RELATED ARTICLESBrighten Your Path By Installing Decorative Landscape Lighting
Landscape lighting can add a beautiful quality to any home. There are many choices available to someone who is considering it. Landscape lighting, and any outdoor lighting, can help protect a home as well as keep people from stumbling in the yard. Mainly, people purchase landscape lighting to enhance the appearance of their yard or landscaping.
Developing the Perfect Landscaping Idea
Using landscaping ideas can be an effective way to attract wildlife, such as birds, to your yard and neighborhood. Thoughtfully placing bird feeders or houses around your yard can make it an inviting environment for different types of bird species. There are several advantages to utilizing landscaping ideas to increase wildlife populations around your home.
10 Tips to Care for Your Antique Ceramics
To care for your antique ceramics you need a gentle touch and they'll last you a long time. This month we'll give you some useful tips to help you care for them.
Laying Out Your Landscape Part Two
Part Two in a Series
Park Benches - Making the Right Choice
When most people hear the words, "park bench", they envision one of two things - someone sitting at the local park feeding the pigeons or Forest Gump. No matter what your mind conjures up, park benches have been popular for a long time and will continue to be a place where people can sit down and relax while visiting the park or zoo.
Composting the Easy Way
Having an ample supply of good rich compost is the gardeners dream.
It has many uses, and all of those uses will result in nicer plants. However, composting can be time consuming and hard work. I place a reasonable value on my time, so spending hours and hours turning compost piles doesn't qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my book. Nonetheless, I do compost, but I do so on my terms.
How to Grow Chocolate Cosmos
Chocolate cosmos (Cosmos atrosanguinea) is both nose and eye candy for your garden. When it's in full bloom, mature blossoms on long, slender stems look like candy kisses on a stick and fill the late afternoon with the sweet scent of vanilla tinged chocolate. New blossoms hug the foliage of the plant, nearly concealing it with their numbers! Add to that the sweet chocolate fragrance and you end up with something very special.
The Perfect Garden Sundial
Is it possible for a garden sundial to tell perfect
time?
Tomatoes: History, Origin, Facts... or Fiction?
A tomato importer, John Nix, decided to challenge the law after scrutinizing the Tariff Act. His case relied on the fact that tomatoes were a fruit and not vegetable, therefore, it should not be subjected to the Tariff Act. Nix's objections brought the case to the Supreme Court in 1893. Although Nix had a solid case, the Supreme Court rejected the botanical facts and continued to refer to tomatoes as a vegetable.
Cannibals on the Porch
No, ghosts of the Donner Party have not started haunting my porch, nor have others of the human type I may have reference to. I am speaking of cannibals in the insect world of which there are many, but two in particuIar that make me stop and wonder. The first is waxy black with a small red hourglass on her abdomen. She dangles on a thin thread late on warm summer nights in doorways or dark corners waiting for the what ever comes her way. I am sure you guessed, it is the female black widow spider, (Latrodectus Mactans) that I am referring to, and she is no stranger to many porches and gardens around the world . Her potent neurotoxic venom is more deadly than a rattle snake, although the actual bite is less noticeable. But she is only one of the many cannibals waiting outside.
Growing Organic! Herbs, Flowers and Fruit
Creating no dig gardens on top of the soil gives you many immediate advantages over the usual garden.
It is quick and easy
It will improve the soil underneath the bed
It is weed free and organic
Chicken Soup for the Soil
Keeping Your Soil Healthy
Marsh Marigold
The bright yellow flowers of the marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) are easy to mistake for the cowslip (primula veris). Both are widespread over Europe, Asia, and the U.S. However, the cowslip is a denizen of fields and pastures while the marsh marigold inhabits sloughs and stream banks.
Gardening on a Budget
When we moved into our south Anchorage log home I had glorious plans for the 1/3 acre lot. Some previous owner had chopped down every tree counting on the neighboring woodlands for green and shade. The house was near the street with a lumpy hilly and narrow backyard that ended in the neighbor's goat pen. I was young, enthusiastic and confident that my green thumb could transform our piece of Alaska into a glorious landscaped garden. Now, 20 years later the neighborhood has evolved from birch/spruce woods to suburban sprawl and I'm still working on the transformation and enjoying every season.
Garden Room Boundaries...
The areas of your landscape can be divided into several sections and areas, which are also known as garden rooms. Garden rooms are spaces where you plant, grow, and display different ideas in gardening in various creative methods. One garden room could be a rose garden, while another could include the use of a water garden, while still another garden room in your landscape could include the use of just purple flowers. Garden rooms are your creation, and only limited to your imagination.
To create the rooms in your landscape where you can be both different and creative you need to actually create some type of walls in your gardens. The walls in your gardens are going to be grown from other larger types of plants. Living fences are one 'way' that you can create garden rooms.
Dog Days of Summer
Here are a few tips to keep your garden and a few specific problems from getting away from you during the month of August gardening. Your lawn, again usually three things or any combination of them may be the culprit(s) for making your lawn or patches of your lawn turn brown.
5 Secrets to Growing Beautiful Roses
A rose is a rose is a rose - and there are few things in the garden more beautiful. There are 5 secrets I want to share that will help you to grow healthy roses.
The Advantages of Silk Flowers
The silk flower is growing in popularity among young couples and families for many different reasons. Many event hosts or planners struggle over whether to choose fresh flowers or artificial flowers. Silk flowers are non-allergenic, will never wilt and can be maintained as keepsakes for years. There are many more positive effects in ordering or owning silk flowers.
Here is Why You Should Use Gypsum in Gardening
Do you have clay or layer of hard subsoil problems in your garden?
Then gypsum may be the answer to help loosen the soil structure. It is not considered a miracle substance and you will find that it doesn't work right away, but a 3 year program of applications should help improve the poor soil conditions. It is not expensive and is easy to spread where needed.
How to Buy a Porch Swing
The Porch Swing is enjoying a surge in popularity thanks to the latest Home & Garden trend towards building "Garden Rooms". Patio Furniture Retailers have responded by flooding the market with so many options that making a choice can be a daunting task. Here are some factors that you should consider to help you make the best Porch Swing choice for you:
