Filed under: Gardening — admin @ 09:49
Rock gardens are not only created as a beautiful display for bulbs and flowers, but are increasingly growing to be a way of life. As numerous varieties of plants become favorites for the front and backyard, more gardeners undoubtedly become acquainted with the rock gardens.
What exactly is a rock garden? Quite simply, it is a sloping pile of ground with rocks. Many gardeners have magnificent spring-time beauties of sprays of color that peek from behind and beside orange or black and sometimes grey stones or rocks.
Many home gardeners select bulbs to plant in their new creations of rock and rolling hills of flowers. Quite a few have brief spring blooms that go dormant during the very hot and dry summer.
Alpine condition climates that bring the cold and the wind tend to favor perennial ground cover plants that can hug around the rocks so that they can protect themselves. If they were to be tall, they would freeze and die. These types of perennial plants do great in sandy and rocky soil.Â
Most of the time, gardeners choose a sunny spot that will allow partial shade from the rocks for the plants that need just a little more shadowing. Also, several types of bulbs do wonderfully in rock gardens because of the quick drainage.
Usually, rock garden soil is made up of gravel, sand, grit and organic material like peat moss. Natural looking mulch helps to keep lower leaves and plants from rotting from too much moisture. The mulch also helps to keep the mud off of the flower blooms.
Rock gardens are most often raised, as to allow proper drainage and bring the eyes closer to the picturesque displays. Crocuses and hyacinths do amazingly well in the springtime in these types of gardens and look charming as they spread between the cracks of different flat stones.
Arranging small paths between the rock gardens can add a wonderful twist to a somewhat boring square garden and planting the bulbs in clumps and drifts of color can be breathtaking.
Rock gardens can create mountainous displays of beauty to what could have been small unnoticed spaces. Many home gardeners do not have the advantage of lots of space. By creating swirls of blossoms between different sizes of rocks and stones, an outstanding dream of sloping beautiful gardens, flourish into a richness of natural beauty.
Louanne is passionate about gardening. She welcomes you to visit http://www.EZ-Gardening-Tips.com for a large data base of extremely helpful gardening articles and gardening resources.
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
Filed under: Gardening — admin @ 12:12
Slugs and snails are the bane of many gardeners’ lives, ripping at slow speed through a garden, destroying young plants under the cover of darkness. It’s not unusual to find a whole row of seedlings fatally damaged in one sitting, and even a single snail can cause devastation.
Bearing this in mind, it’s pretty obvious that many gardeners develop a distinct antipathy towards our mollusc friends and will try almost anything to rid their gardens of the invertebrate menace.
The traditional answer to the snail and slug problem was to use pellets, which contained toxins which would kill the creatures after they consume them. For many reasons, this is less than a perfect solution, as the pellets can also be very dangerous for wildlife, pets, and even children. Not only can the pellets themselves cause poisoning, the slugs and snails become poisonous to birds before expiring, which is bad news for any of our feathered friends which decide to snack on a slug.
Organic slug pellets have recently become available which do not suffer from this toxin problem, but the jury is still out on how effective they are, and they are still a chemical treatment which many people would choose to avoid in these environmentally conscious times.
The most eco-friendly way of fighting back against slugs is to provide an environment which is hostile to them, while being attractive to their natural predators such as birds, hedgehogs, and toads.
Attract these animals to your garden and they will do a fine job of gorging themselves on the local snail population, and so reducing the severity of measures you need to take yourself. Also, slugs and snails like to spend the day in cool, damp, dark conditions such as those found in messy flowerbeds and uncut grass.
Remove these refuges by keeping your garden as tidy as you can, and there’s less chance of a slug evading a predator.
However much you try and discourage your local molluscs from living in your garden, the lure of tasty young seedlings is certain to be stronger. You can protect individual plants by placing some sort of barrier around them. Popular substances include sharp grit or broken egg shells, which slugs and snails are reluctant to slide over, or a smear of vaseline around the top of a plant pot which works in much the same way.
You can also buy copper rings or bands, or even tape, which work by giving a small electric shock to any snail which tries to cross it - a most effective deterrent!
Slug traps are available which you half bury in the ground, and fill with a tempting liquid such as beer. The idea is that as the slugs crawl towards it, they fall in and drown (or die of alcoholic poisoning, possibly). The drawback is that these traps are a waste of good beer, and cleaning them out every morning is not a pleasant task if the catch has been good!
For severe slug problems, you could always resort to bacteriological warfare. A kind of slug parasite called nematodes is available, which you add to water and spray onto the infected areas.
These parasites will kill any slug they can find, continuously and for a period of up to 6 weeks, but it’s an expensive option and doesn’t do anything against snails.
A much cheaper option, although it may gain you something of a reputation in the neighborhood, is a midnight slug hunt. After dark, when the slugs are at their most destructively active, patrol your garden armed with a torch, a bucket, and a means of slug dispatch.
This technique is especially effective during rain, although probably not an exercise you’d care to repeat too often!
Andrea writes on gardening, food and ecological issues, and can often be found swearing profusely while looking at the results of slug attacks.
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
Filed under: Gardening — admin @ 16:42
For many people their gardens are a part of their home that they take a lot of pride in. They will paint the fencing in such a way that the garden is almost an expression of the artist in them. The plants they choose will reflect this as will the garden furniture and even the type of bird feeders they pick. Many people will purchase decorative bird feeders that will add color and style to their gardens while still being a truly functional piece of garden equipment.
The variety of bird feeders styles that can be put in your backyard will answer anyone’s taste. They come in small feeders that will sit well in a little backyard or on a balcony or large ones that better suit a big yard to show them off.
Interestingly some people even collect these as works of art. Some feeders will be in the style of Asian culture while others might be like miniature country houses. This decorative style can spread through any type of bird feeder. For example, you can put a tube feeder in your backyard to attract smaller birds. You can make it a simple structure or an unusual one.Â
Perhaps the tube feeder will look instead like a lighthouse. Or maybe the decorative bird feeders you will choose are ones that are hand blown glass made to resemble flowers so that they attract the hummingbirds. Depending on the style you like these feeders have quite a price range.
Something simple like a lantern style feeder may cost less than twenty five dollars. But if it is an elaborate feeder you are looking for, perhaps one styled like a cottage or a gazebo, you can expect to pay over a hundred dollars.
The fact is that there is a style for everyone’s preference but if you do not find what you like there are many places that will custom make any type of bird feeder that you want in any style you desire. They can look like small houses, apartment structures, giant mushrooms, the local post office or a gilded cage.
If you find what you like but the color scheme does not match your garden, buy it anyway, and repaint it so that it fits in. The birds do not honestly care what shape or color it is, this is for your own pleasure to reflect your tastes. There is no end to what one’s imagination can conjure up in the shape that decorative bird feeders can take.
You even have the option of making it yourself if you cannot find the style you want. Just use your imagination, build it and the birds will come.
Mayoor Patel is the writer for the website http://bird-feeders.wares-are.us. Please visit for information on all things concerned with Decorative Bird Feeders
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com
