How does one create a butterfly garden?

Butterfly gardening is a type of gardening that uses many different types of plants to attract butterflies. Delight your family and visitors with beautiful butterflies, but do take the time to learn how to create a safe habitat for your butterflies.

We don’t have our own cats but we get a lot visiting from around the neighbourhood. If you have a cat living at your home, beware because they may seem like they are only playing but they kill butterflies.

How you plan the look of your butterfly garden is of course your choice but there are a few things to think about first.

Typical points to consider are the size of your garden and the types of flowers and plants you want to grow. When designing your butterfly garden you are going to want a look that is appealing to you, just make sure that it containes plants that butterflies are attracted to.

It is important to find out which plants and flowers will attract the species of butterflies. that live in your area. This information can be found at the local library.

There must be water to recreate the type of enviroment that butterflies love. A birdbath will look attractive and keep the butterflies up off the ground, away from stray cats or mischievous puppies. You could always hang a shallow dish from a tree or maybe even attach it to a tree, I know this works well.

As with any garden it is really important to choose the colors of the plants wisely for your butterfly garden. Remember that attracting butterflies is easy with the right plants, it is the “looking good” part that is hard so make sure your garden meshes. Butterflies are attracted to those flowers that have nectar rather than pollen, like honeysuckle, milkweed, summer lilac, Valerian, daisies, Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium), Purple Coneflower, Yellow Sage, day lilies and lavender.

Some people find it helpful to draw and color a layout of their butterfly gardening plan to see what the finished product would look like. Keep in mind that vibrant colors like red, yellow and orange will really stand out and may even seem showy. These colors have a greater impact against a strong green background. Cool colors such as blue and purple are soothing and toned down and would work better with a white contrast to create the look of freshness and brightness.

Wasting Potential In Our Backyard

I gave them a rough measuring this morning and they are taking up a minimum of 12 feet of the front of our property along the side walk. What a waste of space.

When we moved here just 4 years ago you could jump over them but now you would just land on your face right in the middle if you tried that today.

They are even growing out into the sidewalk area, which is unacceptable in my mind. I know how much I dislike having to walk around bushes pushing out into the sidewalk or needing to duck to miss branches hanging out. So, they have to either be trimmed or removed and they aren’t anything we want so they will be removed. It will just take some time.

The two in front of the house, the north side of the driveway, are still managable but the other two get way more sun all year round and are getting to big for that area.

We also have some rose shrubs that grow here and there on our property. I like them when they are well kept. They would make a great divider between the sidewalk and the rest of our yard. Just to keep the kids from the area from wandering into our yard to play hide and seek.

I see rose shrubs bordering yards on my walk and some look good while others don’t look so good. The difference is how the owners tend to them them. Those that keep them trimmed have the best by far.

And when they flower they are gorgeous. I will have to learn how to prune them to get the best blooms of course.

When we moved here just over three years ago the kids could jump over the pine trees there but now they would have to be able to jump six feet high and fly for about 15 feet to land safely on the other side, so they do make for great privacy but they are full of weeds coming up the middle where you can’t get at them. They gotta go.

Jenny just walked in and said she doesn’t want to come home and find them gone on Monday. If I had that kind of energy they would be gone, so it will be done slowly so she won’t receive too much of a shock.

Image via Wikipedia

Welcome, thanks for visiting Backyard Gardening Tips. This blog post is brought to you by John Saunders who has recently taken up gardening as a hobby, just like my wife and I have here in New Brunswick Canada. John was smart and managed to buy cheap gardening equipment and also items such as blubs, lights etc., at great prices from places like eBay.

Sunflowers, what are they and why am I writing about them?

When I take my daily walk through our city I don’t see a lot of sunflowers growing but the ones I do see make me stop and stare. Why, well to put it frankly, sunflowers really do liven up any garden and they are so easy to cultivate. Literally, all you need to do is plant a sunflower seed and then just add water and BAM a beautiful flower on a big stick.

The advantages of growning flowers like sunflowers is they also attract bees. Due to there size, they also add a focal point to the garden. We are planning to have them as the center piece in one of our garden areas. I think four will look great with a number of popular flowers around their base.

I have only ever seen a full field of sun flowers growing and it was amazing. They flowers follow the sun so the heads all seem to be facing the same direction which just makes them look like happy little soldiers protecting the farm. they were all about 5 or 6 feet high, maybe a little higher but they just stayed in my mind for days they were so beautiful.

We are planting a few sunflowers around our backyard garden this year and will put up some photos from planting to harvest so you can see how they grow. I also highly recommend growing sunflowers for yourself, they are easy to grow and don’t need a lot of space. Just a bit of sunlight and they definately bring sunshine to your garden.

How To Start Your Sunflower Seeds

Remember back to when you were a kid and your teach had you grow beans sprouts in a jar using a damp paper towel and a jar. It was fun and amazing to see them sprout after just a few day. Well starting your sunflowers this way makes it so easy.

You don’t even need a jar, a plastic bag and a damp paper towel will work just fine. You will need to check them daily and be sure to add a bit of water if your paper towels is drying out a bit.

Once your sunflower seeds have sprouted you are ready to plant them into your yard or even into pots. Bury them so that the seed is below the soil but the sprout is still sticking out.

At this point you want to continue to keep them moist but don’t drown them and don’t let them dry out or the sprout will not survive.

Go on give it a try

John ‘the hobby gardener‘ Sanders

Affordable Gardening From eBay

John Sanders

Image via WikipediaGrowing up in Ontario I used to watch my dad plant the garden that would keep us full during those long cold winter months and even thought I didn’t listen much I did learn a few things, by osmosis I guess.

The thing I learned, way back then, that helps me with my backyard garden here in New Brunswick is to follow the cycle of the moon. It has saved replanting more than once since we moved here.

It’s funny but long before I ever thought about gardening for myself I used the moon cycles to make my fishing trips at the best time. The fishing can be awesome when you get to them just before the full moon. It does something to their brains that make them go wild in my experience and I have been fishing for almost 50 years now.

When my wife and I decided to start a garden in our backyard the first thing that came to mind was the cycle of the moon. My wife just looked at me with a strange expression and said something about werewolves in our garden.

As far back as I can remember I heard that we had to watch for June 10th frost. Dad would watch the moon at this time of year and he wouldn’t plant certain things until about a week after the full moon in June.

I know it’s kinda early to be checking when the full moon in June will happen but because I got a calendar for Christmas I decided to check it out.

The full moon in June for 2009 will be on the 7th so I will keep things covered at night until at least a week after that full moon.

It is common “knowledge” that the orchid is a tropical/subtropical plant. But in truth, orchids can be found in almost every part of the globe outside of the deserts and the polar regions.

About 85% of orchid types may inded be found in the tropics and subtropics, but that leaves a large proportion to the more temperate zones. Among other things, this means that you will not be out of luck if you live in a cool area and want to grow orchids, but do not have a greenhouse or other such area in which do so so.

There are tens of thousands of orchid species. You could be astounded to know that there could be orchids growing in your own neighborhood, even if your home is in one of our more northerly regions. Take the fairly common Lady Slipper.

Lady Slippers (also written Lady’s Slippers and Ladyslippers) is a name given to a large subfamily of orchids, the Cypripedioidea, with many members that grow in cool climates over much of North America and Europe. If you live in the New England states of the U.S., or the Appalachian mountain region, or even in Canada, you might find Lady Slippers of one variety or another growing in the woods near your home.

A species of Lady Slipper is the state flower of Minnesota. Another is the official state wildflower of New Hampshire. The Canadian province of Prince Edward Island has a Lady Slipper as its official flower.

If you’re considering growing orchids, especially in an outdoor garden, you would do well to consider a native species. It will already be used to your particular climate, and–if you live in a place that has low temperatures in the winter–you might not even have to bring it inside when cold weather arrives.

One of the prettiest native-American orchids is the Yellow Lady Slipper. It is also among the easiest orchids to grow in a garden. On the other hand, the Pink Lady Slipper is extremely difficult to grow.Clearly, unless you are already experienced with growing orchids, the Yellow Lady Slipper is the preferred choice.

Nurseries that specialize in orchid plants tend to run out of stock from time to time. Nevertheless, Lady Slippers are generally some of the easiest orchids to obtain. They also tend to be less expensive than orchid plants from exotic locations. They are a great orchid for getting your thumb green, so to speak, before you take on the rarer or more “foreign” species.

All of the advice pertaining to successful orchid cultivation apply to the Lady Slippers and similar plants. You need accurate information before you begin trying to grow these or other orchids, and  the best, most complete guide to modern orchid cultivation, hands down, is Orchid Care Expert by Nigel Howard, which can be downloaded online. Mr. Howard’s guide is a complete course in itself, suitable for beginners as well as the more experienced. Also, visit the Orchid Secrets web site, which has a growing library of postings on many aspects of orchid cultivation.