Backyard Gardening Tips

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Themes in Your Backyard Garden

8:21 pm by webmann in gardening, lawn care

It is good to have a theme that you can follow throughout your garden and work on a plan and a selection of plants that will go along with that theme.

By having a theme to follow this will dictate, not only the types of plants that you will be buying, but also anything else that you put in the garden.
This will include everything from sculptures and garden furniture, to the colors of the pots that you will choose.

While some people might think this is restricting their freedom of creation, it does in fact allow you to create a garden that has more freedom of flow rather than being disjointed with a variety of different themes that never quite gel together.

Sometimes the theme of your garden will be determined by the style of the house that you have on the property, and other times it will be determined by the geographical location that you are living in.

If for instance you are living near a beach, you will probably want the theme to tie in with the beach setting. By doing this you are likely to get plants for your garden that are more appropriate and will endure the conditions that they will be growing in.

Plants that are suitable for growing in coastal areas will be able to withstand the winds and the salt of the sea air that could quickly damage other plants that aren’t suitable for those conditions.

Likewise it wouldn’t look quite as appropriate to have a tropical garden with palms where a cottage garden would compliment the style of the house.

And tropical plants are not going to flourish as well in cold harsh climates so there are many factors that need to be taken into account when deciding on your garden theme.

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How Natural Insecticide Kills Insects

1:50 pm by webmann in garden pests

A natural insecticide will kill insects, that much is certain. Natural insecticide has been used for centuries, at least. If you are a curious person, you might like to know how natural insecticide kills insects.

Diatomaceous Earth is a natural insecticide made of the skeletal remains of plankton. What it does is to puncture the bodies of the insects. Then, it dehydrates them. When this natural insecticide has done its work, unwanted insects will dry up and practically blow away.

Rotenone is a natural insecticide, as well. It is made from the roots of the derris plant. It does its killing by poisoning the stomachs of insects. However, it is slow-acting and needs to be reapplied often for maximum effect.

Rotenone also seems to keep insects away from plants. It will keep the insects from growing and will stop them from eating if they are not adequately poisoned. Sabadillia also kills by stomach poison.

From Ecuador and Kenya comes a species of chrysanthemum that yields a natural insecticide called pyrethrum. This natural insecticide destroys insects by paralyzing them. It works instantly and it works on most types of insects.

The only problem is that the pyrethrum will often wear off. The insects will come around after awhile. They are not killed after all. For this reason, it is often combined with a poison that finishes the insects off.

Natural insecticides used in the termite control industry work in a different way. They cause the termite to lose their appetite. In fact, they can’t eat at all.

The natural insecticide will cause the termite to be disoriented due to damage to its nerve endings. (People and animals do not have these same nerve endings and so are safe.) Due to all these problems, the termite will eventually die.

A bacterium, Bacillus thurengiensis or Bt, is another natural insecticide that is popular these days. It is best used when the eggs of insects are just hatching. The young come out, eat the toxin, and are poisoned. They will stop eating and die of starvation.

Neem preparations get rid of insects in many ways. This natural insecticide repels the offending bugs by means of an active ingredient that mimics an insect hormone. It makes it hard, if not impossible, to digest food. It stops their cycle of reproduction. It works well on insects that chiefly eat leaves.

Some non-plant natural insecticides do their work by dehydration, as Diatomaceous Earth does. Chalk dries out insects on contact. Mineral oil either dries out or suffocates its victims.

A mixture of cow’s milk, flour and water can be used as a natural insecticide. It is very good at killing the eggs of the insects. It also destroys insects themselves, by suffocation.

Corn meal can be sprinkled around plants to kill insects. If a tomato hornworm happens to eat some, the cornmeal will swell up in the insect’s stomach. The insect will explode.

There are all kinds of ways to kill insects. Some are by simple poisons. Some ways are more exotic ways. It may not really be important to know how a natural insecticide kills insects; only that it does.

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Lawn Improvements Will Make Your Gardens Look Better

9:44 am by webmann in backyard gardening, lawn care

As well as drainage and irrigation there are other areas that can enhance your lawn and make it look more beautiful and more enjoyable.

Regular mowing, catching of the grass clippings and also rolling will help to maintain the condition of your lawn.

There are people who believe that cutting the lawn at particular phases of the moon can slow it’s growth and increase the time between mowing.
There doesn’t appear to be any evidence to support this but there is no harm in trying.

If you are interested in experimenting on your own lawn try mowing during the waxing or full moon.

Just don’t do it while the neighbors are sleeping:-)

Getting rid of insects in the lawn will help with its condition and this can be achieved with the use of insecticides that are commonly sold through garden stores or better still with the use of natural methods.

Using natural methods is the healthiest solution as it won’t affect children and pets and more often than not the natural methods work better for longer than the insecticides.

Without the toxic contents that are used in the commercial insecticides you will be happier to walk on the lawn and know that you won’t be putting any of the residue into your system.

Some people still use soap as a natural insecticide in the garden but you need to be careful that you are using the correct soap, as some household soaps can be harmful to plants.

Obviously you won’t want to be flooding your lawn with soapy water and in fact this is banned in many areas where soap can cause problems if it enters in to the waterways.

More and more insecticides are also getting banned so it makes sense to look at the natural alternatives that are available.

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Plants Have a Mind of Their Own

3:14 pm by webmann in backyard gardening

Plants are a lot cleverer than we might think.

If you are aware of the changes that occur with the plants in the garden, you can sometimes predict everything from the coming weather to the changing of the seasons without ever having to consult the weather charts or your diary.

The weather can, however trick flowers into ‘thinking’ there has been a change in the weather or even the season.

This can be seen when there is unseasonal hot weather after a cold snap in winter. Plants can ‘assume’ that it is the start of Spring and bulbs will start flowering.

In recent years many areas throughout the world have experienced unseasonal weather and extremes of weather and this has caused many problems for people growing crops.

Creating sheltered areas on your property can help you to control your plants and ensure that you get the flowers or fruits when you expect them to be ready. This will also help you to reduce damage that might occur from conditions such as hail or heavy rain.

Shading plants can also create a false reduction in daylight hours, which will affect the plants growth patterns as they measure the seasons by the amount of daylight.

Hothouses can create a false environment and this can be beneficial if you want to produce plants throughout the year for flowers or fruit.

Temperature can be adjusted to control the plant growth and to a lesser extent this can also be done by the placement of your plants in various different positions on your property depending on their exposure to sunlight, wind, cold and rain.

Designing your garden by taking into account all these factors will allow you to read your plants mind in advance, allowing you to get what you want, when you want from your garden.

It will allow you to plan the progression of plants from one season to the next.

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