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Landscaping Tips On A Limited Budget

Spending time in your garden is one of lifeâ€™s simplest and most affirming pleasures. But thereâ€™s no denying that designing, implementing and maintaining a desirable outdoor space can become a financial drain. When belts need tightening as your bank account falls into the red, gardens can quickly fall to rack and ruin.

But there are a host of ways to spruce up even the most unloved yard that neednâ€™t cost the earth. In face, many methods of improvement require little more investment than your time and patience. The more people you involve, the merrier â€“ what better excuse to revive the rusty barbecue than a mass landscaping party?

Even the smallest changes can make a big difference, so try a few of these spendthrift suggestions and reclaim your garden during the recession.

1. Small but powerful

A sizeable garden may be a dream come true. But then again, it is also considerably more expensive than a medium-sized one. If you’re finding that maintaining a big garden is not within your budget, do the sensible and reduce the space for flowers and plants by covering some areas up with easy-to-maintain stones. This will also save you time when landscaping in the weekends. If you need advice on how to create a lovely stepping-stone path in our yard, absolutely free, take a look at this highly recommended article on gardening from financial website Dollarstretcher.

2. Bookkeeping for gardeners

Due to the financial obligations connected with it, a garden is less like a hobby, but more like a full-time project. For this reason alone, you should treat it with the seriousness it requires and deserves. Keep book of your expenses for your garden and think about opening up a separate account for them â€“ this doesn’t have to be, or perhaps shouldn’t even be, a regular current account, but can be a basic bank account ideal for reducing one’s debt and expenditure.

3. Clear the decks

Trimming, tidying, deadheading and sweeping all need doing, and preferably before you take any other action. A clear space will allow you to accurately assess what youâ€™re working with. Have a look at soil types and areas of light and shade and choose accordingly.

4. Make it work for you

Consider your lifestyle. Do you need a family-friendly space where children and animals can tumble around without creating chaos? Or do you desire a zen-like space youâ€™re happy to tend for hours on end? Perhaps garden that takes care of itself when youâ€™re busy is more your style? What you may initially think of as â€˜the perfect gardenâ€™ will end up being anything but, if itâ€™s not perfect for your needs.

5. Freely inspired

Draw inspiration from anywhere and everywhere- beautiful blogs, visits to local free-admission parks and gardens, period dramas and films, or even just poking around the gardens of people you know. When youâ€™re raring to go, underpin your enthusiasm with expertise gleaned from garden centre factsheets, TV shows, free magazines, trustworthy online forums and the many books available at the local library.

6. Waste not

Poor quality soils will thank you for a good dose of quality compost, which you can create and maintain from the everyday food waste in your kitchen. Many local authorities provide counter-top containers you can use to ferry kitchen scraps out to your main pile, which, when rotted down, is a free treat for the garden.

7. Deck out your deck for free

Check out websites which list unwanted goods, such as local FreeCycle networks or Freegle , where you can pick up anything from garden furniture and water features to power tools and equipment for absolutely nothing, providing you can arrange a pick-up.

8. A lick of paint

Garden fences and furniture come in such a narrow spectrum of colours â€“ so donâ€™t fret too much over making it all match. Instead, create your own custom colour palette. Buy an industrial-sized container of white emulsion and browse household paint ranges for those diminutive tester pots in a full spectrum of colours. Even a few pots mixed into the white yields a surprisingly dynamic hue. You can go as pale or bold as budget allows, but be sure to mix enough to complete the job, as colour-matching is a tricky business.

9. Inject Colour

Staring at a flowerbed studded with bright blooms lifts the spirits like nothing else. Donâ€™t worry too much about sourcing specific varieties here â€“ just have fun with a few supermarket and garden centre specimens whose appearance brings you the most joy. Sow with abandon and watch duller growing spaces light up with spots of colour. Keep it cheap and, if a plant doesnâ€™t take, itâ€™s a minor disappointment. If it thrives, however, garden life will be that little bit brighter.

10. Buy hardy

When it comes to the crops that youâ€™re investing more cash on, thereâ€™s nothing worse than watching them wither at the first sign of a frost. Research notoriously robust, hardy varieties and use these to form a solid foundation for your space, rather than more fickle specimens which would leave the garden looking barren should they fail.

11. Get green fingered with sad specimens

Donâ€™t bypass those sagging seedlings if theyâ€™re being sold off at a serious knock-down price. Take a really good look and consider whether they might be ripe for salvaging. With some careful tending, a good drink of water and a nourishing soil, many ailing plants can spring back to life.

12. Grow to eat

Growing edible crops is a canny move, helping you cut your food spend as you improve your garden. Choose fruit and veg varieties practically â€“ olive trees may look fetching, but will provide little sustenance. Potatoes, pumpkins, lettuces and root veggies, on the other hand, are low maintenance and high yield. Be sure to pick things you wonâ€™t mind feasting on in times of glut- tomatoes, French beans and soft fruits are all good options that also look great.

These suggestions are, naturally, merely a point of departure. For further reference, gardening magazine Better Homes and Gardens offers plenty of useful ideas on how to stun your guests while remaining in the black.

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Reporting from London, William Masters has established himself as respected journalist for topics ranging from international economics and personal finance. To Masters, finance is like gardening, both dealing with how to make the most with limited means. In terms of banking, William recommendsÂ eccount money, a leader in the field of companies specialising in helping people with debt and improving their budget.

Making Your Garden An Inviting Habitat For Birds

by Trish

Birds are amazing creatures and they are simply entertaining to watch and listen to. No wonder, a lot of people are encouraged to keep birds in cages so they can watch these beautiful flying creatures closely. However, you can still enjoy birds and their songs without locking them up in a cage. If you have a garden, you can recreate this space into a welcoming oasis where birds can fuel up and take refuge. Below are some useful tips to get you started.

Know the birds and their needs

The first step that you have to take is to know what types of birds frequent in your area. Find out about the plants that have the food they need. The more you know about them, the easier for you to give them what they need. At the most, birds require accessible food sources, water and places to make their nests. They do not like places where predators are lurking. So be sure to keep these things in mind when you tend to your garden.

Think variety

Just like people, different birds have different food preferences. Some birds eat seeds, some love fruits, while others feast on insects or nectar. Hence, if you want to attract a wide array of birds into your garden, consider growing a number of plant varietiesâ€“combine flowers, ground covers, fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. The greater the mix of vegetation you can give, the greater variety of birds will be enticed to hang out in your garden.

Layer the look

Birds love to congregate in environments with multi-tiered and densely packed arrangements of plants. So when planting, aim for a tiered effect. For instance, you can put larger trees at the borders, followed by lower trees, fruiting shrubs, and clumps of bushes and vines, then tall grasses, blooms and ground covers. This is a pleasing composition that mimics nature and will supply sustenance, refuge and protection to different kinds of birds year in and year out.

Keep bird feeders year-round

All too often, homeowners bring out their bird feeders during cold months when birds spend nearly all their time and energy seeking for food. This should not be the case in your garden, though. Keep feeders filled for spring and summer, too, so that you will get patrons year-round. As an added bonus, you’ll get to enjoy the colorful plumage of birds while you sit back and relax in your garden.

Quench their thirst

Birds get thirsty, too. So aside from the plants, provide them a source of water as well. You can use birdbaths around your landscape to give your flying visitors splashy spots where they can drink and bathe. Just make sure that each basin is just two inches deep so that birds can easily drink and they should also have a rough surface for better grip.

To protect the birds from lurking predators while they drink and bathe, position the birdbaths a few feet from shrubs or trees so that the immediate perimeter is open, but close enough to sheltered areas where they can easily getaway. Likewise, always keep the birdbaths clean and add fresh water daily. You can also outfit them with birdbath heaters so that they would still be accessible to birds during winter. To further invite birds, you may also use bubblers and misters along with birdbaths.

Hang houses

Nesting pairs will find refuge in your garden if you include birdhouses in the landscape. The placement and the size of holes of the birdhouses will depend on the type of species you are trying to invite. For instance, wrens love to nest in areas surrounded by trees, but other birds like purple martins prefer raising their broods in big, open areas.

To prevent territorial disputes, build the birdhouses away from feeding stations and each box should have a space of a minimum of 25 feet in between. Also, choose sturdy materials when building and securing the boxes in place. It is recommended to stay away from using nesting boxes with perches as they are a magnet for pest birds.

This guest post was written by Ericka for Lothian Skip Hire, a premier skip hire in Falkirk. Ericka has been writing articles about a wide variety of topics for some years now. However, she is particularly interested in providing helpful posts about gardening, outdoor living and home improvement.

How To Grow Your Own Carrots

by Trish

It is much better to grow your own vegetables from home, not only do they taste much better, but they are also much cheaper and healthier. Once you start growing your own vegetables, you will never want to go back to buying them from supermarkets.

You shouldnâ€™t worry about growing your own carrots from home as it is quite an easy and quick process, as long as you have a little time to prepare your carrot seeds and to plant them.

Step One

The first step to growing carrots is to sow the carrot seeds. This may sound a little complicated, but trust me, once youâ€™ve got the hang of it, it wonâ€™t ever be a problem again.

You should first make sure that you are planting your carrot seeds at the right time of year, it should say on the back of the packet when it is the best time to plant them. Most varieties of carrots are usually planted in March, if you wanted to get a start on your vegetable growing earlier than this, you can buy the Scarlet Horn or Nantes variety which can be sown in as early as February.

Before you begin sowing your carrot seeds, you are going to need to prepare your soil. You should prepare quite a large patch of soil; to make sure that it is healthy for your carrots to grow in you should dig it up and remove any weeds, stones and debris.

Step Two

You are going to need quite a lot of space to sow in your carrot seeds, the soil also needs to be quite deep so that the carrots have plenty of room to grow.

You should sow the seeds directly into drills. You should aim to sow them half an inch deep and 15cm apart.

Step Three

You need to keep your carrots healthy and fresh; to do this you should water the compost on a regular basis. If you start to notice that your carrots are wilting, this means they are not getting enough water. Give them a good soaking and this should rescue your carrots from any problems.

Step Four

It will usually take around 12-16 weeks for your carrots to grow properly. Once you believe the carrots are big enough for your use, they are ready to harvest.

Before careful when you pull them out of the ground, if it is a little tough to pull them up you can use a fork to help break up the soil around them.

Jenny started growing vegetables from her home and has really enjoyed it. She gets all her gardening equipment from http://www.gardenhealth.com/