Archive for Garden Landscaping
March 31, 2009 at 4:01 pm · Filed under Lawn, Garden Landscaping
Taking care of a yard is a year round job for some. For those who get a brief break due to snow on the ground, there are still some things you might want to study up on before Spring.
The first thing to keep in mind is that Spring isn’t the only, and not always the best time to do prep work. If you need to re-seed bare patches, just before the first snowfall of the year is a good time to start. The seeds will get worked into the soil by the weight of the snow and lay dormant for Winter.
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March 26, 2009 at 8:55 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping, General
One of the great things about landscape design is the flexibility it offers. You can make it very simple and get your feet wet so to speak. Later, you can re-do the area, or do another area in a more complex design as you gain more knowledge. It’s easy to get started, but you can never run out of things to try. Master designers who have been at the practice for years are still learning and experimenting!
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March 26, 2009 at 8:53 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping, General
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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March 24, 2009 at 12:58 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping, Roses
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.
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March 19, 2009 at 5:18 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping, General
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.
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March 18, 2009 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Planting, Garden Landscaping, General
Most flowers, and some non-flowering plants, can be divided into annuals, perennials and biennials. Biennials bloom only every other year. Perennials will lose their flowers, but then come right back the following year - often for many, many years. Annuals, by contrast, bloom one year and never again, typically dying out entirely.
As a result, annuals have to be freshly planted every year - hence the name. But as a kind of reward, they offer gardeners and landscapers the widest array possible of stunning color and style choices. Annuals are the brightest, the most intense and among the most beautiful flowers available.
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February 17, 2009 at 11:31 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping
Keeping destructive insects to a minimum is now easier than ever. Thanks to innovative biologists and chemists, there are a dozen safe ways to control damaging insects.
The first step is to correctly identify what kind of insects you have or are likely to get. There are thousands of common species, but typically only a handful do most of the harm in any given area. These can often be identified in one or more of three ways.
You can check the leaves of your plants, flowers and shrubs and match them against photos you can find online. If you search for information about the specific plants you’re worried about you’ll quickly find the most common pests. Accompanying that information is frequently a photo you can use for comparison.
Many times, though, insects on flowers, trees, grass and other plants are hidden. In that case you can rely on a guess and apply control methods based on the common invasive species. Aphids frequently infest rose bushes, for example, and can be difficult to spot. Grass often has grub infestations that could only be visually detected by careful inspection underneath the soil.
Another method is to examine the effects.
If you find large, roughly round, brown spots on grass - especially in late Spring through Summer - you probably have a Japanese Beetle grub problem. There can be other causes, double check your guess by the previously listed methods. If you find that patches of grass pull away easily from the soil like carpet that has come loose from its tacks, you probably have a grub problem.
Once you identify the species that is causing the problem, eliminating it is usually safe, inexpensive and easy using modern control methods. That doesn’t necessarily mean purchasing and spraying large areas with chemicals, though many today are designed to be perfectly safe for humans and the environment.
Instead of using grub killing fertilizer or insecticide, for example, you can use biological control methods. These are becoming more popular and more effective all the time. A substance called ‘milky spores’ can be a very cost effective way to control grubs in lawns.
Initially biological control may be more costly than a bag of grub insecticide. A 30lb bag of grub killer may cost $10 and last two years where a 1-liter bottle of milky spores may be $30 or more, but it lasts for 10 years. The substance works well because it actually contains living organisms that invade the grub larvae and interrupts their growth cycle. In effect, you have one organism killing another. But the spores do no harm to your lawn, only to the grub.
There are many other biological control methods, each tailored to attack a specific problem. They have to be, since organisms are fairly particular about what insects they will invade and when. But you’ll find them safe, cost effective and frequently longer lasting than chemical methods.
You can always fall back onto chemical insecticides when needed, too. Modern insecticides have become very sophisticated, frequently decaying from the environment safely and quickly into harmless byproducts. At the same time, they do the job before fading away.
February 17, 2009 at 11:27 pm · Filed under Garden Landscaping
Knowing which types of plant thrive best in shade or full sun is essential to a healthy garden. Most trees are very happy to soak up as much sunlight as is available. Cedars, pines, tamarack and many more all do very well. Fruit trees, especially citrus, can take 8 hours or more of full, hot sun every day for months and bloom like crazy. But, flowers vary.
‘Full sun’ means 6 or more hours per day of direct sunlight. Since it’s direct, any energy not taken by the atmosphere is delivered right to the plant. That means plenty of energy for photosynthesis, producing very green leaves and ample flowering - provided the plant doesn’t get so much light it burns and it has sufficient water.
Foxgloves, for example, do well in partial shade, but they also thrive very well in full sun. Their tall stalks will be lined with flowers when the soil is warm and they get adequate water. A completely different looking plant, yarrow, also does very well in full sun. Resembling a fern, with small white flowers, they can take as much sun as they can get.
Since there’s so much sun available in such areas, it’s important to keep the soil at an appropriate level of moisture and well fed. Plants need a certain amount of nitrogen and phosphorous, which they can not get sometimes from the poor soils found in many places around the country.
Keeping plants well supplied with nutrients, however, is easy even under very sunny conditions. For small, potted plants a small amount of liquid fertilizer is enough. How much depends on the plant and the pot, follow the directions. For moderate to large-sized gardens a few bags of inexpensive dry or moist fertilizer is a good idea.
Manure based fertilizer works well for large gardens. It typically comes in 30lb to 50lb bags, and can simply be shaken over the soil right out of the bag or from a dispenser. Keeping the ground moist, but not wet, at least every other day is important for most flowering plants.
Cacti, of course, and other drought tolerant plants can go long periods on very little water. Their unique structures allow them to retain moisture internally, with very little loss through the leaf, much better than irises or pansies or foxgloves and other common flowering plants.
Yarrow can tolerate low levels of water well, as does aloe and verbena. Several types of vine are very drought tolerant, thriving on lots of sun and little water. Bougainvillea and wisteria are two examples. Many shrubs get all the water they need from the soil, provided you don’t live in the desert or where it’s too rocky or sandy. Those types of soil don’t retain water efficiently, which can be an advantage in some circumstances.
Then, of course, citrus trees, walnuts, pines, tamarack and others will do very well in dry soil. Most people tend to overwater their orange trees, for example, especially those in big pots. Pick the right kind of plant for your soil and amount of sun and you’re well on your way to a beautiful landscape.
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