Check out this video about garden pictures:
Here’s a quiet creation of still pictures and video of my father’s flower garden while visiting the homestead. It’s my small tribute for my family, and for Father’s Day. There’s some very minimal but nice piano music that sounds a little like George Winston interspersed.
Garden Boots
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Garden Boots
Product Description
Garden boots keep feet dry. Soft green latex with nonskid soles wears for years. Rinse clean inside and out! Small fits ladies (6-8), men’s (4-6). Medium fits ladies’ (9-10), men’s (6-8). Large fits ladies’ (10-12), men’s (8-10)
Garden Boots
Check out this video about garden ideas:
Learn ideas for designing your vegetable garden in this free online video guide to vegetable gardening. Expert: Scott Reil Contact: www.safelawns.org Bio: Scott Reil is an accredited nurseryman and longtime horticulturalist with over two decades of experience in the field. Scott is now working for www.safelawns.org. Filmmaker: Christian Munoz-Donoso
A General Purpose Rock Garden Soil
The gardener knows that there is nothing like coarse, gritty sand for increasing the drainage properties of a soil. He uses it in his cutting bed, in the soil he mixes for potting. So sand will be one of the ingredients.
The roots of rock garden plants, as we have seen, like to cling around the moist surfaces of bits of stone buried in the soil, while the leaves rest upon those pieces which work their way to the surface, thus avoiding direct contact with the dirt.
An important ingredient will be stone chips. Ordinary crushed stone, such as is used for surfacing roads is suitable; this can be readily procured in most sections. If not, bank gravel, preferably not too fine or smooth, and not “washed,” will serve as a substitute.
For our third ingredient, we add humus or decayed vegetable matter, which is found almost invariably in soils in which rock plants grow. This material holds an additional supply of moisture, besides furnishing some plant food. For supplying humus, granulated peat moss is best. It is so slightly acidic that only the extreme lime-loving plants object to it, and it absorbs and holds more moisture than any similar material.
Moreover, it is both pure and absolutely free from weed seeds, an advantage which cannot be overemphasized in rock garden planting. Peat moss is now readily obtainable anywhere; but if you do not happen to have it, finely sifted leaf mold will serve. Commercial humus has more of a tendency than either of the above to get wet or soggy.
Fourthly, and lastly, to give additional body to the plant food, we add good light garden loam. This, however, should be wholly free from clay, which is the last thing, in the way of soils, to be used where rock plants are to go.
All this has required some time in the telling, but if you boil it down it comes to this. To make a satisfactory all around rock garden soil, mix thoroughly together the following:
1 part clean, gritty sand, 1 part stone chips, or clean, gritty gravel, 1 part granulated peat moss, or sifted leaf mold, 1 part clean, light garden loam.
You will have a soil in which 90% of the rock plants you are likely to try at the start will grow satisfactorily.
Special Soils for Special Purposes
Occasionally, however, you will find plants that require something different from the above in the matter of soil; these will grow in the above mixture, but will grow better if their tastes are catered to.
Some insist upon having an extremely acid soil, or a lime soil, in order to survive at all. Such plants as these may either be grouped by themselves, or may be started in pockets filled with a soil supplying their own special dietary requirements.
These special soil mixtures may be made up according to the following prescriptions, the chief changes being an increase in one part or another of the several ingredients. These proportions are approximate; there is no necessity for weighing out the ingredients on a jeweler’s scale.
Acid Soil
1 part sand, 1 part stone chips, 3 parts acid leaf mold (that is, leaf mold gathered from under evergreens, laurels, or the like), Lime or Sweet Soil 1 part sand or 3 parts old plaster, 1 part loan, 1 part peat moss
Dry Soil.
3 parts sand, 2 parts stone chips, 1 part loam, 1 part peat moss
Moist Soil.
1 part sand, 1 part chips, 1 part loam, 3 parts sphagnum moss or granulated peat moss, or both
Fertilizers
For plants other than the true rock plants and alpines-such as garden perennials and annuals, shrubs, evergreens, and most bulbs-and also for such of the rock plants or alpines as take readily to a somewhat stronger diet, very often decayed manure and bone meal may well be added to the general soil mixtures suggested above.
For evergreens, shrubs, or other plants which are to be set around the rock garden, by way of a background or setting, such conditions as are usually provided for them should, of course, be given. Particularly if any specialty garden features have been added, such as those in the Williamsburg Collection, http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D9HrZ2bNaiGk.
Do not use any of the commercial fertilizers, except bone meal, and even with this great caution should be exercised.
Lime is not a fertilizer, but may occasionally be needed for the rock garden. If old lime rubbish, which is better for this purpose, is not to be had, ground limestone or gypsum may be used, to modify a soil otherwise too acidic.
Aluminum sulphate, now offered by most seed houses, works in the opposite direction. This may be utilized either to neutralize a lime soil, or, by applying it in larger quantities, to make the soil acid-reacting. Acidic leaf mold, which is to be found in most sections if trouble is taken to hunt for it.
Leaf mold gathered under oak trees is sufficiently acidic for most purposes, if decayed laurel leaves, conifer needles, or rhododendron leaves are not to be had.
Sarah Martin is a freelance marketing writer specializing in home improvement, landscaping, and gardening. For a great selection of garden features and outdoor waterfalls, such as the Williamsburg Collection, please visit http://www.garden-fountains.com.
For container gardening ideas, search the internet, the library or a bookstore. The challenge is to come up with a pleasing container garden design. There are an unlimited variety of containers available for your container garden. These range in size from small house-plant pots to large boxes and planters. Equally variable are the materials from which they are made. These include wood, glass, clay, aluminum, bamboo, straw, plastic, fiberglass, terra cotta, tin, cast iron, zinc, copper, and brass, each with certain advantages and disadvantages. What you select will depend on availability, cost, background, and appeal not to mention the characteristics of the gardening pots.
Here are some container gardening ideas. In addition to traditional circular pots and tubs, there are modern and ultra-modern forms—square, rectangular, triangular, hexagonal, and octagonal. Also eligible are old iron kitchen pots, kettles, pails, jugs, casks, vases, crocks, jelly tubs, barrels and nail kegs, Japanese fish tubs, old sinks, bathtubs, bamboo soy tubs. There are novelty containers such as driftwood, wheelbarrows, donkey carts, spinning wheels and boxes attached to roadside mail receptacle. There are also bird cages, decorative well heads, animal figures, and Strawberry jars. Woven baskets may be used to conceal unattractive containers. Even tar paper pots, handled by garden centers and florists, are worthwhile if painted or covered to improve their appearance. Any of these can be used in your container gardening ideas.
Where to find your container supplies? Start with what you have. If you scout cellars or basements, attics, garages, and sheds, you will doubtless encounter something interesting. Old-fashioned pots and kettles, often sold in antique shops at country auctions or seen at old New England inns, have much appeal.
Other container garden ideas are to consider old cookie and bean jars, pickle and other types of crocks, wash tubs, coal pails, jardinières, and ceramic bowls. For drainage, spread a thick layer of large pebbles or broken pieces of pots or bricks at the bottom and then water plants with care. In large containers of this kind, drainage material should be several inches thick. Where rainfall is heavy, be sure to keep garden containers without drainage outlets on porches, under awnings or the broad eaves of houses. With pails and old galvanized wash tubs, holes can be easily punctured at the bottom.
Plants in containers without drainage openings remain moist longer. Some of these—crocks, jardinières and cookie jars—are heavy enough to be secure against wind in outside container gardening.
What constitutes the ideal container for your container garden ideas? A container must be attractive, even if it is not an object of art. It should be strong and durable and able to resist all kinds of weather. This is especially true of the large sizes, which usually remain outdoors all year around. In the North, alternate freezing and thawing is a problem in winter (and could cause cracking); in tropical climates, excessive heat, humidity, and moisture are to be considered (and could cause fading). And in semiarid areas, there is the effect of scorching sun to keep in mind, another cause of fading. All these things must be kept in mind when coming up with your container gardening design.
The ideal container must be large enough to hold a substantial amount of soil. It should have good drainage facilities through holes or other openings at the bottom or sides, though this is not absolutely necessary. It must not rust, at least in a single season, and it should have a wide enough base to rest firmly wherever placed. Besides, it ought to be heavy enough to withstand average winds. In severe storms, like hurricanes and tornadoes, movable containers can be shifted to temporary safety. All of these things should be factored in when you are coming up with your container gardening ideas.
Resistance to rot is another requirement. Wooden containers—except those made of rot-resistant redwood, Western cedar, and Southern red cypress—will need to be treated with a wood preservative. Except for permanent containers, the ability to move your container garden is another feature, and sometimes a safety precaution, of portable container gardening. Large boxes and planters can be fitted with wheels, and garden centers have redwood tubs that rest on platforms with wheels. A hole in the platform corresponds to the hole in the tub. Large containers without wheels can be pushed on iron or wooden rollers by two or more persons; however, if you live in an area prone to disastrous storms it is best to keep your containers small.
Smaller containers are ideal for growing herb container gardens. If you plan to plant an herb container garden be imaginative Here are some container garden ideas for herbs that go well together.
For an Italian selection try Sweet basil, Italian parsley, Oregano, Marjoram and Thyme.
For a lovely scented container use Lavender, Rose scented geranium, Lemon balm, Lemon thyme, and Pineapple sage.
For really great salads try Garlic chives, Rocket, Salad burnet, Parsley, Celery.
And to say “We love French Cooking!” use Tarragon, Chervil, Parsley, Chives and Sage.
Any of these will liven up your cooking and please your family.
So these are just a few container gardening ideas. Get out a pad of paper and make up a container garden design that will please the eye and maybe even the palate
Happy Container Gardening!
Copyright © 2006 Mary Hanna All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Mary Hanna is an aspiring herbalist who lives in Central Florida. This allows her to grow gardens inside and outside year round. She has published other articles on Cruising, Gardening and Cooking. Visit her websites at http://www.CruiseTravelDirectory.com, http://www.ContainerGardeningSecrets.com, and http://www.GardeningHerb.com or contact her at mary@webmarketingreviews.com
Check out this video about gardening equipment:
Destroying pop cans with gardening equipment
my wife wants me to make a flower garden for her, which ok with me. now the problem, can anyone tell how many #40 bags of top soil it will take to fill a 3foot diameter and 10 inchs deep? thank you
Installing garden decking boards represents a financial investment which can help increase the value of your home. Care and maintenance are essential to keep the garden decking in prestige condition. There is also an important safety aspect to keeping your garden decking clean as it will prevent the surface from becoming a slippery over time.
Materials: warm water, soda crystals, chemical agents (optional)
Tools You’ll Need: stiff household broom, pressure washer (optional)
Before You Begin: The cleaning process is likely to take some time, make sure you have the time and do not rush the job. For better results, clean your decking in summer when the decks are dry.
Step 1 : Clear the decked area – Make sure the decking surface is free of any obstacles so you can concentrate on cleaning rather than moving toys, chairs and tables around. Do not drag any piece of furniture around therefore you should consider getting a helping hand for this step.
Step 2 : Brush thoroughly – Using a stiff broom give the deck a thorough brush followed by jet wash using a pressure washer if you have one to get rid of dirt and debris. Do not use an industrial grade pressure washer as it might damage the wood, those used as multi-purpose home jet cleaners will work just fine.
Step 3a : Use warm water and soda crystals – To clean the decked surface on a budget and to minimise wastage, use warm water and soda crystals. Spray warm water over the decked surface and sprinkle soda crystals. Leave the decking for a few hours and once dry brush using a stiff broom.
Or
Step 3b : Use dedicated cleaners – Soda crystals are fantastic for cleaning garden decking, but they take a while to dry. There are a number of chemical agents which will both clean and rejuvenate the timber. Look out for a chemical agent specifically designed for your type of timber which can vary from ipe decking to teak decking etc and purchase it from a reputable source. Normally those chemicals are highly concentrated therefore one to two liters will do.
Step 4: Rinse the deck once again – After you have completed the cleaning process, rinse the deck area completely to remove any trace of the cleaning solutions and chemical agents. Allow the deck to dry completely before replacing furniture and other items on the deck surface.
Wood and Beyond sellers of decks from ipe to teak decking.
Have you cut out and collected pictures of great landscaping ideas, but now wonder how to actually put them onto your own property? Have you wanted to capture the vision of a stately French mansion on your property in Houston, Texas? Would you like to know whether the plants you’ve admired in European and New England countryside estates will grow on the Texas coastal plains?
If so, you need the services of an experienced residential landscape design professional. A competent landscape designer or landscape architect takes you through the entire design development process, which includes: consultation and program development, analysis of the existing site, conceptual landscaping design, construction documentation and permitting. And then on towards turning the vision in your mind from virtual reality to actual reality.
Landscape design and Analysis of the Site
An essential part of the initial consultation with your landscape designer or landscape architect is a walk around your property. Here is where you get to share your overall vision, detail your wants and needs and desires. It should be a free-flowing discussion about aesthetics, which includes your likes and dislikes of materials, preferences on arrangements-all the “wouldn’t it be nice if…” things you’ve been considering.
Try to be as specific as you can. For example, you may want a deck to seat a party of ten people or a large lawn area on which your three- and five-year-old can play with your Labrador retriever. This detailed information will be brought together by your residential landscape designer or landscape architect to create a program of uses. The program organizes uses by their relationship to one another, much like the inside flow of your home. In fact, the architecture and flow of your home should relate to the architecture and flow of your landscaping. Understanding these relationships and interpreting them well separates the artist-architectural designer from a landscape horticulturalist-contractor.
Residential Landscaping Design
The next step in the design process develops out of the meeting notes, site analysis, program of uses, and the design professional’s experience. At this conceptual level, the landscape designer or landscape architect conveys the overall design intent, such as the general use areas and their sizes, swimming pools and other hardscapes, outdoor kitchens and outdoor fountains, lawn areas, and plantings. This phase will also be the time when it is determined which wish list items are possible on the site and which are not. An overall cost study is developed from the conceptual landscaping design as well.
Moving Forward with you Landscape Design:
Once you have agreed on the overall design intent, sizes of use areas, general material selections and their applications, you are ready to begin the landscaping design development and construction phase. The documentation for this phase can be broken down into three groups: 1) landscaping design drawings for permitting. 2) landscaping design drawings to convey final design intent and material selections for you and the installation contractor 3) landscaping design drawings, called construction documents, with specifications for materials, specifications for their installation and installation methods.
These drawings may be accompanied by a full package of additional drawings to include an existing site survey, tree disposition and elevation plan, tree preservation plan, demolition plan, swimming pool plan, landscape drainage systems, irrigation systems, hardscape plan including outdoor kitchen and outdoor water fountains, landscape planting plan, landscape lighting plan, and construction details for the above plans.
As for permits, each city has its own unique requirements for landscape plan approvals. The norm is a submittal of the entire permitting package to be approved or rejected by a committee board. For this reason, it is important to hire a landscaping company that is fluent in these areas, one who knows what vital information to include, such as lot coverage ratios, engineered drainage plans, pool fencing layout and specifications. It is equally important to omit unnecessary information that could create confusion or send up a red flag that would keep the project from getting approved. A knowledgeable residential landscape designer or landscape architect helps win approval as quickly as possible.
Garden Design and the End Results
Whether your project is a simple landscaping design that only encompasses landscape planting or is a complex construction package, it is vital that you hire a landscape designer or landscape architect that is competent in the skill sets detailed here. For your satisfaction, it is also important to distinguish between off-the-shelf landscaping design and a designer who can reflect your unique style. Always ask to see a portfolio and visit the website to determine if the landscaping company under consideration has the sense of style you appreciate and is one who can design a landscape that complements your home and lifestyle.
Additionally, it is highly recommended that you utilize a landscaping design company that not only does the design work, but also performs project management and landscaping installation. There is a world of difference between someone who has great ideas and another person with great ideas who also knows the availability and best use of local materials, local contractors and their methods of construction, overall cost and budget development, and can then maintain the finished product. In short, you want a landscape designer or landscape architect who can deliver a landscape design solution that flourishes in the Houston climate over the long term.
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