Trish – Page 12

5 Tips To Look After Your Garden In Winter

In the winter, I must admit it is very difficult to care and love your garden; this is down to the cold, wet weather which we experience. It is still possible to care for your garden in the cold months and make it look as amazing as it does the rest of the year. If you ignore your garden all through winter, then you are going to find yourself with a huge task as soon as spring comes round. Follow these 5 tips to make your garden look gorgeous all year round.

Tidy

The key to making your garden look beautiful all year around is by keeping it tidy. You shouldnâ€™t just use your garden as a dumping ground for rubbish you no longer want in the winter. Clear up any unwanted debris and mess, and take them out of the garden. This will give you a good basis to work with. You should also clear up any dead leaves and weeds which you have growing in your garden. This is a task which you should continue to do all year round, as dead leaves and growing weeds is always an unwanted sight.

Lawn

You do not actually need to do much to your lawn in the winter to care for it, the best advice I can give to you is to just leave it. You can do lots of damage to your lawn if you decide mow it in winter and walk all over. You should avoid walking on the grass when it is cold or wet and you will force the grass to stop growing. A way to keep the grass looking fresh all year around is by sprinkling grass feeder and grass seeds onto the lawn. This will cover up any patches and keep the grass growing all through the year.

You should try and remove some of the dead leaves which you have on your lawn, this way it will look pretty all through winter.

Plants

You shouldnâ€™t just assume that because it is winter you canâ€™t have no plants, there are many plants which grow better in the winter compared to the summer. You should buy some winter plant life and plant these just before winter arrives. This will keep your garden looking alive and fresh through the whole of winter. You can also get some gorgeous garden ware such as lighting and gorgeous fencing which will make your garden look even better in the dark cold evenings.

Hayley loves making her garden into a magical wonderland each year. She uses http://www.nutscene.com/ to get some beautiful garden ware for the winter.

Grow Up and Out: Setting Up Your Vertical Garden

by Trish

If you love tending to plants but you don’t have the luxury of an expansive space, gardening up is your secret weapon to satisfy your green thumb and get the most out of a small space.

Vertical gardening offers easy solutions for growing plants in a compact space. Although a relatively new concept, this gardening technique is becoming more and more popular among novice and seasoned gardeners alike due to the incredible benefits it can give. For one, it allows tending to several varieties of plants without taking up too much space. It also entails less soil preparation and digging and demands minimal water use. More importantly, unlike the traditional way of gardening (with long horizontal rows on the ground) where plants are susceptible to aggressive weed growth, pests and diseases, vertical gardening minimizes these common issues, thereby allowing plants to grow healthily.

If you’re ready to enjoy the aforesaid benefits, below is a simple guide on how you can set up your own vertical garden.

Pick a wall

Start by picking a wall for your garden. If you have a wall that has an ugly surface that you wish to cover up, this will definitely suffice for the project. Keep in mind, however, that your plant selection will depend upon the wall you pick and the amount of sunlight it receives. Thus, if you have a specific variety of plants in mind, pick a wall that can provide them with the best growing conditions.

Create a frame

The basic support system of a vertical garden wall is a panel composed of a main frame, plastic sheeting and fabric. Setting up a sturdy frame will make it easier for you to take down plants.

The best materials to use to build the main frame are PVC pipes and four way joints, as they are light and they allow water to shed properly. Avoid using metal as the additional weight of this material can put a strain on the wall, or wood, as it is susceptible to moisture and rotting. You can build the whole frame setup before hanging it on the wall or you can simply piece the parts together directly on the wall.

Lay the plastic sheeting and fabric

Once the frame is set, attach the plastic sheeting onto it. The plastic will serve as a backing for the fabric and will also prevent water from getting on the wall. Next, lay at least two layers of fabric on top of the plastic using galvanized screws or stainless-steel staples. You can use just about any type of fabric that can retain water without rotting. Since this layer is where your plants will live as it is responsible for holding the water for them, make sure that you secure it well on place so that it won’t come off.

Set up the irrigation system, fertilizer injector and water filter

In order for your plants to grow well on the wall, you need to have an irrigation system in place that will provide moisture to the fabric. You can create this system out of poly tubing with lock fittings and emitters, which you can purchase from an irrigation supplier. Place the tube on top of the panel and use the emitter to drip water down. When attaching the irrigation system, opt for stainless-steel hardware to avoid corrosion. Then, add a fertilizer injector, which is a simple valve that will send liquid fertilizer to the irrigation system, and a water filter to keep the circulating water clean. Connect the system to a power source to see if it is working properly.

Pick your plants

As mentioned earlier, when picking plants for your vertical garden, consider the amount of sunlight your chosen wall receives. Equally important is to consider humidity, wind and cold to ensure that you will be able to grow greens that can endure such conditions. If you are just starting out with gardening, pay your local nursery a visit to get an advice from a seasoned gardener about which plants are appropriate to grow on your vertical garden.

Insert the greens

The next and final step is to integrate the plants on the wall. Do this by making horizontal cuts on the fabric layer using a razor blade. Remove as much soil as possible from the plants’ root balls to prevent root rot before inserting each of them into the pockets you made. To secure the plants in place, staple the cloth to the plastic backing, making a semicircle around the root balls.

This gardening advice was written by Ericka on behalf of Steel Buildings UK www.steelbuildingsuk.co.ukÂ ,Ericka is fond of home-related topics and tirelessly shares her knowledge by writing and publishing helpful articles online.

Three Steps to a Fungi-Free Garden

by Trish

If you love gardening, there is nothing more frustrating than seeing all your time and effort go to waste due to fungi attacking your greens and blooms. To make matters worse, these culprits spread rapidly when conditions are favorable and eventually cause a wide variety of parasitic diseases on plants.

However, plant fungal diseases are usually the result of some factors that you can actually control. In fact, as simple as paying attention to your garden’s hygiene and cleanliness can do a whole lot in protecting your plants against fungi attacks. Written below are three more ways you could follow to keep damaging fungi at bay.

Mind your plant placement

Remember that fungi thrive well in damp conditions and planting your greens too close together will eventually result to crowding, which limits the amount of air circulating between the plants. When this happens, your greens are not able to shed water well, especially on their leaves. And if left unattended, fungal spores that are carried by air easily attach themselves on leaf surfaces, thereby setting the stage for fungal invasion.

To avoid this, it is vital that you site your plants properly to allow optimal air circulation around them. It is also wise to group plants together base on their level of water needs so that when you create an irrigation system, you will be able to apply the same amount of water to specific plants within your garden.

Ensure good landscape sanitation

As mentioned earlier, the key to keeping your garden free from fungal diseases is to observe cleanliness. Hence, if you have greens or blooms that are susceptible to fungal diseases, make sure that you regularly remove and discard leaf trimmings, old root systems and fallen fruits from their growing area to avoid the onset of fungi attack. If, for instance, you will reuse old pots, sterilize them before you put the greens in to minimize the risk of fungi infecting the plants.

Practice preventive measures

Keeping your plants in tip-top condition by properly attending to their needs is your safest bet to ensure that they will be able to withstand fungi attacks. Therefore, when gardening, don’t forget to practice preventive measures such as watering the plants’ bases instead of their leaves, applying fresh mulch every now and then to prevent spores from bouncing on the surfaces of leaves, and applying compost to keep both your soil and plants healthy.

Additionally, use horticultural oils and baking soda solutions to keep fungal diseases from infecting your plants in the first place. And don’t forget to provide your greens and blooms with optimum growing conditions (sufficient light, water and soil) so that they will grow healthily.

This gardening advice was penned by one of the regular contributors of Heritage Cleaning, a stone cleaning specialist in Scotland. Their steam-based stone cleaning system is acknowledged by Historic Scotland and has been used in the restoration and conservation of listed buildings throughout the country.