Category: Gardening

Written By: Better Backyards

Low maintenance gardens are the perfect alternatives for people who tend to be too busy to take care of their plants. These types of garden are ideal as they do not require much care to flourish. The following tips might help you in constituting a low maintenance garden.

Size matters

Before you start planting your garden, you might want to consider its size. Some important considerations would be whether the size is manageable for you. Even though low maintenance gardens might not require much work to maintain, they would still require some hours of work to set up. Alternatively, containers could also be used instead of planting directly on the ground. The soil would also require adequate fertilizers in order to promote the proper health of plants.

Design a low maintenance garden

The initial design of the garden would need to cater for the fact that it should not be needing much work. For instance, robust plants might be chosen over tender plants that could be prone to predator attacks. Perennial plants are also suitable for low maintenance gardens are these would flourish year after year without any human intervention. Automatic or drip irrigation systems might also be considered to save a considerable amount of time.

Minimal Maintenance

Despite the fact that low maintenance gardens require considerably less time than normal gardens, these still require a minimal amount of maintenance. You might consider taking some time off each fortnight to check your plants and determine whether they are in good health.

Survival gardens were quite popular around the World War with people growing their own crops in the yards or in public parks and spaces. The appeal of such a self-sustaining way of living has gained back some popularity in recent years with people wondering how to plant their own crops. The tips below might be helpful in starting a survival garden.

Potatoes

These are staple foods in various regions across the world and can be grown in a wide variety of soils and climates. If the ground is covered with mulch, these can be overwintered in the ground.

Beans

These are high sources of protein and fiber and a great staple food as well. Beans are quite appreciated by children as well due to their sweetness and mushiness and as such make good vegetables to have in bulk.

Winter squash

These are fairly easy to grow and once you have got started, more vegetables would sprout as the vines would spread around. They would just be requiring some good watering. Winter squash is a good source of fiber and vitamin and excellent for soups in winter.

Carrots

This is another vegetable that children might be appreciating for their taste. Just like potatoes, carrots can be overwintered in the ground.

Kitchen basics

Onions, chilies, tomatoes and garlic form the basis of various recipes and as such having them fresh would add interest to dishes. In order to take them through the winter the tomatoes can be canned or frozen.

The survival garden is not only a cost-effective way of procuring food, it is also one of the best ways to consume truly organic fruits and vegetables.

Seed catalogs often propose great selections of wonderful vegetables and flowers that can be grown in your own backyard. An advantage of gardening from seeds is that it is an inexpensive and gratifying way to fill up your garden. The tips below might help you choose the right seeds according to your garden.

1. Read the Label

Labels should also be checked before buying seeds. You would thus be able to know whether the seeds require an indoors starts. Generally, plants thriving in cool weather such as pansy and broccoli would be needing a jump start indoors in order to be ready for spring. Summer crops such as tomatoes and peppers would require grow lights when it is frosty outside.

2. Buy Extra

Vegetables that tend to grow fast such as radish, spinach and beans are better planted several times through summer and spring in order to harvest them throughout the season.

3. Be Selective

When shopping around for vegetable seeds, it is better to choose only those that you know your family eats. It might be a waste of garden space to experiment too much with new crops that will not be consumed by you.

4. Consider your Space

Your space would be determinant upon the type of fruits, vegetables or flowers that you would be planting. For instance, if you have limited space, it might not be a good idea to fill it up with plants such as squash, pumpkins or corn. Vegetables that require limited space are salad greens, beans, peppers and tomatoes.

When early spring would be here, you might start anxiously checking the land to know whether it is dry or warm enough to start working in. When spring would finally be here, you might be overwhelmed with a large amount of tasks to carry out in the garden. This does not necessarily mean giving up on your garden plans. These time-saving tips might be effective in making the most of your garden while stressing less.

1. Start with a plan

Having a well thought-out plan would be the first step in achieving savings in terms of time. Before you start planting, prepare a plan regarding where you want your plants to be. You might have to replace some short-lived plants with new ones such as spinach or lettuces. Having a plan would help you make the most of your gardening space.

2. Make quick beds

If you wish to create space for new perennial plants, you might just slice a portion of your turf, flip it upside down and cover the area with wood chips. You would then need to wait for a period of some weeks and then plant your perennials.

3. Stash your tools

It might cost a lot of time to constantly having to make trips to the toolshed. Wearing pants with a lot of pockets while gardening can be a good idea to hold all your tools. Alternatively, you might also consider carrying a gardening tool box. Having a trowel, gloves, pruners and other tools at all times can be a great time-saver.

Gardening is undeniably a very relaxing activity practised by many people. However, it might become frustrating for some when the plants are not yielding or responding to the proper treatment. For thousand of years gardeners have planted for food or aesthetics, there are several methods that have been perfected with years. If you wish to make your gardening experience more enjoyable, you might find the below hacks useful.

Use a lemon rind to start a seedling

Gouge out the flesh of a lemon or any other citrus fruit for that matter and the vessel obtained can be used to plant a small seedling. It might be the single strand of a herb such a mint that would grow to become much bigger.

Succulent cuttings beget even more succulents

If you want succulents to sprout, cutting the plant at the base would be enough to make it sprout another plant. You would only have to plant it back in soil.

Coffee Grounds

If you drink a lot of coffee, you might use it in your garden as well. Coffee grounds are effective in keeping critters at bay and they also enrich the soil with the minerals that they contain.

You can use shower caddies to make hanging gardens

If you always wanted to have a hanging garden but did not want to invest in materials or did not have the right ones available, you might make use of shower caddies. By just fixing them to a wall you would get a great hanging garden.

If you garden everyday, you might come across several small issues to which we sometimes have no solutions. The list below might help you in certain situations.

1. If you wish to remove salt deposits that have formed on your clay pots, you could use a mixture of rubbing alcohol, white vinegar and water in equal parts. Let the pot soak the mixture briefly and then scrub it using a plastic brush. Let the pot dry completely before planting anything in it.

2. Dirt and soil can often get under your fingernails while gardening. To prevent this, you can drive your nails across a piece of soap. This will ‘seal’ the undersides of your nails and prevent dirt accumulation. After gardening, you could just use a nailbrush to extract the soap and your nails would be instantly clean.

3. If the line of your string trimmer is constantly jamming or breaking, you could consider treating it with some vegetable oil prior to installing it on the trimmer.

4. You can turn your long-handled tools in measuring sticks. This would provide an additional benefit of using them and would serve as handy measuring instruments. Using a tape measure and a good permanent marker, you can draw inch or foot marks on the handles of your tool. This would be particularly useful when it comes to spacing plants a specific distance apart in order to ensure their proper growth.

5. If you are often looking for garden twine, you could store a ball in a clay pot and hanging up and let the twine pass through the drainage hole. You would only have to pull the end when you need it.

Roses are often considered the queen of all flowers as they are so beautiful and pleasing. They however require some care to yield good blossoms. Rose bushes often require good amounts of fertilizers and might be prone to diseases and attacks from insects. Given some proper care, you can keep your roses beautiful.

Frequent watering

Water your rose bushes frequently, especially in the summer. This plant requires a lot of water to grow healthily. A good watering once a week could be enough depending on your region.

Fertilization

You can fertilize your rose bushes several times during the growing season. Generally fertilization should start at the beginning of spring when the first leaves are coming out. Then fertilize again once the first bloom comes out. Another fertilization should be applied once the second bloom of the season comes out. It is not recommended to fertilize your rose bushes past summer. Over-fertilization might be detrimental to your plant as well.

Pruning your roses

Pruning your rose bushes is a great practice to keep your plant healthy and beautiful. Start by clearing away any crowded area in your bush. This will help prevent diseases. Pruning should be done just above a bud eye, you will find it on the areas where branches usually form. Bud eyes look like small circle swells and can be found just above a set of deep green mature leaves. The direction of the cut for an outward-face bud eye should be down-slanted. To encourage new flowers in summer, remove the dead blooms as well.

A person with a green thumb is one that is quite good at planting and gardening. It’s considered as the hands that give life to whatever is planted to the soil. Although we would hate to admit it, some people are just better at gardening than others. And there’s no shame to it. Knowing your limitations allows you to grow as a person. You can either learn something new to expand those limits, or you can call a spade a spade and ask for some professional help when it comes to your garden. What you can do is that you can take some gardening classes or you can pick up a book or two. Learning gardening techniques and tips on how to properly plant and care for your garden is a very rewarding experience. You see, doing things on your own has an intrinsic reward to it where you can feel a sense of fulfillment – that whenever you look at your garden, you will know that it looks that way because of your hard work. But if your gardening experiment does not work, you should not force the issue as well since you would be wasting a lot of time and money over failed gardening attempts. Of course, you need to consider what type of garden you would want to have. If you’re quite new at it, then go simple. Opt for plants that require little maintenance so you would not feel overwhelmed. Besides, keeping a simple garden has its own benefits.

The problem of having a huge lawn is the fact that there is definitely a lot of grass to take care of. If you do not want to be burdened too much about grass that’s not as healthy as it should be, then you should put fertilizer on your grass just once a year. Other than that, you need to be careful of the type of fertilizer that you buy. That’s because most fertilizers that are being sold by stores are those types of fertilizer that has a high nitrogen content in them. If you’re wondering why the presence of nitrogen is there in furniture, it’s actually because of the fact that it helps your grass grow faster and greener. If you are a regular person that doesn’t know much about gardening, you will find this as a miracle fertilizer. However, studies show that fertilizer with nitrogen allows plants to grow faster. But because of the accelerated growth rate of your grass, your grass would become unhealthy and would be susceptible to disease. This is the reason why you should only put fertilizer on your grass once a year. Moreover, you also need to be careful with the type of fertilizer that you use. By using natural fertilizer, you don’t have to worry about your grass being too fast. Putting fertilizer more than once a year results to poor and unhealthy grass. If you do not want that to happen to you, then stick to natural or organic fertilizer.