical appearance is not a problem. Some gardeners mix in tree leaves or rough compost to prevent them from being compressed into a hard mat and prevent smelly putrefaction throughout decomposition. Grass clipping mulch should be used immediately or dried extensively to avoid rotting and excessive warmth generation. There’re good to operate with because they spread effortlessly all-around even compact vegetation due to their great texture. Fresh green grass clippings contain high nitrate and when used as mulch enrich the soil with it.
Peat Moss Peat moss or sphagnum peat mulch is very efficient to use because of its longevity and comfort. It lowers the Ph degree from the soil surface area and is also valuable for acid-loving plants such as rhododendrons and blueberries.
Bark Chips Bark chips and composted bark mulch is a mulch that supplies an attractive complete into the garden. It requires more time to decompose than grass or leaves and may last for about 1 to 3 several years based upon the size of the chips. They can be best being used all over trees, shrubs and perennial gardens. Spread the mulch an inch or two from the trunk of a tree.
Wood Chips When using wood chips, layer at least two to four inches of it. For those who use clean wood chips, these are most valuable when mixed with a lot of leaves. There are free wood chips when street trees are being removed. Equivalent to bark chips, they’re applied most usually below trees and shrubs. There’re also routinely utilized to mulch trails on account of their simple availability and small expense.
There are many varieties of inorganic mulch. These can be slate, stones, brick chips, plastic and rubber. Rock and gravel are popular in landscaping and offers good soil protection. Warmth retained by rocks also lend warmth to your soil which is fantastic for developing. Plastic mulch is used with plastic sheets, with cutaways for the plants to expand. Rubber mulch is created from recycled rubber tires.
Mulches in some cases can give a nice growing medium for bacteria and fungi to grow which can cause havoc to your soil. Mulches come in many shapes, sizes and materials and all of them can give your garden a boost, you just have to discover the right one that suits your needs.
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