Tips and Strategies
Mar 16, Rock gardening tips for small gardens
Small gardens work well for alpine plants - rock gardening tips
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A haven of practical garden resources. Raised Bed Garden ideas, FREE Vegetable Companion Planting designs, Permaculture, No Dig Garden, Honey Bees, Garden Snake and Snail solutions
Garden Arch II
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Raised bed gardening In raised bed gardening, the soil is formed in 3-4 foot (1.0-1.2m) wide beds, which can be of any length. The soil is about 0.5-1 foot (150-300cm) above the surrounding soil, sometimes enclosed by a frame generally made of wood or concrete blocks, and enriched with compost made from leaves and grass clippings. The vegetable plants are spaced in geometric patterns, much closer together than conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which moisture is conserved and weed growth suppressed. Since the gardener does not walk on the raised beds, the soil is not compacted and the roots have an easier time growing. The close plant spacing
Basic Gardening Tips for Beginners
This is an excellent place for basic gardening tips for beginners. This will show you how to prepare your gardens and what is needed to maintain it.
Gardening Tips - Trees Gardening
A home that has a backyard cultivated through gardening actually creates a friendly and comforting atmosphere for those who live within the vicinity.
Plant Categories
In addition to the scientific classification of plants, or our more populist approach based upon that system, we may want to classify plants in a variety of other ways, some of which are considered here.
Plants may be organized according to their seasonal growth pattern. Of course simple plants like algae have individually short life spans and the following terms do not apply, but algae populations are commonly seasonal.
- Annual: live and reproduce within one growing season.
- Biennial: live for two growing seasons; usually reproduce in second year.
- Perennial: live for many growing seasons; continue to reproduce once mature.
Vascular plants are either herbaceous (nonwoody) or woody. Woody plants may be trees with one or several trunks and branching occurring well above ground, or shrubs with no significant trunk, and branching occurring near ground surface.
Plants may also be organized according to how they are used. Food plants include fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices.
Raised bed gardening
In raised bed gardening, the soil is formed in 3-4 foot (1.0-1.2m) wide beds, which can be of any length. The soil is about 0.5-1 foot (150-300cm) above the surrounding soil, sometimes enclosed by a frame generally made of wood or concrete blocks, and enriched with compost made from leaves and grass clippings. The vegetable plants are spaced in geometric patterns, much closer together than conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which moisture is conserved and weed growth suppressed. Since the gardener does not walk on the raised beds, the soil is not compacted and the roots have an easier time growing. The close plant spacing and the use of compost generally result in higher yields with raised beds in comparison to conventional row gardening.
Raised beds lend themselves to the development of complex agriculture systems that utilize many of the principles and methods of Permaculture. They can be used effectively to control erosion and recycle and conserve water and nutrients by building them along contour lines on slopes. This also makes more space available for intensive crop production. They can be created over large areas with the use of several commonly available tractor-drawn implements and efficiently maintained, planted and harvested using hand tools.
Hereford Lighthouse Garden, North Wildwood
(source:Wikimedia Commons)
"Indoor gardening" is concerned with the growing of household plants within the residence, in a conservatory or a greenhouse. The plants grown in a conservatory or greenhouse may or may not require more exacting care and conditions than ordinary household plants. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated as part of air conditioning or heating systems.
History of gardening This entry concerns the history of ornamental gardening considered as an amenity of civilized life, as a vehicle for style, for conspicuous show and even an expression of philosophy. See also subsistance gardening, the art and craft of growing plants, considered as a circumscribed form of individual agriculture. The cultivation of plants for food long predates history. The earliest evidence for ornamental gardens is seen in Egyptian tomb paintings of the 1500s BC; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by rows of acacias and palmss. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were renowned as a Wonder of the World, although their existence is doubted. Darius the Great was said to have had a "paradise garden"; and around 350 BC there were gardens at the Academy of
Hedge (gardening) In gardening a hedge is a row of woody plants, generally of one species, used to demarcate spaces. If a mixture of small trees and shrubs is used instead, to keep people and animals from straying through pasture or cropland, the result is a hedgerow. Some hedgerows separating fields from lanes in England and the Low Countries are estimated to be over seven hundred years old. The root word of 'hedge' is much older: it appears in Old English, in German (Hecke), and Dutch (haag) to signify 'enclosure,' as in the capital of the Netherlands, The Hague. Hedges may be clipped or unclipped. Typical woody plants for clipped hedges include boxwood, privet, yew, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, holly, oleander, lavender, etc. An early 20th century fashion
Botany is the branch of Biology concerned with the scientific study of plants. Traditionally, botanists studied all organisms that were not generally regarded as animal. However, advances in our knowledge about the myriad forms of life, especially microbes (viruses and bacteria) have led to a spinning off from botany
16th century Italian gardens such as the Boboli Gardens in Florence, and of formal French gardens in the manner of Andr頬e Notre, e.g. at Versailles. The 'hedge on stilts' of clipped hornbeams at Hidcote, Gloucestershire, is famous and has sometimes been imitated. Hedges below knee height are generally thought of as borders. Elaborately shaped and interlaced borders forming knot gardens or parterres were fashionable in Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries. Generally they were appreciated from a raised position, either the windows of a house, or a terrace. Clipped hedges above eye level may be laid out in the form of a labyrinth or garden maze. Few such mazes survived the change of fashion towards more naturalistic plantings in the 18th and 19th centuries, but many were replanted
Some organic gardening tips
Most synthetic fertilizers contain components and chemicals which can be harmful to living organisms, and therefore organic gardening usually is a wiser option. If you wish to apply organic gardening techniques, you should start by avoiding all synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and use natural options instead. Once you have decided where you will plant, you should apply natural compost and rock materials to it. If you have flower beds, you should add about 3" of organic material to them...
Hat and Gardening Gloves by Flower Pots
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Gardening Tips- How To Make Your Own Compost
A soil can never get enough compost because soil can always be improved with additional organic matter. Compost is organic matter that has broken down sufficiently such that its mineral and nutrient components can be readily absorbed by plants. You can either buy compost or create compost yourself.
Allotment (gardening)
In the United Kingdom, an allotment is a small area of land, let out at a nominal yearly rent by local government or independent allotment associations, for individuals to grow their own food. This could be considered as an example of a community garden system for urban and to some extent rural folk.
The allotment system began in the 18th century: for example, a 1732 engraving of Birmingham, England shows the town encircled by allotments, some of which still exist to this day. Following the Inclosure Acts and the Commons Act of 1876 the land available for personal cultivation by the poor was greatly diminished. To fulfill the need for land allotment legislation was included. The law was first fully codified in the Small Holdings and Allotment Act of 1908, it was modified by the Allotments Act of 1922 and subsequent Allotments Acts up until 1950.
Under the acts a local government is required to maintain an "adequate provision" of land, usually a large allotment field which can then be subdivided into allotment gardens for individual residents at a low rent. The rent is set at what a person "may reasonably be expected to pay" (1950), in 1997 the average rent for a 10 rod (50.29 metres) plot was ?22 a year. Each plot cannot exceed 40 rods and must be used for the production of fruit or vegetables for consumption by the plotholder and their family (1922), the exact size and quality of the plots is not defined. The council has a duty to provide sufficient allotments to meet demand. The total income from allotments was ?2.61 million and total expenditure was ?8.44 million in 1997.
The total number of plots has varied greatly over time. In the 19th and early 20th century, the allotment system supplied much of the fresh vegetables eaten by the poor. In 1873 there were 244,268 plots and by 1918 there were around 1,500,000 plots. While numbers fell in the 1920s and 1930s, following an increase to 1,400,000 during World War II there were still around 1,117,000 plots in 1948. This number has been in decline since then, falling to 600,000 by the late 1960s. The Thorpe Inquiry of 1969 investigated the decline and put the causes as the decline in available land, increasing prosperity and the growth of other leisure activities.
Despite increased interest in "green" issues from the 1970s which revived interest in allotment gardening the rate of decline was only slowed, falling from 530,000 plots in 1970 to 497,000 in 1977 although there was a substantial waiting list. By 1980 the surge in interest was over, by 1997 the number of plots had fallen to around 265,000, with waiting lists of 13,000 and 44,000 vacant plots.
Allotment users have a organisation that campaigns on their behalf, the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG).
Further reading: The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture, David Crouch and Colin Ward
Organic gardening
gardening in harmony with nature, without using artificial chemicals such as pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Organic gardeners instead emphasise the importance of "feeding the soil, not the plant".
greenhouse at Kew Gardens, London
Wildlife gardening is a school of gardening that is aimed at creating an environment that is attractive to various forms of wildlife such as birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, mammals and so on. A wildlife garden (or wild garden) will usually contain a variety of habitats that have either been deliberately created by the gardener (eg, ponds to attract frogs, newts, toads, dragonflies; nesting boxes for birds and solitary bees, hedgehogs or certain insects; log piles to provide shelter for lizards and slow worms; planting beneficial insect attractant plants including wildflower meadows, etc), or allowed to self-establish by minimising maintenance and intervention. Many organic gardeners are sympathetic to the philosophy of wildlife gardening, and will usually try to incorporate some aspects of the wild garden into
Gardening Tips For Landscaping A Slope Or A Hill
Landscaping on a slope can be tricky but it can be done. Here are some tips for planting a slope or hill.
Apr 3, Shade gardening tips
Shade gardening - successful gardening in shade, shade garden soil, shade-tolerant plants, dry shade