As the Garden Grows

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New look for As the Garden Grows

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I’m sure that many of my regular visitors have probably noticed that As the Garden Grows got a new look last weekend.

I liked the other theme, but it didn’t work well in all browsers. In fact a few people had trouble commenting because the comment section would drop down to the bottom of the page in I.E. I believe.

I decided it was time to freshen up the gardening site and I do hope that you like the new look and new features. As far as I can tell it works fairly well in most browsers although one of the sidebars seems to drop to the bottom when the main page is viewed in Internet Explorer 7, but the sidebars seem to work ok on all the rest of the pages.

If you have any difficulties with the theme such as part of a page not loading I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me which page you were on and what browser (and browser version) you were using when you experienced a problem. I’m just trying to work out the bugs so most everyone can view and use this site easily.

Next up … I need to restore comments in the page section. This theme didn’t come with comments in the page template so I’ve got to figure out how to add them in.






Terra Firma Landscape and Design servicing North Texas

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Normally when I write a post on this blog I discuss my garden, the types of plants I grow, plant profiles and garden maintenance tips. Usually when I write I discuss topics as though I’m talking to fellow gardeners. However, I realize that not everyone who visits this site has already created a garden. Some of you might have just purchased a home, and or are beginning to think about landscaping your property.

I also realize that not everyone wants to get their hands dirty! Perhaps you’re interested in having a beautifully landscaped property that’s maintained regularly by a landscaping company?

Well, if you live in the North Texas area and you’re interested in having your property landscaped or maintained you might be interested in contacting Terra Firma Landscaping & Design for a free quote.

Terra Firma Landscaping and Design offers services such as maintenance, lawn renovation, landscaping and complete property or garden design. The company is run by three design experts who’ve come together to combine their 15 years of experience in lawn maintenance and landscaping design.

If you’re interested in having Terra Firma landscape your property you’ll be happy to know that they are interested in finding out what you want in a design, how you want it to function and what kinds of plants or colors interest you. They discuss all aspects of design with their clients prior to starting a project and if the client is interested they’ll maintain the garden, change flower colors with the four seasons and so on.

I found the website very easy to navigate. Whether you are just visiting to check out what services they offer, to get a free quote or to learn more about the company and the projects they’ve completed in the past most of the information is only a click away.

The site has plenty of photographs on each page to compliment the topic being discussed in each article. The photos are lovely and of good quality. The site has also been designed with what I find to be pleasant colors with a background of white in the content areas and a pleasing green for the sidebars and navigational menu.

The only real complaint I have about the site is that it’s too wide. My laptop has a widescreen and I find that the pages come up off center forcing me to scroll sideways to center the text of the article. This is probably because a background image is too large and while irritating I’m sure it can easily be fixed.

One of the site features that I liked best was the blog. I’ve already got a garden and it’s not likely that I’ll be contacting anyone in the near future about landscaping or design. However, I’m still interested in learning about what the latest gardening trends are, or how to resolve various gardening or plant related issues and that’s where the blog comes in handy.

On the blog you’ll find posts that appear to be questions that some of their clients might have asked such as Why does my Crape Myrtle look like it was set on fire?, and posts about the type of landscaping that’s done by builders, featured easy care low maintenance plants and so on.

I’m sure many of my readers could find a helpful post on the Terra Firma Landscaping and Design blog.

Overall I think that a home or business owner who is interested in having their property maintained or landscaped would find this website very helpful.

However, besides the site being too wide there are a couple of things that could be improved. There are client testimonials on the site and I’m certain that many of their lovely photographs are of projects they’ve completed, yet there isn’t a specific section that discusses past projects or shows before and after photographs. I’d love to see that on this site as there’s no better way to demonstrate your skills than by showing before and after pictures.

The only other area of the site that might be improved is the plant directory. You can reach it by clicking the Plant Directory link at the bottom right of each page.

There are two columns of plant names. Site visitors can hover over a plant name and a picture of the plant appears to the right. Below the plants photo is the name of the plant and what appears to be a link that says click here to learn more. However I haven’t found a link that’s clickable. Another problem is that when you hover over a plant name in the left most column you can’t move your mouse across the page to the right side where the photo of the plant is located because as you hover over any other plant name the photo changes. I think it would be better if the plant names in each of the columns were clickable and once clicked the photo of the plant would appear.

I’ve been viewing the site using my Firefox browser. I decided I’d better take a look at it with my Internet Explorer 7 just to see if the problems I’d pointed out on the site only affected one browser type, but I see them in IE as well.

Overall I think this website is appealing and contains enough information to interest potential clients and gardeners alike, however there are a few functional issues that need to be addressed to improve the visitors experience.

Take a look at Terra Firma Landscaping and Design if you’re in North Texas and are in need of landscaping, design or maintenance services.

Dog fur in the garden to deter pests?

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Ever since we created our garden six years ago we noticed that we occasionally have nocturnal visitors. These visitors come in the form of very large raccoons and a variety of house or stray cats!

We have a security light at the back porch and it’s regularly triggered at least once each evening and I often notice the light going on in the night as well if I’m up late. Most often when I peer outside the culprit turns out to be a cat.

Now, I tend to water my garden late in the evening. I developed that habit since I had an elderly neighbor who loved to watch everything I did both outside and even inside my home. She’d come outside whenever I was out, stare at me from her porch or watch me inside my home from windows in her home that faced my own. Creepy and stalker like!

She’s a nice old lady, but that watching behavior really got to me. Unfortunately she had a mild stroke in January and she’s now gone to live with her family. I suspect we’ll have new neighbors sometime in the summer.

So, as I was saying, since my neighbor was keen on watching me I was reluctant to go outside for long periods of time while being watch. Not only would she watch every move I’d make but she’d also try to talk to me from her porch. Of course I couldn’t hear her well so I’d have to stop what I was doing each time, walk up to her and find out what she’d said, reply and then go back to my gardening. This made getting anything done outside take sometimes four times longer than it should have!

Hence the late night watering! Oh, I also discovered that at the height of summer when it’s extremely hot and humid here that sometimes the only time it’s reasonable to go out and water is late at night when it’s a bit cooler.

I don’t mind the occasional cat coming through the yard as long as they don’t disturb anything, but late at night any animal making a sudden appearance can be scary. Especially if it turns out to be a HUGE raccoon or a raccoon family, which it has on many occasions.

Now that we have a dog I suspect nocturnal visits from these creatures will occur less frequently. Particularly if I bring the dog outside with me! However, I’d like to get a step ahead of my visiting creatures and do something to keep them away now.

So here’s my idea.

Our puppy just went through a big shed. She’s still shedding a bit, but a few weeks ago it seemed like her fur was coming out by the handful! One day as I was grooming her I thought about my garden visitors and thought I’d keep her fur and then, when the weather got better try distributing it through the garden in order to see if the doggy smell would deter the cats and raccoons.

About 80% of the snow has melted from our yard now. (thank you!) and crocus’ and other plants are beginning to make an appearance. I suspect I’ll be out in the garden this weekend doing a little cleaning. While I’m out there I think I’ll strategically place the dog fur in areas where I’ve seen cats and raccoons in my yard.

I guess we’re lucky that the cats and raccoons don’t really damage our yard. They use it more as a short cut to get to other areas. They come down the driveway, jump over the short gate and then head directly to the back of the garden and go over the fence into our neighbors driveway – or vise versa. Occasionally they’ll stop to search the ground and grass for worms and other delicacies, but luckily it’s not often.

So I know exactly which areas to target with my dogs fur.

Have you tried using dog fur or perhaps another animals fur in your garden to deter pests? Did it work?

I’ll keep you updated on my experiment. Wish me luck!

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