Backyard Gardening Tips

Here is an article on house and garden that got my interest because I didn’t really get into gardening until I was well into mid life. Enjoy your house and garden.

There are so many things that we can do to fill our time. Through the years my hobbies have changed based on what stage in life I am in. When I was in high school I loved to sew. I made many of the clothes that I wore and I also sewed some clothing for my friends. I made many gifts using my mother’s sewing machine. When I was in college I did not have the time or the space to sew. I started playing racquetball to fill what spare time I had. As I got older and had a family I did not have the time or the energy for racquetball any more. At that point in my life I was lucky to get everything done that needed to get done so I did not have a great deal of free time.

Now my children have grown and I have extra time. I found during the years that they were growing up I neglected my house and garden. Decorating and gardening have always been things that I have been interested in but have not taken the time to do. I started my getting a house and garden magazine. I looked at different decorating ideas for the house and also some great plans for extending your living space into the outdoor area of your home. My husband thought that some of the ideas looked quite complicated and that we should hire a gardener to complete the projects. I told him that this would defeat the purpose of me getting involved in putting time in the house and garden.

I went to the large do it yourself home improvement store with my house and garden magazine in tow. I found a helpful knowledgeable clerk and showed them the picture of what I wanted to create in the backyard. He showed me where all the supplies were that I would need to create the fountain area and path that were shown in the picture. He made some suggestions of alternative materials I could use that would hold up better for our climate.

I was able to get all the supplies in the truck with one trip. My next-door neighbor is retired and loves working in the yard. He helped me unload the supplies and also to stack the area for the path. Within two days we completed the project and it looked even better than the picture in the magazine. I have taken great pride in the accomplishment and look forward to tackling a new garden project next spring. Now I am going to try some of the indoor decorating ideas for our living room area.

If you have a gardener on your gift list, you might want to get them gardening tools for Christmas or whatever holiday it is that you celebrate. Though you may think it an odd gift to give in the middle of the winter, you will find that they will love that you thought to get them something they might need. A gardener is always in need of new stuff, and there are always new things on the market that they may enjoy getting as a gift on any special occasion.

Gardening tools can range in price from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. Since you probably aren’t going to buy something for a few thousand dollars, you might want to stick to the lower end of the totem pole. Those lower priced gardening tools are the ones they need to replace the most often, however, so they really are the way to go. Tools break, rust, or just plain bend sometimes, and they are things that get replaced often. These are items that are also easily lost, or may have been borrowed by neighbors and never returned.

An example of some of the most popular gardening tools might be hose. Though you may think they must surely have a hose already, do you know if they have one that they like? Are they having problems with it? Do you know that there are new kinds of hoses on the market? There are, and these gardening tools seem to be improving as they years go by. You can get flat hoses, and even accessories that make using and storing a hose much easier. Some help with storing the hose by rolling it up, and there are also guides that stop a hose from running over the flowers and veggies as you pull it through the garden.

Other gardening tools you may want to consider are kneeling pads or perhaps a storage unit. When someone has a lot of gardening tools, they need somewhere to hang them. You can find organizers rather easily, and they can work in almost any shed or garden. You may already know if they have one of these, and if they don’t, you have just thought of the perfect gift. Just make sure it fits into their storage space. If you aren’t sure, just look around and see what is going on. If you see a mess of tools and supplies scattered about, they need the gift of organization.

Never in my life did I ever think I would learn so much about backyard landscape design. Hey, it wasn’t my idea. Let’s be clear on that. You see, I have this wife who watches HGTV (home and garden TV) religiously. It’s like she can’t get enough of it. I on the other hand don’t really find it so entertaining. Then again, there are a number of great ideas depicted on those shows. I must say that they assisted me in sprucing-up my backyard. And that wasn’t a pun referring to spruce trees. At this point the rear of my home looks outstanding.

For me it’s all about privacy and beauty. Therefore I was in need of backyard landscaping ideas that provided me with both aspects. If the yard didn’t look amazing, my wife would probably kill me. Anyway, I needed to add a few trees and rolling hills that blocked out neighboring eyes.

The first thing I did was have a landscaper come in and give me an estimate on small hills and broad pine trees. My idea was to add subtle hills along the sides of the backyard and plant decent sized trees in between them. And so I did. I asked the landscaper to add the hill features, but I proceeded with the trees alone. Well, maybe not totally alone. But I did dig all the holes. This way I could purchase the pine trees from a nursery, and they would deliver them for free if the holes were already dug. They simply arrived and dropped them in the holes for me. It was a sweet deal if you ask me.

Now I can glance at my backyard without seeing neighbors lurking about next-door. The hills and pine trees provide ample privacy. Just so you know, this is not the full extent of my backyard landscaping. I also added a few flower beds and used mulch to distinguish the lawn from the beds. The mulch also helps fertilize the flowers and keep them looking stellar.

You really can do it yourself. I know if I can grapple with backyard landscaping, anyone can. But no one said you have to go about it alone. You can get plenty of great tips/ideas from HGTV, or you can easily visit their website and learn all you need to know online. The information is free. Take advantage of it!

There is nothing more annoying than sharing your home with uninvited guests. When you walk into a room and see a few little ants crawling around, it just triggers a feeling of disgust. I don’t mind using ant spray but where did I put it?

You know there can never be just one ant, there are always relatives lurking in the cracks somewhere. I’m always amazed at how they get inside and why they come inside. I keep a very clean and tidy home, so it isn’t like I have crumbs laying all over the floors. However, they decided to move in despite my cleanliness. I would get rid of a few and more would appear. To me, there was nothing worse than knowing that there were little insects crawling around my home at all hours of the day.

I set out to get some ant spray or traps so that I could eliminate the problem before they moved all of the neighborhood ants into my home. With some advice from individuals at the pest control and local hardware store, I bought two kinds of ant spray. One was for inside my house and one was for outside. I was told though, that using ant spray inside of the home might not be as effective as what I was hoping it would be. It might just make them seek out other areas of my home to make their nest instead. The ant spray for outside was supposedly very effective. I was supposed to spray it all around my home’s foundation, going out a few extra feet to ensure that the ants would be deterred from even nearing my house to make a dash for it. I also sprayed about a foot up the house, in case they decided to attack from that direction. I was definitely launching a war both inside and outside of my home.

The pest control company told me about several baiting traps to place inside of my house. Once the ants would find them and drink or feed from them, they will be poisoned. I purchased a few of those as well. I was also told to eliminate any anthills that I might find in my flowerbeds or yard that could be a mansion for ants. By destroying those homes, I would be preventing ants from breeding and frolicking around my home. The pest control professionals told me of not only an ant spray to use on the hills, but a few other powders and such. I was weary of using them because of other wildlife getting into the powders and being harmed. Ever so kindly, they took a few moments to tell me what kinds of prevention I could use outside that would not be harmful to the environment.

One week later, I was once again living alone. No uninvited guests had shown up for days. Right now, I consider myself safe. At least for the time being.

One might automatically think wasp or hornet when you mention, garden incests and yellow with black stripes, but that’s wouldn’t be the right answer in this case. I am talking about the garden pests commonly known as the adult potato beetle.

Even though this little creature is named as a potato beetle it also dines on eggplants, peppers and tomatoes.

Note that the adult potato beetle as well as its larvae aren’t interested in the potato tubers, as they prefer to eat the leaves, shots and stalk which slows down photosynthesis. This will reduce the crop based on the amount of damage they cause.

The adult potato beetle usually has yellow with black stripes making 10 stripes and easy to spot. If you were growing fields of potatoes you might have to get into some insecticide but for your garden you can go through and pick them off and destroy them.

The adult potato beetle, as well as their larva, destroy potato leaves by eating them. They will chew holes in the leaves making it tough for the plant to grow strong. They may also gnaw through the stem of the plant causing it to fall over and then of course the plant dies a horrible death.

The potato beetle larva is very close to the color of a red brick and will be about a quarter inch long, the same as the adult.

The potato beetle survives the winter buried in the soil, emerging in the early spring ready to lay eggs. They lay their eggs on the underside of the host plant. These eggs are yellow and oval. The fact that they are not interested in the roots or tubers means they need to get up the plant in order to lay eggs. Put something in their path that keeps them off the plant is your first defense. We use tin-foil around the stocks as soon as they emerge from the soil.

In the south you may have three generations of potato beetle per year and further north you may only have two but you still need to keep a close watch and destroy any egg clusters, adults and larvae immediately.