If you're new the My Gardening Home Blog, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and we hope to see you again soon! Happy Gardening!
Gardening quiz. Have some fun understanding the meaning of Latin plant names.
Source: unknown
Hi everyone
Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, today's edition is entitled:
Getting Rid of Garden Pests
QUOTE: A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in
- Greek proverb
There are many different types of pests that can ruin your good work in the garden. The most common are insects and they can destroy a garden in a very short time if left to their own devices. Even the neighbor's cat can be a pest if it is always using your garden as a toilet. Birds can be another reason for concern if they are eating your plants and can become quite smelly if they are nesting in trees or hedges in abundance.
Pests will use your garden primarily for food and shelter. To reduce the amount of pests in your garden you need to create an environment that isn't as inviting.
By clearing leaves and waste from the base of your plants you will reduce the amount of shelter. This will allow you to work the soil better and eliminate the incidence of in-ground insects that can suck the nutrients out of the soil.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html
You can stop cats, rats and mice from digging in the soil by using effective ground cover in the form of mesh where it becomes too difficult for them to get through to the soil.
By keeping your compost in the correct composting containers there won't be any decaying matter lying around the yard that will attract rats and mice. Having a tidy garden and yard will not encourage them to make their home on your property. Traps might be needed as a final deterrent for rats and mice.
Spraying your plants with suitable insecticides will also reduce the unwanted insect population. There are some good natural applications on the market that will do the job of the commercial insecticides or you can make your own effective natural insecticide.
If you prune back trees and hedges you might make them less appealing to birds and this might help to reduce the population in your garden. Keep in mind that some insects do a good job of maintaining a balance in the garden by eating other insects and birds will also eat insects that could be causing damage to your plants.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html
Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com
Derived from the Greek "water working", hydroponics simply means growing plants in either a bath or flow of highly oxygenated, nutrient rich water. The strange part is hydroponics does not need soil to grow. During hydroponics water is …
Hi everyone
Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, today's edition is entitled:
Understanding Soil
QUOTE: All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
- Indian Proverb
Understanding the role that soil plays in the garden is one of the best assets that you can have as a gardener.
It is this knowledge that will allow you to create a healthier environment for your plants and get the maximum benefits from them.
In doing so, you will also make your own life easier, as a garden that is well managed from the soil up, is a garden that is a lot easier to manage, from one day to the next.
A garden that has good soil that has been fed with good nutrition over time will make growing almost anything easy for even the least experienced gardener.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html
So how to you get good soil?
First you need to consider how plants grow and how they get their nutrition and that is through their roots.
Therefore, in order for the plants to grow well, they need to be in soil that allows their roots to get to the nutrition.
Obviously compact ground with little water, little air and poor nutrition will not produce the best plants.
Plants need water and air and this requires soil that has spaces to hold this air and water.
Therefore soil that is aerated will generally produce a better garden. Once again it is all about balance, as soil that is too crumbly might not hold the nutrients as well, where the water might wash them away. The soil also needs to be firm enough to support the growth of the plant otherwise it will topple over at the first sign of a wind.
The soil needs to have suitable nutrients and if any of these nutrients are out of balance, the pH scale that measures whether the soil is acidic or alkaline, will show why they are having difficulty absorbing the nutrients.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/soil.html
Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com
Hi everyone
Welcome to this edition of your Gardening Weekly, today's edition is entitled:
Testing the pH of your soil
QUOTE: The rose has thorns only for those who would gather it.
- Chinese Proverb
It is easy to test the pH of the soil in your garden with the use of a simple and inexpensive test kit. All you need to do with the test kit is take a sample of the soil and mix it with water and then compare the results in the sample to the colors on the chart. This will tell you whether the soil is acidic or alkaline.
If the soil is too acidic you can add lime to bring it back into balance. If on the other hand there is too much lime and the pH reading is high you can add more compost to reduce the levels of the lime in the soil.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/gardencenter.html
Soil that is slightly acidic tends to be more fertile.
Old gardeners used to use a simple taste test to determine the condition of the soil. This method isn't recommended but it can be quite accurate.
If the soil tastes sour then it is likely to be acid. This is also represented by a sour smell.
Vinegar is another way to test whether there is enough lime in the soil, as lime will cause the vinegar to bubble.
Drop some soil into a cup of vinegar and if it starts to bubble then you know there is enough lime in the soil.
For the low cost of a pH tester, you will get a lot more accurate reading and this will allow you to easily monitor the condition of your soils and adjust the nutrients accordingly rather than guessing what is needed and not having optimum nutrition.
You should also take samples at different points throughout your garden, as there can be changes in the soil from one area to the next depending on what has been added over the years and what has been growing in the various sections of the garden.
Website Of Interest. Check out the following:
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com/gardencenter.html
Thanks,
Annie
http://blog.mygardeninghome.com
Growing and harvesting herbs has been carried out for thousands of years in all cultures around the world. But in medieval Europe it was raised to a high art. Devoid of medical knowledge and technology that was known even to the Greeks, …
Source: Jennifer
It's the home stretch! With any luck, the month will go out like a proverbial lamb and we'll come out of hibernation, seedlings in tow. march.jpg Ever wonder where the expression "In like a lion, out like a lamb" came from? …
Source: Jessica Damiano
Can there be any element in nature that is as simultaneously soothing and dramatic as water? Most people love to hear the roar of a waterfall, water crashing onto the shore or over rocks or splashing in a fountain, even the gentle murmuring noise of a babbling brook. People love to see the sparkle of sunlight on falling water as it makes each droplet a tiny prism, the rippling effect of the wind across the surface of a pool, and the reflections cast by still water when there is hardly a breeze.
Because of these and many other reasons, water gardening is one of the most challenging and rewarding forms of horticulture. Even though as far as modern horticulture is concerned water gardening is a relatively new art, the practice does in fact go back far longer in history. In fact, the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, as well as the rulers of Arabia and China all used water gardening to beautify their homes, palaces, places of worship and important public places. They cultivated exotic plants and sometimes stocked their pools with beautifully coloured fish. The attraction of water is timeless.
But of course, in those days long ago, only the very rich of society could afford to enjoy water gardens. And you can be pretty sure they didn't do any of the work either. Slaves would usually be the ones working in the gardens, water or otherwise. Such work would have frequently involved hauling great quantities of water. In those hot countries there wouldn't always be a natural spring to keep the fountain flowing in the master's cool, shady courtyard.
However, thanks to modern technology, a far greater number of people can share the pleasures of water gardening and it isn't such hard work. Most people, of course, cannot replicate the grand water gardens of a Roman or a Chinese Emperor, but they can have a garden on a less ostentatious scale that is just as beautiful and provides an equal measure of joy.
A water garden can take on many different forms. You can build it around or adjacent to a naturally occurring wet area on your property, such as a spring, brook or marsh. Or you can use an artificially constructed pool or fountain as the focal point of your water garden. You can adorn your water garden from a vast array of flowers, shrubs and trees. You can also have an aesthetically pleasing water garden that has no plants at all. You can add fish to your pool if you desire. Or you can attract birds, butterflies and other living things to your water garden by the selection of certain species of flora or the placing of feeders. You can decorate your water garden with statuary, or enhance it with stonework. Whatever you choose, a water garden will provide you with the means to be at your creative best, and a place of tranquil beauty for you to enjoy.
The Gardener
