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Preventing Weeds from Overtaking Your Yard (home composting)

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By Jeffry Bullock

 If bees are public enemy #1 for most farmers, lawn owners and gardeners tend to view weeds with very much the same perception. Weeds are non-native plants that are unwanted in a certain place and time and can be very much harmful to your plants and even public amenity.

It’s imperative that you prevent weeds from taking control of your yard lest you wish to see your plants die one by one before the year’s end. Don’t let their harmless-sounding names (chickweed, dandelion and crabgrass) fool you; if you allow them full liberty to grow, you might find it impossible later on to regain control and recover the beauty of your garden.

Found below are several tips for better and more effective weed control:

Defensive Measures against Weeds

Always remember that the healthier your garden or yard’s soil, the better defense your plants shall have against weeds. So make sure that you always keep your garden or yard as healthy as possible.

Excellent fertilization is a good defensive step to take against weeds. Using the right type of fertilizer that possesses the best combination of nitrogen and other important compounds four times a year will go a long way in improving the health of your yard. But don’t be surprised if some stubborn weeds still persist in growing; that’s the time when other more aggressive steps must be taken to achieve effective weed control.

Aggressive and Chemical Measures for Weed Control

When you choose a particular weed product to use, make sure that you use it during the active growth period of weeds. This often happens in late spring or early fall and temperatures must approximately be around 15 to 25 degrees. Extreme temperatures would simply lessen the potency of the product against weeds.

On the other hand, if the product you’re using is a weed and feed one, make sure that you spread them always in the morning. This is because morning dew can ensure that the weed and feed product would stick to the weeds, thereby increasing their effectiveness. Avoid watering or mowing your yard when you’ve just applied the product. And just to be on the safe side, prevent both your kids and pets from tramping in the law during those days as well.

The Right Attitude to Succeed

Be realistic when it comes to your weed control goals. Weeds are like mushrooms; they grow very fast and worse, they’re not exactly easy to get rid off. Hence, telling yourself that you’ll exterminate the weed your population in a bloody one-day battle is simply impossible to achieve. You’ll never get started or feel properly motivated if you think that way.

Weeding, like other difficult but highly rewarding tasks, is a huge goal that you must try to achieve by taking one small measured step after another. Give yourself a goal outline if you wish. Divide the gardens into several areas and get rid of weeds in one particular division after another. You need to motivate yourself properly if you wish to succeed and setting unrealistic goals for yourself is certainly not the way to do it!

The Right Time to Fight Weeds

Time management is equally important in weed control; pick a particular time of the day when you believe you’ll be most available to battle the invading army in your garden. Whichever time period you end up choosing, make sure that you stick to your schedule at all times. Consistency and perseverance are what’s going to win the battle and not a blitzkrieg style of offense.

Information on celosia cristata can be found at the Celosia Flower site.

How Much Variety is Too Much in Your Garden?

By Jeffry Bullock

 Have you ever walked by someone’s front garden and thought - what were they thinking? The mixture and variety of plants seems to make no sense and are placed haphazardly all over the place. Although you most definitely need to choose a variety of plant types and colors for your own garden layout, how do you know when you’ve gone too far? How do you keep your garden design focused, yet interesting at the same time?

Create a Theme

Before you even place a plant in the ground you should decide on a theme. Take a good look at your home style and your planting terrain, while also keeping in mind the climate in your area. A tropical theme may be something you greatly desire, but if you live in a very dry, arid climate, that’s going to be a tough garden to maintain.

Choose a Color Scheme

Once you decide on a general theme for your garden, you should think about color preferences. Although there is no hard and fast rule as to mixing plant colors, you will certainly want to avoid planting anything that clashes (much like if you were decorating a room). Hot climates are suitable for bold, strong colors, whereas a cool climate will tend to lean toward more muted, serene colors. Pastel colors will bring a restful feeling to your garden.

Choose Contrasting Plants

Keep texture in mind when choosing plants. Texture provides visual interest and appeal. Look at various leaf colors, shapes and sizes. A few things to look for are plants that have soft, feathery leaves, while some are spiky. There are plants that grow small, leathery leaves while others produce large glossy leaves. And of course, there are many plants that have colored leaves - usually in the purple, deep red or yellow ranges. It’s not just the flowers that you should be focusing on, but also the texture and variety of leaves that will also add appeal to your garden.

Pick Different Plant Types

Don’t just plant flowers. While you want to maintain the overall harmony of your garden, you should still include a variety of plant types such as small trees, evergreens, shrubs, ground covers, spring bulbs, perennials and annuals - perhaps even some climbing vines. The spring bulbs will start your garden blooming early, while annuals will add color until your perennials begin to bloom.

Stick With Plants That Require The Same Maintenance and Care

Nothing can be more of a hassle than trying to grow healthy plants that have different plant care requirements within the same area. For example, don’t plant something that requires a lot of sun and water with other plants that are drought-tolerant and only need partial sun. You would be surprised at how many people do this without thinking. Then they either over-water the plants that require minimal water… or they don’t water often enough for thirsty plants. In either case, one type or the other will eventually wither and die.

Hopefully the above suggestions will help those who aren’t quite sure how to go about planning their garden area and picking out suitable plants. Be sure to read the plant care labels carefully so that you can choose plants that suit each other for easy care. Take the time to look over gardening books and websites that have pictures of gardens to get a better idea on how you can coordinate your garden so that it looks wonderful too. Happy planting!

Read about celosia argentea and celosia cristata at the Celosia Flower website.

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Tips to Pruning any Tree

By Jeffry Bullock

 There are two kinds of winter gardening. The first method usually starts in January as the gardening catalogs begin to arrive in the mail. This type of gardening is as easy as sitting in your favorite chair, browsing the catalogs, and either dreaming about what you’re going to do this spring, or actually drawing designs for the gardens you intend to work on.

The second type of winter gardening is to actually get out in the yard and do a little work. Of course if it’s bitter cold, you’d be better off waiting for a good day. Winter is a good time to do some pruning if the temperatures are around 30 degrees or so. I don’t recommend pruning if it’s considerably below freezing because the wood is brittle and will shatter when you make a cut.

One of the advantages of pruning during the winter is that you can see much better what needs to be cut out and what should stay. At least that’s true with deciduous plants. The other advantage is that the plants are dormant, and won’t mind you doing a little work on them.

Ornamental trees should pruned to remove competing branches. Weeping Cherries, Flowering Dogwoods, Flowering Crabapples etc. have a tendency to send branches in many different directions. It is your job to decide how you want the plant to look, and then start pruning to achieve that look.

But first stick your head inside the tree and see what you can eliminate from there. This is like looking under the hood, and when you do you’ll see a lot of small branches that have been starved of sunlight, that certainly don’t add anything to the plant. They are just there, and should be cut out.

Any branch that is growing toward the center of the tree where it will get little sunlight should be cut out. Where there are two branches that are crossing, one of them should be eliminated. Once you get the inside of the plant cleaned up, you can start shaping the outside.

Shaping the outside is actually quite easy. Just picture how you want the plant to look, and picture imaginary lines of the finished outline of the plant. Cut off anything that is outside of these imaginary lines. It is also important to cut the tips of branches that have not yet reached these imaginary lines in order to force the plant to fill out.

For the most part plants have two kinds of growth: Terminal branches and lateral branches. Each branch has one terminal bud at the very end, and many lateral branches along the sides. The terminal buds grow in an outward direction away from the plant. Left uncut they just keep growing in the same direction, and the plant grows tall and very thin. That’s why the trees in the woods are so thin and not very attractive.

When you cut a branch on a plant, the plant sets new buds just below where you cut. When you remove the terminal bud the plant will set multiple buds; this is how you make a plant nice and full. Don’t be afraid to trim your plants, they will be much nicer because of it. The more you trim them, the fuller they become.

Lots of people have a real problem with this. They just can’t bring themselves to prune. Especially when it comes to plants like Japanese Red Maples. It kills them to even think about pruning a plant like this. Just do it! You’ll have a beautiful plant because of it.

Look at the plant objectively. If you see a branch that looks like it’s growing too far in the wrong direction, cut it. If you make a mistake it will grow back. Not pruning is the only mistake you can make. I hope this helps and doesn’t get you in trouble with your significant other. Many a family feud has started over pruning.

Visit the Celosia Flower website to learn about celosia plumosa and celosia plant.

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Monday, May 31st, 2010 at 1:50 am and is filed under gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.