Enhance Your Garden with Beautiful Edging
By admin | November 27, 2008
Adding edging around your garden or landscape is as important as the garden itself. The edging frames your garden much like a picture frame. A picture can be interesting and beautiful but it needs a frame to enhance its appearance, so it is with your garden.
There are various types of garden edgings. Many people prefer to use something heavy and permanent, like a low brick wall, or rocks set together with mortar. However, not everyone is physically capable of creating such a structure.
Bricks set freely can be just as effective. They can be placed in a simple line, end to end, or stacked in a double row, with gaps in between. They can also be set diagonally, leaning against each other for support.
Another attractive alternative is to decorate short lengths of board with old tiles. Tiles can often be purchased very cheaply from re-recycling places. Glue your choice of tile along the board using outdoor glue. On each end of the board, tack a peg with one end pointed. This will be used to push into the soil to support your board and keep it off the ground.
Bush rocks can also be used to give your garden that finished look. They need not be too big, unless you have plenty of muscle or help. You may be able to gather rocks from a friend’s farm, or from the bush if that is legal in your area. Otherwise, garden suppliers usually have plenty to choose from.
How about flowering plants or shrubbery to create a living border. Choose a plant that will be suitable for your climate and conditions. The pretty pink of alpine phlox is an attractive border and the plants can be divided and planted again and again. Many other plants can be propagated in this way, thus reducing the initial costs. Of course, your border will take a little more time to get established than if you bought all the necessary plants at once.
Gazanias are another hardy border plant that can be divided many times. Bulbs might seem like a good choice too, but remember that they will die down and leave your borders looking messy for ages. In addition, they remain dormant for at least six months, so if you plant anything else there you risk damaging the bulbs. Of course, you can dig them up and replace them with something else, but you may prefer a more permanent border edge to save on the workload.
If you have a larger garden, comfrey is a plant to consider using for an edging plant. Its thick growth habit will prevent any grasses intruding into the garden, and the leaves can be pulled for excellent mulch around roses or other plants. It has delightful, dainty flowers in season too. However, a small garden could be overwhelmed by more than one comfrey plant.
In a small garden attractive annuals like sweet alice, pansies, violas or petunias make great borders. For something a bit different, try an herb border. Then you can go out and pick your herbs any time you want. Chives have a crisp green color that would make your garden sparkle while strawberries will entice the kids out into the fresh air to have a healthy snack.
Some people prefer to simply bevel an edge around their garden with the shovel. This is a good option if your lawn has the sort of grass with runners, like kikuyu. Those runners can be kept under control by chopping them off every so often with the edge of the shovel.
Whatever option you choose, it will enhance your garden to have a beautiful edging. For more ideas on creating a border for your garden, visit the links at the bottom of the page.
For more information, visit these sites: The Garden Info Center and The Garden Design Guide
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Fall Gardening Tips
By admin | November 21, 2008
Fall is a great time to be outdoors in the garden, the temperatures are perfect and the colors can be amazing. If you’re looking for projects which will extend the gardening season and give you a reason to be outside, fear not, there’s still plenty to do.
As the season moves along, perennials and annuals should be deadheaded, even right though the early fall months. Further along, towards late fall, these plants need to be cut back to the ground as they begin to die back. Though this can wait until spring I like to do it in the late fall, there are too many other projects to worry about in the spring. Late fall is the ideal time to cut back your perennial garden as some perennials, though finished blooming, have great fall colors. Let them stand until the end of the season. Some, such as Balloon Flower and Astilbe turn beautiful shades of yellow and gold. Others retain their striking form and develop interesting seed heads, such as black eyed Susan and Sedum “Autumn Joy”.
As the annuals die or begin to look a bit spent, remove them and add them to your compost pile. There a few fall blooming plants that you can replace them with . Aster and chrysanthemum are the most common. They can add vibrant color to your garden up until late November.
Avoid pruning shrubs too late into the season, this can often encourage new growth which may be susceptible to winter kill if it did not have tine harden off. After deciduous shrubs become dormant in the winter pruning is fine for general shaping.
Examine your garden, are there any shrubs which are outgrowing their allotted space? Fall is a great time for transplanting shrubs. The cooler weather results in less stress for a newly transplanted shrub. There’s generally more rain in the fall as well which also helps reduce stress. Plant new shrubs during the fall for the same reasons. Especially since you may be able to find great deals during late season sales at your local nursery. Be sure to stake new trees and shrubs which may vulnerable during winter snows.
Plant bulbs before the ground freezes, they’re are a great way to add early spring color to the garden. Bulbs are also great way to naturalize your landscape. Daffodils, scilla, and bluebells are wonderful when planted beneath a large shade tree. Tulips and hyacinths are better suited to for formal settings such as a perennial border.
After the ground is frozen, cover plants which require winter protection with hay or evergreen branches, especially in areas that are cold but have little snow. Perennials will benefit from winter protection.
Though things seem to be winding down as the winter approaches, a quick walk through the garden will reveal a number of project still to be done.
R Birch is the publisher of http://www.gardenlistings.com For information on all kinds of garden projects visit http://www.gardenlistings.com/Resources.htm
Tags: garden design, Garden Guides, gardening, landscapingTop Tip for a Perfect Garden Makeover
By admin | June 11, 2008
Without a doubt, the most important thing to get right when planning any future garden makeover project is to set clear objectives.
Trying to makeover a garden without clear objectives is a bit like building a house without a plan. Only a fool would undertake to build anything without a clear idea of what or how it will all look when completed.
Your objectives should include some or all of the following:
1. Decide what you want to include in your new garden
2. Know what you want to get rid of/or disguise in your garden - eg, that ugly rear fence needs cloaking or finally ridding yourself of that terrible shed, which blocks all your light.
3. Whether you want to increase the time you’re going to spend actually working in your garden, or you want to create a garden where you work less and relax more (the low maintenance garden)
All too often I come across unfinished garden makeover projects. You’ve probably seen them in your own neighbourhood.
Gardens dominated by unfinished patios complete with faded blue tarpaulin; pathways leading to nowhere; large mounds of compacted soil where eventually ‘the lawn will be’, and so on.
The standing joke at every year’s barbeques is when will they get around to finishing it.
Of course there’s nothing funny about unfinished garden projects. There’s nothing relaxing or inspirational arriving home every day from work to be greeted by mounds of earth, overgrown weeds and building materials strewn everywhere.
An unfinished garden isn’t the only consequence of poor planning. It also invariably represents foolhardy spending.
Remember that Saturday morning trip to the garden centre where you loaded your trolley sky-high will all sorts of plants and shrubs that you really have no idea about? Then grabbed a second trolley for those irresistible ‘buy two get one free’ offers? And finally on the way out you treated yourself to an early Christmas present with that third trolley for that special Mediterranean thingy, which you thought would look great on the new patio.
When finally you reach the checkout your bill is something resembling the Third World Debt, but nevertheless you smile through it all telling yourselves it’ll all be worth it in the end.
Outside in the car park you cram and slam all your purchases into your car breaking off branches, leaves and stems as you try and squeeze it all into an impossibly small space.
Back at home you start working on planting them all up, but you’ve failed to realise how hard the ground is. Not to mention you’ve hurt your back lifting that hypera-something out of the car.
So it’s a quick tea-break and then you get caught up with the children/telly/favourite book etc and before you know it the weekends gone and all your new purchases will just have to sit it out in their pots until time allows.
Unfortunately next weekend you don’t have the time so you postpone planting for another week and on it goes until your shrubs are well and truly pot-bound and overgrown with all sorts of undesirable pests and start to die off.
Trust me. If you haven’t already been there, you soon will. Unless of course you take a tip from top gardeners as to how they plan and create their gardens.
Next time when you look at a beautiful garden remember that it’s about 1% creativity and inspiration - the rest is down to great planning.
So when deciding on any makeover, regardless of how small - begin by setting your objectives.
Decide what you want from your new garden and then agree how much you’re willing to spend.
Get this part right and you’re far less likely to end up with something unwanted, unfinished and unloved.
Paul Power is the author of Starting Your Own Gardening Business and Planning and Creating Your First Garden. He runs a number of workshop based gardening courses throughout the year and for those who cannot attend in person can take a E-course. Visit his online Top Tips for Gardener’s Website at http://paulpowergardener.blogspot.com.
Tags: garden design, gardening tips, top tips for gardeners