Light Up Your Garden For the Holidays
W hile I am not a huge fan of outdoor holiday decorations, such as inflatable snow globes the size of a car, or a sea of flashing decorations that annoy next door neighbours, I do look forward to a certain decoration. I love the way it looks after I line my garden fence with little white lights. I also taking things one step further by stringing more lights along the scalloped garden edgers. With the edgers being so close to the ground, they provide much appreciated additional light for the walkway. When things get icy, or that ice melts into puddles, we want our visitors to be aware of what they are walking towards. Plus, the small lights look smashing, outlining the garden area like candy does a gingerbread house. If you are interested, it only requires the...
Make a Garden With Whatever Space You Have
A lright, so you do not have a garden, nor a an allotment, but you can still participate in growing plants if you so desire. Hopefully you do have either a patio, balcony, or a sunny windowsill, and if so, these will do just fine. You can explore tons of interesting container options if you do have even a small outdoor ground space, but if you are working with just a window, or windows you will be focusing on window boxes. I recall the window boxes on a our neighbour’s house growing up. The home belonged to Mrs. McCleary, and she babied everything she grew. Her interest and love shown through, and left me wishing we had some window boxes too. I tell you this so that you do not view the limitation of space as insurmountable, you can overcome it with the right...
The View of a Winter Garden From a Sofa
I f I were to be completely honest I would have to tell you that winter gardens make me blue. In fact, this is so much so that I have even decorated the drawing room in the last two homes I have owned so that the winter garden does not catch my eye. The layout consists of a sofa facing the picture window, and another sofa facing away from it. So when the frosts set in and the heating system is turned on I retire to the couch from which a view of the garden is unavailable. Certainly, any professional will tell you that there are ways to make a winter garden more than a visually sparse and dreary wasteland. This by no means is to say that I neglect my treasured outdoor living space. I actually do work quite hard to keep the space from looking anything less than its...
How to Cope With the Loss of a Long Standing Tree
I t is indeed a sad occasion when a tree in your garden dies, and can be quite unsightly too. But following the old advice of turn lemons into lemon aid, think of this situation as an opportunity to place a new type of tree where the old once grew. It will also allow you to change the size, colour, and shape to something that might better suit the environment, because it is extremely likely that things have changed since the former tree was planted. Here are a few interesting replacements that have brought other gardeners we know great joy after the loss of a well established tree. The Crabapple is a disease resistant and bountiful tree. Specifically, the Prairfire produces a purply-red foliage with deep pink flowers, the Centurion a rosey-pink shade, and you can...
Flowers That Are Both Beautiful and Strong
I hold flowers that are not only beautiful and fragrant, but off putting to predators in the highest esteem. There is something so remarkable about a flower that produces glorious delicate blossoms, and simultaneously fends off enemies. This is precisely what I found in the “Baby Moon” daffodil, thus it has become one of my favourite of things. If we start with the name, we will learn that originally the term baby moon meant the time parents spend bonding with their newborn babies. Nothing is sweeter, and more endearing that a newborn baby, and it is positively one of the all time least imposing things. The flower too appears just as delicate, and vulnerable, but with an surprisingly strong fragrance. The surprise lies in the fact that this flower, which...
Instructions on When to Prune Your Plants
W hen to prune your plants might be a mystery of sorts in the beginning. But you can relax because there is an abundance of information to give you guidance in this area. To get you off on the right foot, here are some examples of when you can be most confident that it is time to prune. If a plant has any diseased, dead or damaged stems cut them immediately upon identifying them. When not removed, those damaged or dead stems create an opportunity for both insect to invade and disease to infiltrate. Beyond that, always extricate branches that are crossing, shoots that are runaway on the side of branches or trunks of the plant. In addition, if you see any branches that are growing into the ground, they too should be taken away. By eliminating all of these you allow...
Garden Design for Tiny Plots
A garden the size of a postage stamp doesn’t mean sacrificed design or even functionality – beautiful things come in small packages. The upside to a tiny plot is having less ground over which to stretch the budget, but it does require some ingenuity to get the most out of your space. Here’s our guide on garden design for tiny plots. It’s all in the planning Any garden needs to be well planned, but especially so for small plots. Write a list to include bullets that detail what purposes your garden needs to serve, i.e. veggie growing, relaxing, play area, recycling and compost, decorative, storage… Then sketch out a plan of your allocated plot and try to segment the space to accommodate all of these outdoor pursuits. Multi task Tiny gardens might fall...
