One of the most beautiful landscape designs incorporates plants and structures to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. These colorful creatures add a wonderful natural touch to a garden and landscape. Hummingbirds, with their colorful bodies and fast-flitting flight, are a delightful contrast to the multi-colored butterflies who move slow enough to be caught by hand.
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Bonsai - How To Care For: Maple
Maples come in a variety of sub-species, but all of them make beautiful bonsai trees. Slightly more difficult to care for, they are nonetheless greatly in demand by bonsai enthusiasts. Their leafy appearance is attractive, particularly in the fall when they turn to yellow and red, just as do the full-sized maples.
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Bonsai - How To Care For: Blue Junipers
Junipers are, along with pine, another of the common species sought by beginning bonsai enthusiasts. And for good reason: it’s a beautiful species that tolerates a wide variety of conditions well.
Junipers make an especially good species for the kengai (cascade) style in which the trunk and branches grow out over the pot and below the horizontal surface.
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Looking for a colorful way to make a grand statement? If you like to putter around in the garden, then do what the nobles of the past did and surround your home with rose trees. Doing so will definitely add an air of elegance to any landscape.
Rose trees, also known as Rose Standards, differ from rose plants or rose shrubs in that they are actually cultivated to resemble a tree. A rose tree consists of a long, slender cane, 32 to 36 inches (about 1 meter) in length, void of any foliage from which an abundance of rose flowers literally burst forth. The ‘tree’ is created by making two grafts: one at the top of the central cane to support the hybrid tee, grandiflora or floribunda and one at the bottom, at the rootstock.
After thinking a bit and talking to the always lovely, helpful and now gardening Micah, I decided on a list of plant recommendations for children’s gardens. You want your little one in the garden with you and goodness knows they want to be right beside you as you kneel in the freshly turned soil, but how are you going to harness that energy and put it to good use? You certainly don’t give them a handful of carrot seeds and tell them to get planting! No, you hand them the largest seeds you can find and put them to work. Does this absolve you of the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that all is planted well? Of course not, but it does give you a little more time to plant some of the peskier garden additions.
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We have done quite a few articles on herb gardening of late and I came across this no frills guide growing herbs simply. The video is hosted by a typically assiduous Brit who shows the results of his methods over a month period.
The Washington Post have a great story on how to spruce up your back garden on a budget. Recession doesn’t necessarily mean you have to neglect your yard.
The first step is to reduce or remove vegetation. The second is to redefine the lines that frame lawns, beds, fence lines, paths and patios. Together, these measures will yield a neater, cleaner garden that works better aesthetically and bestows a profound sense of satisfaction that transcends the momentary aches and pains of the work. A tip: You don’t have to tackle the whole garden at once.
One of the most common reasons people grow their own herbs is to use them as fresh additives to food. Though easy to grow, they still require care just like any plant. But the rewards are great when it comes to harvesting time.
One of the best uses of culinary herbs is in a fine herb butter. They’re easy to prepare and the herb adds a touch that you just can’t get any other way. It can be used in a vegetable dish, smeared on baked chicken or just as a nice spread on corn on the cob. Breads benefit from a nice layer of herb butter spread on top near the end of the cooking cycle.
