EZ Gardening For Beginners

Would you love to start your own garden, but you don’t think you have enough space? With a bit of creativity, just about anyone can have a garden. Even the smallest, narrowest yard can sustain a healthy and beautifully vertical garden. Here are some ideas on creating space saving gardens, including the popular vertical garden.

Go Vertical – How this Idea Can Save You Space and Produce Results

Do you dream of a wide backyard that could accommodate a ‘real’ garden? Well, you don’t have to dream anymore. You can have your dream garden without having to budge an inch. What is a vertical garden, anyway? A vertical garden is one of the latest trends in space saving and innovative gardening. Vertical garden, as the name implies, refers to gardens that grow up and down, rather than side to side. How is this possible, you might be asking your self? Thanks to the ingenuity of some cutting edge garden designers, the vertical garden is becoming a reality in gardens around the world.

Standing Face to Face with Your Garden

Most traditional gardeners can expect to be on their knees for most of their gardening life. This is not so with a vertical garden. With a vertical garden, you will instead be standing face to face with your flowers and plants. Imagine standing face to face with your blood-red bougainvillea or climbing rose – no kneeling required for these plants. Vertical gardening is a fun and efficient way to grow many traditional plants.

What Type of Plants Can You Use in Your Vertical Garden?

There are many types of plants that will thrive in a vertical position. The aforementioned bougainvillea and climbing rose are prime examples of the beauty and possibility of vertical gardening. In general, you will want to focus on vines and climbing plants. There are several plants that grow as vines, and many of these can lend your garden with showy blooms as well as food. And since vines grow vertically, they are ideal plants for a garden that is lacking width. There are also many fine climbing plants that can provide you with seasonal blooms and evergreen beauty. Visit your local nursery for the best local selection of regional vines and climbing plants.

What You Can Expect from Your Vertical Garden

There are many noteworthy aspects attributed to vertical gardens. First, vertical gardening can provide you with the convenience that is not possible with traditional floor planting. Vertical gardening provides you with convenience by making it easy for you to reach your plants. You will have an easier time when it comes to pruning, inspecting your plants for pests and enjoying the aroma and beauty of your plants. If you are growing vegetables and fruits in your vertical garden, you can expect to find cleaner fruits and vegetables because they are not making direct contact with the ground and thus are less likely to experience rot and moisture. Vertical gardens are also less prone to disease, insect infestation, fungus and mildew, because they receive better air circulation and sunshine.

Special Considerations for the Vertical Garden

There are special considerations to keep in mind when you are constructing your own vertical garden. These include making sure that your plants are properly supported. This can be one of the greatest challenges of the vertical gardeners. Also, vertical gardening can become difficult when you cannot reach certain spots in your garden. Ideally, you will want to control the growth of your plants, and have some kind of system of elevation where you can inspect top growth periodically. Vertical gardens also produce shade, so make certain to protect underlying plants that may not be getting enough sunlight.

Antique roses are among some of the loveliest flowers to grace many gardens. If you are an avid gardener, at some point in your life among the soil and seeds, you will probably want to try your hand at antique roses. Many gardeners find themselves intimidated by antique roses. This is probably because of the general splendor of these flowers, which makes it difficult o believe that these ruffled beauties are anything but easy to plant. But that is not often the case. Antique roses can be easier to plant and care for than you might think, but that does not mean that they are effortless. However, most gardeners agree that any effort that results in a display of thriving antique roses is well worth it. Here are some tips that can make it easier to care for antique roses.

Choosing the Best Planting Location for Your Antique Roses

Establishing a nice, healthy show of antique roses has a lot to do with the location you choose to place them. Here are some tips to preparing the rose bed. Many antique roses will grow in even poor soil locations, but if you want your garden to thrive, choose a location with well-drained and rich soil. Choose an open area that you know receives at least six hours of direct sun. Morning sun is always preferable. Make sure that the area gets a good amount of air circulation, as this will help prevent disease. Take the time to establish a good bed by practicing good soil preparation. If your soil is too sandy or too heavy, add a good amount of organic material to help enrich or break it up, depending on its condition. Ideally, you will want to prepare the soil bed a few months in advance so that the soil has enough time to absorb the new nutrients. Remember that you want to establish your antique roses in the healthiest soil possible. With this in mind, prepare your rose bed in spring or summer in preparation for a fall or winter planting.

Planting Your Antique Roses

Once your rose bed has been adequately prepared, you are ready to start planting your antique roses. Visit your local nursery in fall or winter for the best selection of antique roses. Remember that any roses you buy in a container will need to be planted using a high quality potting soil, and may require additional fertilizer and water. To remove the rose plant from the plastic planter, simply knock the plant out of the container gently and place it into the prepared planting hole. Do not worry about spreading the roots. Simply cover the plant with soil and water thoroughly.

Follow these Mulching and Watering Guidelines for the Best Results

What are the keys to taking good care of your antique roses? They are simple enough: mulch and water your plants with careful attention. This does not have to be difficult work. As for mulch, add a thick layer of mulch to your antique roses at least two or three times a year. That is all it takes to ensure less water stress, less weed growth, less heat stress and overall richer soil and happier plants. Mulching can be as simple as adding decomposed pine bark, leaf litter, pine needles or store-bought mulch. However, do the earth a favor and use mulch that you can find around the yard. As for watering, give your antique roses a good soaking every 7 to 10 days. Although they make look exquisitely delicate, many antique roses actually tend to be drought tolerant. Still, avoid light frequent watering, as this makes the plant more vulnerable to disease, and will encourage surface root growth. Deep, infrequent watering will help your plant become hardier and will lessen the risk for disease and evaporation.

Composting is fast becoming the preferred fertilizer and soil conditioner for all gardeners in the know. Indeed, there is probably nothing that is better for your garden than homegrown compost. There are many natural advantages to creating your own compost, including increased fertility, cost and efficiency. Here are some uncomplicated compost ideas for your little garden.

What is Compost?

But maybe you are new to the world of compost, or need a little refresher. There is good reason why so many experienced gardeners swear by compost. Straight compost can easily take care of all your garden’s fertilizing needs, including fertilizing your lawn, flowers, shrubs, fruit trees and vegetables. Essentially, compost is what is created when organic material breaks down and decomposes in an enclosed area. For instance, in a composting bin, organic matter breaks down with help from the moisture in that enclosed area. Many chemical reactions take place that allow for the decomposition of the material. The combination of heat and moisture create a dark, earthy material called hummus. In essence, compost is nature’s way of recycling used organic material into rich new earth.

Why Your Garden Needs Compost

All good, healthy gardens need the ingredients that are contained in compost. Most notably, compost is composed of nitrogen, along with more than a dozen of other essential nutrients and micronutrients. Compost imbues soil with the micro biotic activity that it needs in order to begin producing. Thus, soil that has been mixed with compost will become more hospitable to plants, feeding the roots of all kinds of plants and creating the kind of environment that will allow your plants to thrive.

How to Make Your Very Own Compost

Start your own compost pile today and you will have good compost in about six months time. Here is an easy recipe for making your own compost. First, choose a spot for your compost. Ideally, you would like to have a bin, but a cleared off corner will do. In general, you want your compost to be composed of 40% browns, 40% greens and 20% steer manure or chicken. Browns refer to organic material that is naturally brown, including sawdust, dry leaves, twigs, straw and paper, including shredded newspaper and junk mail. Greens include such organic materials as overripe fruit, grass clippings, vegetables, landscape trimmings, spent blossoms and blooms, flower stems and others.

Easy Tips for Maintaining Your Compost Pile

Here are some easy tips for maintaining your compost pile. You will want to blend manure into your green and brown material. Try to layer your greens and browns in your composing area. Don’t let your compost pile go dry. Add water periodically and use a pitchfork to turn your pile on a regular basis. Ideally, you want your compost pile to be moist, but not too moist. Aim for it to be about as moist as a wrung out sponge. Every week, use your pitchfork to turn your pile. When you add new organic material to your compost pile, try to layer the browns over the greens.

No Fuss, No Muss Composting for Your Little Garden

There are a lot of easy way to compost with no fuss and no muss. If you don’t have enough room in your yard for a full-scale compost bin in your yard, you can start small. Keep a compost kitchen pail by your sink so that you have somewhere to throw out food scraps. Once the compost kitchen pail is full, you can empty outside in your garden. Let nature take over and do its work. The organic material will eventually break down and enrich your soil, creating food for your garden.