Outdoor Oasis for relaxation and peace of mind.

There are so many ways that you can create a garden, so. ultimately it comes down to personal preference. There are a few basic garden styles that you can follow. Make sure when you choose a style that you consider the architecture of your home. A formal garden will not necessarily be the best choice for a cottage style home. Also, consider the color of the items in your yard, the fence, any outbuildings. The color of your home and it’s trim are also important factors. There are five general garden styles.

Formal
The formal garden has a long history. French or Italianate gardens feature strong symmetry. Asian or Islamic gardens have strong geometric patterns. A formal design will have strong defined lines and edges. Paving and paths are central and will lead the eye to some kind of specimen plant or other garden element, such as a statue.

Hedges and shrubs are prevalent. They should be trimmed into symmetrical shapes such as pyramids, balls and boxes. Formal gardens are frequently monochromatic in color. Often they will be one single color, like white.

Informal/Casual
The goal of the informal garden is to soften the boundaries between the home and the garden. An informal garden will have winding paths, and mounded groups of plants. The casual garden will include more potted plants and beds with mixed flowers. Large shrubs should be used as a backdrop for plants. The casual garden should have a relaxed and inviting feeling.

Contemporary
Contemporary gardens use shapes that include circles, ovals and triangles. Geometric beds can be used, but the plantings should appear to have a bit of organized chaos. Often architectural features of a home, (I.E. oval windows), will be copied into the garden. House trim color is also copied with the flower color.

Also present are living walls covered with climbing vines, container groupings that mirror bed shapes, and newly introduced plants. The contemporary garden is also a great place for espalier’s and topiary’s. The topiary’s should be trimmed into free-form triangles and ball shapes. Of most importance is that this style remain fluid. A contemporary garden is a “blend of traditional style with modern design principles.” (Flower Gardening; Julie Bawden-Davis; 2004)

Natural
The ultimate goal for a natural garden is to replicate nature. Major features include groupings of odd numbered plants, plantings in layers and levels, and native flowering plants. A natural garden should also include plants that attract wildlife, like birds and bee’s. Keep in mind when creating a natural garden that room should be left for a compost pile or bin. A natural garden should also be free of harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Combination
The combination style of gardening is perhaps the most difficult to do successfully. This type of garden requires experience. A successful combination garden will have many aspects of different styles woven together. The best way to approach this design is either to plan it right from the start, or experiment as you go. Begin by choosing one of the classic styles that works for you. Transition this style slowly into a combination garden.

The above garden styles will add flair to your garden. By choosing a style that you enjoy you will add cohesion to your garden, inviting people in to experience it’s pleasures.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Compost is an excellent fertilizer

You can make your own backyard compost container from welded wire mesh, concrete blocks or wooden shipping pallets—anything in which you can form a pile of compost material that’s roughly 3–5 feet across and no higher than 5 feet.

However, it’s easier to buy a commercial compost bin with features that make turning the contents easier, thus speeding up the decomposing process. The Home Depot carries compost bins by brands such as Exaco Trading Co., some units made from recycled plastic and the world’s first continuous-cycle compost bin. This 3-bin compost allows you to add new waste from the top while removing mature compost at the bottom.

Step 1: Mix it
Place the bin near your garden and back door. A small indoor bin is handy to use along with the larger one outdoors. Throw scraps into the indoor bin and, as it fills up, empty it periodically into the outdoor one. Compostable items such as kitchen scraps, tea bags, coffee grinds and grass clippings can be added to the bin; so can brown materials such as dried leaves, sawdust, straw, wood ash and the woody stalks of plants.

Step 2: Layer it
Layer materials high in carbon, including lawn clippings, chopped leaves, green plants and agricultural crop residues with materials high in nitrogen, such as manure, alfalfa meal, hay, paper products, sewage sludge and wood. Just about any organic material can be added to the bedding, including food scraps, eggshells, tea leaves and coffee grounds. Never add chemically treated wood, diseased plants, human or pet waste, meat, bones, fatty foods or weeds. Add water regularly during the compost-building process and after it’s done, letting it trickle into the pile to help get rid of air pockets.

Step 3: Turn it
You can begin to make compost in as little as a few weeks if you speed up the process by turning the pile with a pitchfork once a week and adding fresh manure. Mixing it allows oxygen into the center of the pile, encouraging the growth of bacteria and fungi, which break down organic material into simpler substances. Regularly turned organic matter will become finished compost in 4–8 months.

Step 4: Break it down
Compost is ready to be used when it is dark and crumbly and has an earthy smell. You can sift it to separate material that hasn’t finished composting, but those pieces will continue to decompose in your garden. The smaller the pieces, the faster they will break down.

Step 5: Spread it
Once it’s ready, work the compost into the soil to give it an organic boost before planting. Spread it on the soil’s surface as mulch on flower beds and around the base of landscape plants. Compost may also be used as a top dressing for lawns or as an ingredient in potting mixes. For more great eco-friendly tips, check out the Healthy Homes tab on the Eco Options website.

Article courtesy of Home Depot.

1) Meconopsis- I love these because of the vibrant color they add to any garden design. They are nearly all blue but what a blue! In shades from blue of bright blue skies down to azures and china blues, there is no dull plant among them. The Himalayan poppy as it is otherwise known comes in many varieties and the flowers last days ,unlike other floppy flowered species. In Scotland one soul has carpeted an entire hillside in the plants creating a dazzling effect. So vibrant is their blue that you can use them as focal , punctuation or color block plants.

2) Carnations – standards of form, consistent and neat, carnations add to and enhance any color scheme. From low growers to tall, robust stands, these flowers offer no-nonsense growth and color. Easy to grow and propagate from pipe cuttings, they grow in most sites and soils.

3) Davidii involucre – the Handkerchief tree with its huge white flower bracts making it look like doves or paper hankies are in the branches, what attracts me about this tree is not only its compact and neat form but the story behind its discovery which adds an air of mysticism. David, after whom it was named, searched for the plant. Every time he came to where it was last reported, the last stand had ‘just been cut’ so he ventured deeper and deeper into the hills to obtain his specimen, which he did finally and brought it back to Europe. His adventures are mind-blowing and his discovery all the more interesting for them.

4) Lavender – versatile, fragrant, attractive to insects, this plant can be grown tall, clipped, in hedges or as a focal plant. Lavenders add to any planting design and can offer features for those with visual impairments as the scent and feel make it a very individual plant. Silvery leaves and vivid blue flowers make an attractive combination and lavender can be used in any garden and most soils.

5) Gunnera manicata – large, hand like leaves atop tall spiked stems make this the most magnificent bog side plant. Huge and invasive though it can be, it can change the atmosphere of a garden and create deep green depths of plantings. Slightly menacing and simply enormous, the palm like leaves enfold you almost in their hugeness. Awe inspiring in its growth and sheer volume of plant. You can get dwarf gunnera too but the full size one, if it can fit, is truly magnificent.

6) Crab apple – a truly useful tree all year round, the blossom comes in February followed by leaves in march, then fruit which start orange and swell to deep red. The fruit feed birds through the winter and will last until the final one is eaten- around January, just before the blossom starts again. Bark can be attractive with green and red tones so this tree is useful and hard working in any garden. Dwarf varieties make it suitable for most sites.

7) Eryngium – the truly architectural medium sized plant – this adds form and texture to any garden plan. Sensuous, spiked and with wonderful seed heads which look fantastic as they trap frost on cold mornings, a true masterpiece of form all year round.

Camellia japonica- with varieties of white, pink or red shades, this is the show off heralding the start of spring. One of the earliest to flower, this showy, blowzy shrub needs acidic soil but in the right place will blossom for years and create a truly heart stopping display. The deep green of the leaves only serve to set the colors of the flowers off. Like a shy bride, this shrub suddenly bursts into flower overnight almost- a real stunner.

9) Rosa ‘Peace’ the wonderfully formed, almost perfect flower of the Peace rose with hints of apricot, pink, orange and gold, this is the true stunner of roses.

10) Chrysanthemums so many flower forms, so many plant forms, this is a true versatile, clown prince of display. From dwarf to tall, reticulate to double pom poms or spooned flowers, the range of colors, size and form is incredible. Often bred but with older varieties still around, this attracts insects, create cut flowers and blooms late in the year – what more could you want?

This is my top ten at the moment but I also adore digitalis, with their amazing self seeding, glorious flowers with their bee paths to direct the insects to their nectaries, the climbing roses, the honeysuckle, Campsis (trumpet creeper), Tulips, apricot trees in blossom and so many other wonderful plants to choose from. This is why my top ten changes and plants slip in and out of it. No doubt it will change again as I find even more plants. Plants never cease to provide an endless source of amazement and variety.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Preparation
You’ll need a bit of earth in full sun, about 10 feet by 10 feet. In garden that size you can grow two tomato plants, two pepper plants, onions, cilantro, and garlic. To prepare your garden, dig the soil to a depth of 8 or 10 inches. Add a couple of bags of compost, dig it in, and rake the soil smooth. Make a path down the middle from north to south.

Planting
Garlic is planted in the fall. To plant, break the bulb into separate cloves and plant the cloves separately along the west and east sides of your patch. Harvest in late summer.

Tomato plants should be planted in early summer, well after the last predicted frost date. Buy an early and a late variety for summer-long harvest. Place the plants at the north end of your patch on either side of the path, and support them with sturdy tomato cages.

For peppers, you can choose anything from fiery habaneros to sweet and mild “Fooled You.” Pepper plants should be planted at the same time as tomatoes. Place them in front of the tomato plants so they get full sun.

Onions can be grown from seeds or from sets. Seeds should be planted very early in the spring, after the soil thaws. Sets can be planted a little later. Plant several short rows in front of the peppers.

Sow cilantro seed on finely-raked soil at the south end of the garden, in front of your onions, after the last frost date.

Care
Water deeply, making sure you soak the soil to a depth of several inches. Water again when the soil is dry down to about an inch below the soil surface. To conserve water and smother weeds, mulch with several inches of chopped leaves or straw. Keep the weeds pulled so they don’t compete with your plants. The compost you dug into the garden bed will provide plenty of nutrition for most of the season, but tomatoes and peppers will benefit if you dig a little organic fertilizer into the soil halfway through the growing season.

Salsa Time!
Once your tomatoes and peppers begin producing, you should have early onions, garlic, and cilantro ready for harvest. Here’s one recipe for turning your produce into fresh, delicious salsa:

3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons chopped onion
3 medium or 2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 peppers, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the ingredients in a glass or ceramic bowl. Refrigerate several hours before serving to allow the flavors to blend.

Article courtesy of Contractor Source.

Gardeners are one of the largest hobby groups in the world. Gardening can be as simple as a few containers or as complex as a few acres. Regardless of the scale, the same basic rules apply:

1. Realize that gardening is more of a process than a project. Plants take time to grow and along with the plants, you will grow patience. Accept the fact that not everything you attempt is going to look like a magazine cover. Also remember that some of the things you do may be great.

2. Learn about your gardening space. Indoors or out, locate where and when the sun shines. Pay special attention to the soil. Do a soil test to determine what type garden soil you have. Amend it or choose plants suited to it.

3. Learn about yourself. How much time and money do you want to invest? Gardening can be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be. It’s always a good idea to start small, finding more to do is seldom a problem.

4. Learn about plants, especially the ones you like. Whatever plant you chose to grow, from turfgrass to orchids, do some homework. If for some reason the plants you like most aren’t recommended for your garden site, keep looking. You’re sure to find something you like just as well, maybe even better.

5. Water, fertilize and prune regularly as recommended on the plant tag.

6. Get some good tools. You don’t need one of everything to begin with. A spade, rake, trowel and pruners have started many exceptional gardens.

7. Learn to recognize symptoms before they become problems. Pests, diseases and environmental stressors of lawns and houseplants usually start small, giving you time to react and correct them. Knowing the problem allows you to select the right treatment.

8. Ask questions. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding experienced gardeners who are more than willing to share advice and opinions.

9. Be safe. Follow product instructions carefully, especially pesticide and fertilizer.

10. Keep a record or journal of what works and what doesn’t. Use this information when planning for next season.

11. The plant tag is a good source of information. Sunlight and water requirements, mature size and shape, planting instructions, bloom time, pruning needs and more are all right at your fingertips.

12. Gardening can be strenuous; sore muscles and blisters are often the result of a gardening session. Doing a few basic stretching exercises and investing in a good pair of gloves are worth the time and effort.

13. Perhaps most importantly, although gardening can be hard work, don’t forget to have fun.

Courtesy of Lowe’s.