New Gardening Tips

Gardening would be a great deal easier without interference from garden pests. The majority of garden pests are small, but they certainly are a big nuisance. The the majority of widespread garden pests are insects, of course and it is a curious thing that these insects are apt to thrive in conditions that are not quite right for flowers. The majority of garden pests do not actually live on the plants themselves, they live in rotting rubbish nearby or in saturated soil and go to the plant to feed. Some insects live in the roots if the soil is too wet.

So, one of the first things to do is to try to lessen the number of destructive insects in your garden. You can go a long way down this route by clearing away any old decaying rubbish and decayed wood. Make certain that your soil is well drained and keep cats out of your garden by squirting them with a water pistol until they get the idea. Cats discourage birds and many birds eat insects.

You should also encourage insects and other animals that eat garden pests. Ants can be a nuisance, but they do eat a lot of insects. Ladybirds do too and so do spiders. Larger animals such as frogs, toads and lizards eat loads of insects, so a small open-ended garden pond could be used to breed frogs and toads. Lizards will appear on their own, if the conditions are right.

It is worth taking positive steps to encourage the right kind of garden animals. Never use powerful insecticides on your garden as you will kill all the insects that are on your side too and the spray may poison the earthworms that are helping to aerate and dry out your top soil.

A small pond will encourage birds, frogs and toads, but frogs and toads also like a nice rock to take refuge under during the day. Position a few rocks the size of a loaf of bread around your garden in the shadow of trees or bushes. Set up a bird table. Birds that eat bread and nuts do not often feed on insects, but some do. However, the sight of other birds in the garden may encourage insectivores to come in and have a look.

There are basically two types of garden pests: the ones that actually eat the plant and the ones that extract the sap out of it. Caterpillars can be picked off and destroyed of or you can spray the leaves that are being eaten with a poison for the caterpillars to feed on. Many of the sap-suckers can be seen with no trouble, others cannot. A solution of washing-up liquid and water such as you use to wash dishes will kill the majority of of these including greenfly (aphids).

Slugs and snails do a lot of harm, but some birds including chickens and thrushes find them a delicacy. Chickens can be helpful allies in a garden, but they can be destructive too with all their scratching. Otherwise, you can reduce the population of slugs and snails by killing their eggs.

They tend to lay their eggs in rotting leaves or rotting compost, but not in compost heaps which are usually too hot for them, so a good clean up will eradicate a lot of the next generation.

You can exterminate the adults by placing a few low containers of beer by your plants. The slugs will drink the beer and drown. It is extremely effective. Slug pellets should finish the t-totallers off. Taking these actions will greatly reduce the number of garden pests attacking your plants.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is at present involved with exterior wall lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

Getting your garden to look just the way you want it to is not only not easy, but it is an on-going fight against weeds, pests and disease, so once you have great garden, the next stage is how to show it off it under all lighting and weather conditions. This article is about just that: how to use landscape lighting to great effect.

One facet of landscape lighting is called accent lighting. This kind of lighting is used to subtly light up bushes or flowers along with other things. You can also light up a snow storm or rain, it gives a beautiful effect, but this takes more powerful lighting such as flood lights.

The point is that you do not have to have the splendour of your garden on display for only the day light hours, you can also get plenty of pleasure out of it in the evenings and even at night; in the summer and in the winter.

There is a vast range of landscape lighting. For instance, there are lamps, lanterns, floodlights and spotlights and they can be powered by mains electricity or by the sun. Clearly, if you want to use grid electricity, you will need to have an electrician lay armoured cable in your garden, which can be costly and is more or less permanent.

The alternative is solar powered lighting, which is movable. If you put it somewhere and then change your mind, you can move it yourself and there are no electricity running costs. Solar powered light fittings are more expensive than standard ones, but all in all, taking into account the electrician’s fees and the on-going electricity bill, solar powered units work out cheaper. Plus, you will be doing something for the environment that every gardener is doing his or her best to protect.

This article is not about security lighting, but landscape lighting does have a spin-off by adding extra security to your property. Before purchasing any landscape lighting, you should have a good idea of what you are looking for.

There are several ways of going about this. You could first of all draw a plan of your garden and photocopy it a few times in order that you can consign your ideas to paper.

You could go for a walk around your local neighborhood and pick up concepts by observing neighbours’ gardens. You could go look at how the council lights its parks and public buildings and you could buy a few landscaping magazines to see the latest items on the market.

It is also worth visiting a few gardening centres, because they will also be showing off their wares to their full advantage. As you get thoughts, pencil them in on one of your photocopies. If you want to test a few ideas very roughly, you could put a suitable flashlight under a bush that you think would benefit from landscape lighting and observe it. If you do not like it remove it from your plan and try something else.

Once you are satisfied with your sketch, go out and buy the necessary lighting. If they are grid supplied you will need an electrician, if they are solar powered you do not. If you try some of these suggestions you will soon learn how to use landscape lighting to great effect.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with outdoor accent lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

There are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs who start a lawn mowing business. You can make good money, and it is an easy business to set up. You’re probably already in a good position to get a steady income stream set up quickly, if you live in or near a residential area.

You might even be able to take a lawn-mowing job and turn it into your full-time source of income. All you need are the right tools and some optimism and determination.

It really doesn’t take much to get started.

First, remember that steady customers are key to your business success. Try to find clients who will pay you to come regularly to mow, rather than getting jobs one at a time. Charge them what you think the market will bear, within reason. Don’t undercut yourself, but don’t price so high that you don’t get the job.

Set-up is very easy. You need grass-cutting gear, and that’s about it. You can use a manual push mower, or get a ride-on mower you drive like a little cart. Once you have this, you’re good. If you put in longer hours and cut more lawns you’ll make more money. This business pays you based on the amount you are willing to work.

Tip: Once you build a nice client base through advertising, you can hire employees to do the mowing part for you. Then you can just collect profit.

Does lawn mowing sound like a feasible business venture to you? If so, you can use a couple of methods to get started on the right track. First, use word-of-mouth referrals from friends and family who live nearby. They may be willing to hire you, or know friends who need lawn care. Second, you can start an advertising campaign as well.

Tip: You can research other successful lawn care companies in your area to see how they grew, and use this knowledge to become successful yourself.

The author additionally regularly writes regarding subject like trash removal companies and rubbish garbage removal.

Once you have finished laying your patio, your deck or your lawn, you will surely start thinking about how you can enjoy more time out of doors. Therefore, you will have to have some garden furniture. Many shops stock garden furniture. You can try home improvement centres, large department stores and garden centres. There are also companies on line that will deliver. The hard part is picking your garden furniture.

There is a very broad choice of designs of garden furniture – a style to suit every person and complement every garden. So, before rushing down to the garden centre, it is worth considering for a while what you would like to accomplish with your open-air seating area. Do you want a theme? Do you want to entertain or dine there? Or do you just want to sit peacefully, take pleasure in your garden and read a magazine?

Indeed, the answer may well be a combination of all those variables. If you simply want to sit there with a drink and a book, you may be satisfied to just buy a couple of chairs and a small table, but if you want to have guests or take family meals outside, you may prefer a more substantial table. A large oak table would be quite costly, but it would look magnificent and last for a decade or more.

If you choose a table, you will have to have chairs to match, but do you want loungers as well? They could be of plastic and kept in the shed until wanted.

You will likely have to have some form of shade. This can be provided by folding, even removable umbrellas or by overhanging trees or shrubs. Wisteria or clematis can do the job too and cost you next to nothing.

Do you anticipate cooking in this area? If you do, what and how? Do you fancy a barbecue pit or a real hob and oven? A lot of people in areas where the climate permits are doing a lot of cooking outdoors in a carbon copy of an indoor kitchen, but without all the walls.. If you plan the outdoor kitchen well, you will be able to use it in the rain too. I find it great not to have kitchen smells in the house and cooking outside is a good experience as well.

If it gets nippy in the evenings then you can think about buying some patio heaters. They are not expensive to buy or to run and one standard patio heater can keep quite a group of people warm. (By the word ’standard’ here, I mean upright, like a lamp post).

Lighting is the last large consideration on the list when choosing garden furniture. There are actually two sorts of garden lighting to mull over: lighting to see by and lighting to lure insects away. Again, you could use standard lamps to illuminate your patio. They cast their light far enough so that you can still look at your garden after dark or you could have separate wall light on dimmers.

The one light I would definitely have is a mosquito lantern. Hang this away from where you sit, because they do draw insects to them which they then electrocute with a pleasing zap.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

The question when you are thinking about making a garden is: do you have a choice of where to put it. For example, you may have a very big garden or you may be looking for an allotment from the local council. However, if you do not have a choice, then you will have to choose the kind of plants you want for your garden according to its location and condition.

If, however, you are lucky enough to have a choice, then the chief consideration is the sun. In fact, even more significant that that is what type of plants you want to grow. If you want flowers that prefer the sun or if you like flowers that cannot bear it, then the position of the garden is critical.

In the northern hemisphere, the majority of gardeners would pick a south-facing garden, if they had the choice, but not everyone. Some gardeners are interested in marsh plants or woodland plants, for instance. If you do make the majority choice and go for a south-facing garden, then your planting beds should run from north to south, because that way they will receive maximum exposure to the sun’s rays.

If, however, you cannot get a south-facing garden, but you can get one facing southeast, then your flower beds should run north-west to south-east for the greatest exposure to the sun. Other directions can be worked out in a similar manner.

The idea, whichever way your garden is facing, is to get the sun shining as near to 50% on each side of the plants as possible. The only real way of gaining success in this question is by having a south-facing garden in the northern hemisphere or a north-facing garden in the southern hemisphere.

When you have worked out the best place to put your garden, or which way it is facing, you should start planning it. This can best be done on graph paper. The first step is to draw a scale diagram of your garden. Once you have done that, you should prepare the ground by either clearing it of rubbish or clearing the scrub.

If your garden has decent turf, plan on your graph paper where you want your flower beds to be and draw them in. Then cut these areas out of your garden.

Depending how much area you have set aside for plants, you can now either dig it over or rotovate it. Whichever method you decide on, do it to the best of your ability, because once you have plants and bushes in your garden, you will not find it so straightforward again. Turn plenty of manure into the soil while you are doing it.

Now that you have a proper environment for your future plants, you can go about choosing your plants. This has to be done with the orientation of your garden in mind, if you want to make the most of the plot that you have available to you.

If you want to moderate a south-facing garden, this can easily be done by adding trees and bushes to provide shade, but it is not easy to heat up a cold north-facing garden.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is now involved with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

The summer is the most pleasant season of the year to be seated in the garden with your favourite ice-cold drink and gaze at your fish and the rest of your garden. It is the busiest period of the year for both your pond and your garden flowers and the birds and the bees are at their most active too.

If you would like to continue enjoying your garden and pond into the evening, you can position exterior lighting at strategic places to draw attention to the best locations. However, in spite of wanting to just relax in the warmth, there are still some things that you will have to carry out to care for your fish pond during the summer.

The first thing you have to do is make sure that you fish are getting enough oxygen. The problem is that warm water holds less oxygen that cold water, so you have to take extra precautions in the summer. This is fairly easily corrected by mechanical, automatic methods. There are three basic techniques of oxygenating fish pond water.

The most important way is the use of a fish pond filter. Endeavor to have the water pumped several feet above the pond water level. The water is then passed through the filter and it should drop down a few steps back into the water. Every time the water falls, it will pick up more oxygen, which it will return to the pond.

The second way is also the most impressive – the fountain. Most fountains have a couple of settings to allow various water patterns. All the patterns will oxygenate the water. A high, single jet of water will make the most noise when it returns the pond, while a pattern of say, ten less-powerful sprays will scarcely make any noise at all.

The third means of aerating the pond water is the ‘bubbler’. This device sucks air from above the waterline and releases it below the water line – it is the type of aeration device that indoor fish tanks utilize, but on a larger scale.

The use of these three methods in the summer will guarantee that your fish always have enough oxygen no matter how warm it gets.

The next consideration is feeding. Fishes’ metabolism increases during the summer. They also have to build up fat, because they will not eat much throughout the winter. You can make certain that your fish get loads of insects to eat by fitting a light by the water side. You can either take a feed off the pond pump or you could place a solar powered light there in stead.

The insects will be attracted to the light and fall into the water. The fish will soon learn about the insects. Insects are fishes’ natural food, so this is the best means to fatten them up without running the risk of putting too much food into the water which could rot and adversely affect the properties of the water. Lighting up your pond in the evening is also a great way of getting more pleasure from your pond.

This is the last chore that you have to perform in order to care for your fish pond during the summer – keeping the water clean. There will be a build up of algae which has to be cleaned out, but basically, you are now set to enjoy your pond during the summer months.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present concerned with visual comfort lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

Have you ever wanted a wild flower garden? A wild flower garden is not just a garden that has turned wild, in fact it is quite the opposite. A garden that has become wild usually looks a bit of a mess, whereas a wild flower has to have a tightly controlled environment.

Garden flowers have been hardened, so to speak. They have been cultivated and cross-bred so that they can put up with not being taken care of all that well by the typical gardener who does not know a great deal about gardening, although there are some very fragile garden plants too. However, wild flowers have never had this treatment, they grow only where the circumstances are perfect or they do not grow at all. It is virtually impossible to grow wild flowers where they would not naturally occur.

This is why many people’s attempts at making a wild flower garden fail so miserably – they have expected the wild flowers to ‘just grow wild’ without having made the correct environment. Therefore, if you decide to create a wild flower garden, you will first have to determine what sort of flowers you want to grow.

Do you fancy meadow flowers, woodland flowers, hedgerow flowers, marsh or riverside flowers? You can amalgamate some of these styles, of course. You could merge meadow and hedgerow varieties, if you plant a hedge border around your garden.

After you have decided on which varieties of flowers you want to or can grow, you need to set about manufacturing the correct environment. One of the prettiest wild flower gardens, if your climate is right, is an orchid garden. In Thailand, a lot of the orchids grow on the bark of live or fallen trees, so we have a few uprooted tree stumps in shaded areas of the garden with dozens of wild orchids growing on them.

The simplest wild flower garden for most people to create would be waterside, meadow and hedgerow combined. Therefore, first you will have to create a suitable pond and start growing wild hedges around your perimeters. Then plant a coarse grass on the rest of the soil. The pond can have a brick border, but at least one edge should be muddy – just wet mud leading into a shallow edge of the pond.

When these micro environments are ready, but not before, you can go out and forage for plants from like environments to transplant into your wild flower garden. One note of caution here: please ensure that the flowers that you want to collect are not protected before you uproot them and never strip an area of a species. If there are only one or two plants of a variety, do not take them.

Remember that your wild flowers are not that hardy, so you should have prepared their new home before you went foraging and you must replant them as soon as you get back. Try not to leave it until the next day.

It is preferable to collect flowers just after they have flowered and are starting to die back. When you have discovered a flower that you want, carefully dig it up with a trowel and incorporate a good sized slab of soil with its roots. You can put this into a plastic bag and put this in a basket. It is a good suggestion to take few photos of the flower in its original environment, so that you can do a bit of tweaking when you get home. It will also help you remember what that flower likes to live with when you go out collecting for your wild flower garden next time

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with exterior wall lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

Most people simply let their garden mature naturally in that they do not select a particular style. This is all right, but it can turn into a hodge-podge, if not looked after. Some people, though, deliberately choose to landscape their garden according to a clear style or a theme. Some of these themes are very sophisticated and others are fairly simple.

One of the many themes to pick from is the Texas Style. We all know that everything in Texas is done on a large scale, so you would be forgiven for thinking that landscaping in the Texas Style would necessitate a huge garden.

It is perhaps easier to carry out your landscaping in the Texas Style in a bigger garden, but it just depends how you go about it.

The first things to remember are that Texas is very hot and so the terrain closely resembles wilderness. Plants and shrubs are thin on the ground, so to speak. Landscaping in the Texas Style is what you could call minimalist gardening.

You will have to make use of every square inch of your property, if you only have a small plot and the climate will have to be fairly warm in the daytime although it is good if it gets cold at night. This will allow you to grow many of the plants that thrive or at least grow in Texas. One good thing about Texan flowers is that when they do blossom, they really do show a lot of colour.

One of the kinds of plant that you are sure to have success with is the cactus. There are many varieties of cactus, so you should not have too much difficulty finding several kinds that will grow in your garden in order to produce a Texan dry climate look, as long as it does not rain every other day where you reside.

Cacti produce magnificent flowers when they blossom, but they have big thorns, so if you have young children, the Texas Style garden may not be for you for a few years yet.

Once you have your plants sorted out, you can begin looking for accessories. You can pick up ideas from the old cowboy films and from magazines, but a few recommendations are: a chow wagon style barbecue area with a canvas hood; some broken wagon wheels; a well, functioning or not (it could even be a fish pond that looks like a well); boulders and wooden fence posts.

Boulders are usually overlooked by gardeners but there are some fascinating stones, boulders and rocks in all kinds of shapes and colours. Boulders with fossils in them are fantastic conversation starters. Smaller rocks can be used to create a rock garden and this will increase the choice of plant life that you can grow in your Texas Style garden. You will be able to plant succulents, small cacti and other small plants that frequently grow in this austere environment.

Lighting should be low and subtle so that you can see the stars at night. You could even have a camp fire with log seating or you can accomplish this look by using low powered solar lighting. Solar powered lighting will also save you from having to have an electrician wire up your garden.

When you have finished landscaping in the Texas Style, do not forget to get pleasure from it by eating outside as often as you can. Barbecues, steaks and Texmex food are the order of the day.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is at present concerned with outdoor accent lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

For people who look after their garden, the garden offers a serene sanctuary. It is a place to go for a bit of peace and quiet. Somewhere, where you can go to have a quite cup of coffee and read a book or the newspaper. However, it is not easy to bring about this atmosphere of serenity. You have to work on the flowers and the weeds and you have to keep everything shipshape.

However, there are other things that you can do to. Grass is soothing, but you have to cut it regularly and some individuals cannot find the time, so they concrete over it or make a patio or deck. These are practical solutions for small gardens, but a large expanse of concrete looks bleak.

Creating a fish pond is nicer to concreting the whole garden over. A fish pond brings the soothing sounds of moving water as the cleansed water returns from the filter to the pond. A fountain improves this sound and helps oxygenate the water which in turn will give a boost to the fish. Many people find that watching happy fish in a clean pond is calming.

Garden ornaments are another way of creating fascinating focal points in your garden. Statues of maidens, monks and nymphs are popular. Some of them circulate water, some do not. An arbour is a great place to sit when the sun’s rays are strong. A small bench inside an arbour of roses or wisteria, looks and smells idyllic.

A simple and cost-effective method of providing garden ornaments is the deployment of stones and it is normally overlooked by gardeners. They fit in well with any kind of green garden, because stones and rocks are natural items.

Evidently, there are many kinds of stones and rocks and so they can be put to various different uses. Large riven slabs of stone can be used to create a path or a patio. Smaller slabs can be used to make a stepping stone path to, say, the shed or the washing line.

A boulder could be used in place of a statue. They look great poking out from behind bushes or at the end of a tunnel of over-hanging trees or bushes. Smaller stones can be used to demarcate the borders of your flower beds and rocks can be used to create a specific environment for plants that like harsh, rocky conditions. In effect, a rock garden.

Japanese gardens make a lot of use of stones. Stones look good in running water if the the gardener has or can create a small stream. Stones also come in diverse colours naturally. Painting stones is nearly always a big mistake. A large lump of coal looks good, but make certain that it has been carefully washed before children get near it. Rocks with fossils in them are especially interesting as features.

When you have all the calming features you need in your refuge garden, think about lighting for them. Accent lighting allows you to show off your garden literally in its best light and it extends the time that you can take pleasure from your efforts by several hours a day.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with outdoor accent lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.

How do you feel in the winter when light levels are reduced? Do you become fed-up, lethargic or even depressed? This experience is quite widely documented and has the acronym of SADS. SADS is or can be pretty serious, but there are almost certainly many many more people who just feel a ‘bit down’ when the sunlight dims. Artificial bright light was invented to help these people.

If, after you have been in the office or wherever you work inside for a few hours, you become tired or listless, it is possible that you are suffering from reduced light levels, so some people say. Whether you accept as true that bright light can help sluggishness or not, SADS is a fact and so it is feasible that increased bright light levels might help.

The artificial bright light box produces very bright light, typically between 5,000 and 10,000 lux according to their advertisements. These figures will not mean much to most people, so I have put together a short list of comparison lux levels below.

1 lux = Full moon overhead in the tropics 50 lux = Family living room 100 lux = Very dark overcast day 320-500 lux = Office lighting 400 lux = Sunrise or sunset on a clear day. 1,000 lux = Overcast day 10,000-25,000 lux = Full daylight (not direct sun) 32,000-130,000 lux = Direct sunlight

It is definitely true that most people feel happier when the sun is shining and not many people prefer winter over summer, but whether you can get sunlight out of a box or not is another question. These bright light boxes cost about $200 and up, but then you have to factor in the running costs. The electricity bill for running a mini sun must be quite horrific.

If your place of work is a little dark, it would be a good idea to increase the light levels. Sometimes it can be quite simple to increase the levels of natural light simply by removing any unnecessary net curtains and by fitting longer curtain rods so that the curtains can be drawn right back out of the way of the window allowing the maximum of light to come into your room.

If this is still not enough, you could fit some wall sconces around places where you work the most. Wall lights can supply light just where you want it and usually use quite small, low-powered bulbs. A more direct way to light up your work is by the use of a desk lamp.

If it is a question of needing more light to read by, you could invest in a standard floor lamp. Standard floor lamps are typically about five feet high with a shade. The shade is useful, because it directs light up onto the ceiling, if the shade is open topped, and down onto your book or shoulders. There are other types of standard floor lamp which have a glass or clear cover over the bulb. These will cast more light around the room and will boost general visibility.

Not being able to see properly can easily cause a headache and frequent headaches can be depressing, but before I rush out to buy a ‘bright light box’, I will take the actions outlined above and have my eyesight tested by an optician.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with researching wrought iron floor lamps. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light