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You are here: Home / Archives for In The Garden / Garden Maintenance

Use a Robomower or Lawnbott on your lawn – free up your time

by Tricia

Summer is here and the weekends are for having fun, going to the cottage, beach, sporting events, visiting friends or just plain relaxing. If cutting the lawn is a chore that you’d rather not do why don’t you get a Robomower?

I was asked to do a short write up about Bamabots.com – Robomower and Lawnbott #1 Dealer – and to tell you the truth, once I started reading about these amazing machines I was hooked. I love the idea of Robotic lawn mowers.

We have such a small lawn that it really wouldn’t be practical to get a Robomower. I mean our backyard is 17 feet wide by approximately 30 feet long, but the perimeters have raised garden beds that are 3 and 4 feet wide, and then there’s a 20′ x 20′ patio area, so you can imagine how little lawn is left.

Now if I were back at my parents house with their good sized yard that probably took at least 45 minutes to an hour to cut both the front and back lawns a Robomower starts to sound like a good idea.

The Bamabots site has a top ten list of reasons why owning a Robomower or Lawnbott is a good idea. As an ER nurse I truly appreciate #8 on the list “They are safe. In 2005 there were 72,000 emergency room visits involving lawn mowers. ZERO involving robotic lawn mowers.“. Now that’s got me thinking. My elderly neighbor always pulls out her electric lawn mower while keeping an eye on our windows. I swear she does this on purpose. She then proceeds to begin cutting her lawn while in bare feet. Of course this brings me running outside. I’m certain she does this on purpose. If anyone in my neighborhood needs a robotic lawn mower – she does!

Other nifty tidbits on the top ten list that caught my eye was the fact that all of the Robomower and Lawnbott parts are replaceable, plus they really never wear out since there’s no motor to break down it’s said that they could last for decades. All you really need to do is change the blades once a year and replace the batteries when they no longer hold enough of a charge to cut your lawn.

Many of my recent posts have been about going green and doing our part to lower our carbon footprint. Well you could consider the robomowers “green” as they don’t use gas or oil so they do not contribute to pollution. I didn’t know this but 5% of pollution is caused by lawn mowers!

The best reason to get a Lawnbott or Robomower is because it will free up your time. Since the robotic lawn mowers can mow autonomously without human help all season long you could literally go away for the weekend or go about your business and your lawn will get cut on it’s own. These mowers actually go out on their own, mow your yard and then head back home to their charger. They’ll do this repeatedly throughout the season without any help from you.

professional175.gif Bamabots.com sells many different models of Robomowers and Lawnbotts. Each have different mowing capacities. The RL850 model that I’m showing to the left are great for lots that are up to 3/4 of an acre, where as the Robomower RL1000 is perfect for yards that are up to an acre in size.

Speaking of the RL1000 there’s a Robomower review that discusses all the features of this model in full detail.

rl1000-176.gifIf I were thinking of buying a Lawnbott or Robomower I think I’d take a serious look at the RL1000 since it is one of the models that has the autonomous feature where it can be programed in advance and cut your yard and returning to it’s charger on it’s own.

It just so happens that both of these mowers are on sale right now.

Just like any other type of lawn mower these are not inexpensive but when you consider what you’ll save on fuel and or electricity, plus gain in free time I think the price becomes comparable to a good regular lawn mower.

Have you ever seen a robotic lawn mower in action? I haven’t, but I’d like to as I’m sure it would be kind of cool to see.

Oh if you visit the site you must check out The Garden Groom – a hedge trimmer that self cleans, and the Electronic Venus Flytrap that burps when it catches a fly. Both items are near the bottom of the main page.






Filed Under: Garden Buzz, Garden Maintenance, Garden Tools, Great Sites, Home and Garden, Home and Lifestyle, Lawn Care, Living Green, Shopping Tagged With: autonomous, backyard, bamabots.com, blades, cutting, deal, electricity, electronic venus flytrap, features, free up time, garden, Garden Groomer, green, home, lawn, lawn mower, lawnbott, Living Green, price, programable, replaceable parts, robomower, robotic lawn mower, sale, save time, self cleaning hedge trimmer, summer, works on own

Landscaping adds value to your home and gives you extra living space

by Tricia

I’ve noticed lately that the value of homes in our area has been going up and up. We’ve only lived in our house for six years and already and going by the price similar homes in our area have sold for, our house has gone up in price by more than $250,000 making homes in our area $450K +.

Don’t be fooled. There’s nothing particularly special about the homes in our area. It’s a nice neighborhood, but it’s not a gated community or anything. Housing prices have just been going up.

The odd thing is, I find many of the homes rather plain Jane. For all I know they’ve been gutted and completely renovated inside, but from the outside they don’t look like anything special.

That’s where we are different. We are renovating the inside of our home, but we began our indoor renovations at the same time as our outdoor landscaping. Luckily we finished the outdoor landscaping the same year we started. The indoor renovations are ongoing much to my dismay.

We have no plans to sell our home, but I’ve always figured that all the work we’ve done landscaping our yard and caring for our lovely garden has added value to our home.

My suspicions were confirmed when I read an article on Plant-Care.com that states that a study cited in Smart Money magazine states that consumers value a landscaped home up to 11.3% higher than it’s base price. I’m pleased with that report since our home is the only one on the whole block that really has any landscaping. We’ve added value to our home. It’s confirmed!

The article that I found that information in was one that discussed a number of unique backyard landscape ideas. If you’ve considered landscaping your front and or backyard and would like some great ideas you should go read the article. There are links within the article that lead to other articles with more in depth information about each particular type of landscaping discussed within the main article.

We don’t have a pool and we never will because our backyard is just too small to have a pool, but if you’ve thought of putting a pool in your yard or perhaps have one, but haven’t done much else to the yard you should read the section on pool and landscaping around the pool area. Certainly if you’ve watched any of the programs on TLC you know that you can landscape a pool area in many different styles and your yard could go from a recreation area to a true living area with a little landscaping.

As many of you know our landscaped backyard includes raised garden beds along the perimeter of the yard and a lovely patio for entertaining. There are some great deck and patio landscaping ideas discussed in the above mentioned article. If you’ve thought of putting in a patio or deck, but you aren’t sure where to start or what materials to use you’ll get some great starter suggestions by reading the articles linked to the landscaping write up.

Some simple, and economical ways to landscape your yard, whether you already have a fully landscaped backyard or just a flowerbed or two is to add some garden lighting. Outdoor lighting, electric or solar, can be used to light a garden path or highlight plants or other features with a garden or backyard. We use solar outdoor lighting and it makes our yard look quite lovely at night. It also makes it pleasant to sit outdoors in the evening in the dimly lit garden.

We used interlocking easy stone to create our raised garden beds, but we could have used layered rocks, or we could have brought in some larger rocks and made landscape features out of them. The above mentioned article discusses the use of rocks in the landscape and how to create a natural look using rocks.

One thing that my husband in particular wants to add to our garden is landscape speakers. There are some speakers that are made to look like rocks that you can place within your garden and hook up to your indoor stereo system which would allow you to have music in your yard yet maintain a natural look and feel. I’m pretty sure that, that is one of the ideas that we’ll use ourselves that’s mentioned in the landscaping article.

I’ve actually visited the Plant-care.com website several times in the past when I’ve been looking up plant care information. I know I visited this site when I was looking up information on Aglaonemas – Chinese evergreens a couple of years ago. They had several articles about these easy to care for plants so they kept coming up in my Google searches. I actually think that’s how I discovered the site in the first place.

To close this long post I’d just like to get back to my original idea. if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know I get quite a bit of pleasure out of my landscaped backyard. I love it and visitors adore it. If you haven’t yet landscaped I would strongly encourage you to do so. You’ll get extra living space that I’m certain you’ll enjoy and it appears you’ll also increase the value of your home.

Take a look at the landscaping article. I’m sure you’ll get some great ideas for your own backyard landscaping.

Filed Under: Garden Decor, Garden Maintenance, Garden Tips, Great Sites, Home and Lifestyle, Landscaping, Renovating and DIY Tagged With: articles, backyard, deck, evergreen, features, flower, garden, garden beds, gardening, House, increase value of home, information, landscape, landscape features, landscape lighting, landscape rocks, Landscaping, landscaping ideas, landscaping increases home value, light, natural landscaping, outdoor, outdoor landscaping, outdoor lighting, outdoors, patio, plant, plant care.com, plants, pool, pool landscaping, solar lighting, unique, unique landscaping ideas, value of home

My five new roses – your experiences?

by Tricia

Does anyone grow any of these roses? I’ve listed the roses that I purchased a week ago to replace the ones I lost last winter.

When I bought the roses … five in all, I knew exactly where I was going to put them, but now – a week later, I’m looking at them going what was I thinking?

These are the roses that I purchased:

Joseph’s Coat –

A large flowered climbing rose that grows from 8 to 10 feet tall by 4 feet wide. hardy in zones four through 10. Bred by Armstrong and Swim in 1969; mild fragrance, 23 to 28 petals – repeats occasionally later in season. Blooms are a red blend – but I’ve noted that they range from a combination of orange, pink, red, yellow and white mixed in each flower. It’s apparently a very thorny rose with average disease resistance.

Climbing Iceberg –

Bred in the UK by Cant in 1968, White semi-double blooms with 9 to 16 petals, blooms in flushes throughout the season; Grows to a height of 8 to 15 feet and is hardy in zones 4 to 9. May or may not have a mild fragrance.

Chicago Peace

A hybrid Tea originally bred in the USA by Graeme Johnston in 1962. Blooms are large- up to 6 inches, and are a pink blend with 45 to 60 petals. The blooms have a very double form. This rose blooms in flushes throughout the season and grows to a height of 4.5 feet to 6.5 feet. Mild fragrance. Susceptible to blackspot, requires winter protection. Helpmefind -Roses says it’s only hardy to zone 7 but they often state high zones for hybrid teas.

Climbing Westerland –

Kordes bred rose, 1969, scented – strong rose, spicy fragrance; Apricot & apricot blend, Semi-double (9-16 petals) bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Grows to a height of 4 to 12 feet by 4 feet wide and is disease resistant. No hardiness info but I think it’s hardy to at least zone 5a.

Double Delight –

This is a hybrid tea that was first bred in 1977 in the US by Herbert C. Swim. The blooms are a red blend with red and white within, and red edges. It has a spicy fragrance. The average diameter of the flowers are 5 inches and each bloom is double with 17 to 25 petals. Blooms in flushes throughout the season. Grows to a height of 3 feet to 5 feet and a width of 2 feet to 5 feet. This rose is apparently susceptible to mildew and requires winter protection.

Wow, would you look at that? Every rose that I purchased was first bred in the 60’s. Isn’t that odd? All of them, with the exception of the Climbing Iceberg are multicolored roses. However, I’ve noticed that my standard iceberg often gets a pink blend in the petals as they age.

I really wanted to replace my Love and Peace but I couldn’t find one. That’s why I got the Chicago Peace. I’m hoping that it really does turn out to be as hardy as Love and Peace was because I didn’t have any problems with that rose. I think it’s demise was due to a fungal infection. It actually got a fungus like woody growth near the base of the rose. I think I’ll have to remove all the soil in that portion of the garden where Love and Peace was before I plant it’s replacement as I fear that the fungus or virus might still be in the soil. Anyone familiar with the problem that I’m discussing?

As you can see I’ve chosen some roses that get quite large and I have a small jam packed garden. This should be fun!

Obviously I’m not a rose novice but if anyone has experience with any of the roses that I’ve listed above I’d love it if you’d tell me how the rose faired in your care.

I’m particularly interested in how these roses do in cold zones.

I’m in Toronto and it’s classed as a Canadian Zone 6b or a US zone 5b. I know I’ll have to winter protect the hybrid teas I purchased but I’ve been very successful with roses that are not supposed to be all that hardy – like Just Joey, and Valencia for example, so I’m not too worried.

I do prefer to buy roses that are hardy to a plain Jane zone 5 or lower though as it gives them more of a chance of survival if we have a really harsh winter.

Filed Under: Garden Maintenance, Garden Tips, In The Garden, Plant Profiles, rose, Toronto Tagged With: Armstrong and Swim, bloom, blooms, Canadian, Cant, care, Chicago, Chicago Peace, climbing rose, cold, Double Delight, floribunda, flower, flowers, frangrance, garden, Graeme Johnston, grow, growth, hardy, hardy roses, height, Herbert C. Swim, hybrid tea, Iceberg, Joseph s Coat, Just Joey, Kordes, large, large roses, Love and peace, petals, pink, plant, problems, purchase, rose, rose bloom, roses, scent, scented, soil, Toronto, virus, Westerland, width, winter, winter protection, yellow

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