Scrubs and the Great Outdoors

My favorite combination for gardening is  kneepads, scrubs and a sun hat. What do you wear when you’re working outside that is not too expensive?

Better Homes and Gardens Magazine recommends several “deer resistant” good looking plants.

Bee Balm

Bee Balm is a great choice.  It is a good looking perennial that attracts pollinators including some interesting birds. It prefers full sun and well-drained soil.

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If you have the sun for it, Golden Marguerites are another great option. They are also perennials and they have beautiful yellow which complement the red Bee Balm.  They have a strong smell, which may be what keeps the deer from snacking too often.

Changing seasons means more work for the enthusiastic “yard artist”- but the work doesn’t have to be expensive. Of course, we all want our backyard and front lawns to be as beautiful and as organic and lively as possible. For eager gardeners and “yard artists” the two spaces, in front of the house as well as the back part, constitute “spaces of creativity”.

“Spaces of creativity” means the areas are subject to beautification of the passionate landscape artist . Again, you won’t have to spend bucket loads of cash to make your home the centerpiece in a wonderful and awe-inspiring lawn and yard.

Here are some recommendations to begin your do-it-yourself landscape improvement and beautification projects:

Minimalism works just as well

Some people try to fit a very small budget to improve and beautify a large area. Usually, the desired “effects” are not achieved because there was simply not enough material to go around. Remember that landscaping is an art more than a science. You have science for measurements, but it is your artistic feel of the place that would be the reckoning element in the end.

If you think your budget would not be able to beautify the whole space, choose only one particular space. For example, if you want to make the front of your lawn to be Zen-like (contrasting dark and light colors, minimal elements of wood, metal and earth), then choose the best possible spot first, draw the finite parameters and begin your work. You don’t have to make the whole front of your house Zen-like, at least for now.

Never sacrifice quality

Quality means durability- and you need your backyard to be durable. You want aesthetically pleasing landscape improvements to last for at least a few months, or even a year. You can achieve this by investing in quality materials. Between authentic spray paint and imitation spray paints, you know which to choose.

Proper lighting equates with beauty

Never underestimate the power of proper, systematic lighting. A small humble garden can appear larger than life with the right lighting system. If you don’t have the budget to purchase, for instance, a Malibu lighting scheme, then create your own.

It’s not impossible to make your own lighting system. One way to go about this is either by reading or watching the right television shows on landscaping. You simply need ideas- the rest will flow naturally once you have studied your yard’s landscape. Remember, experts became experts through endless experimentation and hard work.

Let your creativity reign when you are designing your own lighting scheme. There are certain elements that are emphasized when you design a lighting system- lines, color depth and other aesthetic elements. Experiment with the type of lighting. Shadows and intensity of light are also important considerations when lighting up your backyard.

Most readily available lighting systems are made of metal, which allows for a sense of permanence in the landscape. Also, these ready-made lighting schemes are easier to install; however, you still have to choose carefully, because some lighting schemes look nice when on the shelf, but look horrible when installed because it clashes with everything else.

Shrub roses are one of these lively, whole-year bloomers. If you want something to provide a bright stream of colors everyday, but doesn’t need intensive cultivation or care on a daily basis, then planting shrub roses is the best choice for you.

Advantages of using shrub roses

1. Shrub roses grow easily in any type of environment. Nearly all plants thrive with just a bit of sunshine and water. Shrub roses are no exception; you simply have to find a nice, sunny spot in the garden, fill a deep hole with rich soil and plant the shrub rose.
2. Shrub roses thrive just as well when you plant other flowers besides them; this is good news for those who would like to balance colors by planting other perennials.

Some things to remember

Shrub roses aren’t picky plants, but the following should be observed for best results in your landscaping experiments.

1. You don’t have to apply fertilizer regularly either; time-released fertilizers are adequate to sustain the needs of your shrub roses. Place adequate fertilizer in the beginning of the season and you wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. You can then devote your time to more important things.

2. Unlike other flowers, shrub roses simply love the hot sun. More sun means healthier, livelier roses blooming all year round.

3.Mulching is especially important for the long term maintenance of shrub roses. For those who don’t know yet, mulching retains the moisture in the soil and allows a plant’s feeder roots to flourish.

What to look for

For busy homeowners, finding the right kind of shrub roses is vital- because you want a shrub rose that is truly a low-lying dwarf whose branches spread amply across. Shrub roses provided what landscaper artists call a “groundcover effect”, where the ground is completely hidden from view by the right kind of plants.

To experiment with the “groundcover effect”, you can plant other shrubs alongside your rose shrub; just make sure that the other shrubs will not be hostile to the rose shrubs. There should be a kind of symbiotic relationship between different shrub types planted in the same strip of land.

Characteristics

The roses that bloom in rose shrubs come in a variety of colors, from salmon to peach to dark blue ones. But aside from the flowers, you would want shrubs that have shiny, “moist” leaves that would glitter beautifully in the midday sun.

How big is a rose shrub, anyway? The usual dimensions are as follows: vertically, rose shrubs grown only up to 1 ½ feet. Upon maturation, it then spreads its low-lying branches across 3 feet of space. This is how low these dwarf shrubs are; imagine having five or ten of them in a row. With ten, you already have 30 feet of barren land covered!

Read more about Rose Gardneing …

Container Gardening is the art of growing different kinds of plants exclusively in pots and window boxes instead of planting them in the ground. This process is useful when you live in places where soil cannot be used for gardening and you really want some foliage in your environment.

Container gardens have some advantages over the traditional process of gardening. It lowers the risk of soil-borne disease. It virtually eliminates wee problems and having mobile plants means that you can easily control the factors that will enable your plants to flourish, such as water, sunlight and temperature.

Garden containers usually range from simple pots, teacups to complex automatic watering irrigation systems. You can even use organic materials for containers to gain the complete organic container gardening experience.

They are very convenient because you can place them almost anywhere you want. You could place them in little gardens, windowsills, porches, rooftops and balconies.

Vegetable Container Garden

The most important thing about growing vegetables in containers is your choice of crops. Almost any kind of vegetable that can survive in your typical backyard can also survive in a container garden. You can choose from tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, green onions, beans, lettuce, squash, radishes and parsley. Choosing the right kind of vegetable for your environment will also yield a good harvest for you.

Container Flower Garden

Living in the city should not deter you from enjoying fresh flowers everyday. Thanks to container flower gardening , you could have fresh flowers waiting for you each morning in your apartment balcony, rooftop or windows.

First thing you should do is to determine the location of your flower garden. Then you can estimate the number of containers that you might possibly need.

After that, you could go to a hardware store to purchase the containers. You could have a uniform set of containers and you could also mix and match to give it a more fun look. You can also pick up the other necessary items for your garden.

When you have everything you need, you can start working on your garden. Use your imagination to create vibrant and breathtaking displays of your flowers.

Container Herb Garden

If you are an aspiring cook and you want to have fresh spices ready at your beck and call, you need a container garden that can grow those herbs for you.

Here are some tips that could be useful for a successful herb garden:

1. Look for a spot in your home that will get at least 4 hours of direct sunlight each day. There are alternative methods such as using fluorescent lights you could use if the sunlight thing deems impossible.

2. Use the largest containers that you can possible use in your home because herbs will grow better if their roots have more space. Constricting them to a small space might be a hindrance to their growth.

3. Harvest regularly even if you don’t need the herbs as of the moment. This will enable your plant to grow new, tender shoots all the time.

And if you are looking for the best containers, planters and window boxes online, you should go check out Windowbox.com

You’ve probably seen a couple state gardens and many other beautifully designed gardens in books and on TV. Well, you too can have the perfect garden that you can enjoy for many years with basic garden design principles.

If you are thinking of a home garden design but don’t know where to start, get to know the basic elements of garden design . First of all, you need to exercise your gardening skills. Most of us who have just started gardening don’t have any formal design planned. However, we soon have the urge to make our gardens even more enjoyable to be in. Don’t hold back from this urge, as anyone can learn how to accomplish a home garden design.

The first garden design element you need to consider is style. Just like a wardrobe or interior design, gardens should also have a distinct personality. Start by considering having either a formal or informal look. Think about the location of your garden, design of your home and personal tastes.

Formal gardens remind of a mini Versailles, complete with complex boxwood knot gardens and symmetrical walkways. On the other hand, informal gardens remind of relaxed backyards of country cottages, teeming with tumbling roses and a collage of perennials. Many modern gardens have a mix of formal and informal elements.

Another garden design element you should consider is the element of line. This means figuring out how you’d like a person to view and travel through your garden. Paths can be used to pull together the look of your garden. The perfect garden usually has that sense of art form. Mild, slow curves and horizontal lines encourage a more calm feeling, while vertical lines or jagged diagonals encourage a more upbeat feeling. Lines you can use are paths, edges, fences or walls. You may use materials like brick and flat stones for pathways.

Scale and form are also important garden design elements . Scale is about relating shapes and sizes to each other. Make sure you balance small plants, large plants and pathways in a space so that there are no “awkward corners.” Form is used to define and sculpt the garden as a whole. Consider how plants grow either in a mass or individually and their distinct shape. They can be stringy, pointy, or puffy, and can affect the whole look of the garden.

Gardening is now not just about growing plants. With garden design, lighting is just as important. Lighting can either be functional, atmospheric or both. Lighting can enhance the look of your entire garden. First, consider practical lighting. You may want to incorporate floodlights and other lighting near pathways and doors. Use special lighting under distinctive trees or hang lanterns to highlight their natural form. Or, spread lighting fixtures around the garden to illuminate it at night and make it look like a “moonlit garden.” Moreover, you may use lighting to emphasize a garden feature such as a sculpture or pond. For instance, you may direct light toward a sculpture to play with light and shadow on the undulating surfaces.

Finally, use decorations for your home garden design . Use them to enhance a garden’s theme or as a conversation piece for your guests. Use urns, fountains, bird feeds, gnomes or flags. And there you have it, garden design tips for your perfect garden!

Growing tomatoes isn’t as complicated as it might seem. Before you learn how to grow tomato plants, it’s best to know what tomatoes are. You may then start planting those tomato seeds and reap the benefits!

Whenever summer comes, many think of fresh garden vegetables , especially tomatoes. You’ve probably wondered how you can harvest your own during these times. Tomatoes have been in the American diet for more than a hundred years, and today they are being grown each summer. There are more than four thousand kinds of tomatoes. You’ll find very small grape tomatoes as well as super sized varieties that weigh more than 3 pounds!

Tomatoes are actually fruits, since they have seeds. You can get them in many different sizes as mentioned earlier. However, you may want to know that the size and variety of a tomato often determine the tomato’s purpose. For instance, cherry and grape tomatoes, which are tiny in size, are often used for fresh salads, and larger plum varieties are usually used for sauces and canning. Medium to large varieties are consider all-purpose “vegetables.”

How To Grow Tomatoes

Now that you know a bit about these vegetable-like fruits, you can now start selecting and growing tomatoes. For a start, you can simply buy and grow tomato plants instead of starting from scratch. Consider visiting greenhouses and better garden centers. Make sure you select healthy plants with no speckling or yellowing. Or, check the tag, as there are certain codes that indicate resistance to disease: A - Alternaria leaf spot; FF - Race 1 & Race 2 Fusarium; F - Fusarium wilt; T - Tobacco mosaic virus; L - Septoria leaf spot; V - Verticilium wilt; N – Nematodes.

In general tomatoes need lots of sun . When it comes to soil, almost any kind will work. Many experienced gardeners like to add compost and manure to very damp soil as preparation. They also like to use containers, as this way it is very easy to regulate the quality of the soil from time to time. Uniform watering is advised if you want good fruit. Watering can also help put off blossom end-rot, leaf-end roll, and cat-facing. Watering is vital any case.

Sow the tomato plants in the soil about 2 to 3 feet apart from each other. Run a pole through over the length of your row and string them up. Once the plants grow bigger, they will have to be staked so that they’ll be able to carry the growing fruits. Another way to grow tomato plants is to grow them upside down.

Select a sunny location indoors and hang the tomato plant using a hook and string or by tying it around a beam. Using a string, knot a container with a handle where your upside-down milk bottle will stay. Connect it to the ceiling. Cut of the base of the large plastic milk bottle and get rid of the lid. Take the plant and position it upside down in the bottle so that it slightly sticks out of the pouring hole. Place compost and soil in the milk bottle and water it.

During harvesting, pick tomatoes when they have fully colored for good quality. If you take them when they are still pink, you can ripen them at room temperature. Store ripened fruits in the refrigerator.

You don’t have to put a cap on your passion for gardening just because it’s winter. There are a lot of winter gardening activities that you can perform even in the coldest of days. Here are some great tips for you to consider.

#1- Start preparing in autumn

Winter gardens should be prepared as early as autumn. You have to start cleaning and collecting dried leaves and twigs from your outdoor garden to prevent the kind of uncontrolled rotting that can spread disease. Once this is done, find out which plants should be taken in. Not every plant will lie dormant to live again in spring. These non winter plants are best kept indoors.

#2- Take care of your evergreens

You shouldn’t sulk indoors when there are always winter trees and plants to take care of. Gently remove accumulated snow and damaged leaves and branches on your outdoor plants. If the soil is not frozen, make sure that you give your winter plants regular amounts of water.

#3- Grow autumn flowers

You might have a hard time looking for a winter flower . There are however some flowers that tend to grow best in autumn way into December especially if you take good care of them indoors. Consider planting asters and mums in autumn. Like every other garden plant, they would need water and fertilizer even on cold days.

#4- Plant in winter

You might also want to engage in some winter planting of flowers . Tulips, lilies and daffodils can be planted in autumn and winter so that they can come out in full bloom by the end of winter which is just in time for spring.

#5- Plant vegetables

If flowers and potted plants aren’t appealing to you, there are always a number of winter vegetables to plant. The severity of winter in your particular region however should determine the types of winter plants that you can put in your garden. Plants like carrots, broccoli, beets and corn can withstand mild frost. Other hardier winter vegetables like garlic, radishes and onions can survive medium frost. If the winter season is particularly harsh, you can use a frame or a row cover to protect your plants.

#6- Start an indoor garden

You can do all your winter gardening indoors . You can have a small window garden of herbs and other indoor plants. The best thing about indoor gardens is that they can be protected from the cold while at the same time still have access to sunlight.

#7- Prepare for the next season

You don’t have to settle for just winter planting as your only garden activity in the winter. This season is the best time for composting and mulching. You can even store compost for you to use in spring. If you don’t have any winter plants to care for, you can also simply clean and sharpen your gardening tools in time for spring gardening.

Winter is indeed a wonderful time for gardeners. With a little patience, knowledge and creativity, you can enjoy great winter planting session and other winter gardening activities.

A well-kept bamboo garden in your property can improve the appearance of your home. Bamboo plants however aren’t always quite welcome in many gardens. You should know though that there are a couple of great advantages to bamboo growing. There are also ways to ensure that you will enjoy taking care of your plants.

Benefits of Bamboos

Bamboo has a reputation for being a functional accent. You can specifically plant it to serve as a hedge or screen for your property. While it serves this purpose, a bamboo garden can naturally enhance the appearance of your home. Plants of this type also promote feelings of inner peace, which is why they are perfect pieces to have around when you need to relax and unwind in your garden.

The best thing about bamboo plants is that it doesn’t take much to make them grow. They also tend to grow very fast. That means you don’t have to put in a lot of effort just to create a beautiful garden of bamboos.

Types

The first step to creating your garden is to choose the right type of bamboo to plant. There are two major types.

One type has roots that scatter and invade other sections of your garden, making it possible for bamboos to grow quickly in spots you never planted them on.

The other type is the clump type that tends to grow in together as a group in one section.

It is obvious that those who do not like bamboo growing probably had a terrible experience with the running or invasive type. It goes without saying that if you are a neophyte at planting bamboos, you should start with the clump type. There are different kinds of bamboo plants of this type. You can choose one according to the appearance and fitness to your region’s general climate.

Plant Needs

Although your bamboo garden can bloom with very little effort from you, your plants still need proper preparation, care and attention. The first important requirement is the soil. Although no plant will like dry soil, your bamboo plants will appreciate less moisture. The sold also needs to be rich in nutrients. That would mean that you have to regularly add compost, mulch, fertilizer and nutrient supplements. Do remember though that too much of something is always bad. If you feed a bamboo plant too much, it might just get injured.

Garden Management

You might have taken the challenge of creating a bamboo garden of the invasive type. If this is the case, you have to exert extra effort at managing your bamboo plants. You can restrict their movement across your garden and perhaps even across your neighbor’s garden by pruning its roots and body. This however, is rarely enough. A better way of controlling your plants is to add a barrier around them. You simply have to make sure that the barrier extends both up and down to 2 to 3 feet both ways.

A properly managed bamboo garden truly is a sight to behold. All you need is the right type, the right conditions and a little patience.

Learn more about Japanese Gardens !