I couldn’t tell you how many times I have bought plants on impulse only to find they don’t really fit my home garden. Now, before I buy plants, I  examine our backyard garden to see what fits in.

What do I pay attention to now?

• I pay attention to things like, how much sun and shade it will get
• Is the soil well drained or waterlogged
• Is the spot I want to plant in sheltered or windswept

The little list above is what I have messed up on in the past so now I know our yard and have done much better choosing the best plants for our home gardening needs.

We didn’t check our soil because it was so obvious that it was all clay and hard as cement, which meant it didn’t drain well at all.We have to add a lot of our soil in order to have it drain but once that was done we had an entirely new home garden that grows more than weeds.

My advice is to test your soil to determine the pH level of your soil and what kind of nutrients you need to add, if any.

Is the soil acid or alkaline?

Some plants prefer soil that is slightly acidic, while others require alkaline soil to grow well.  You can test your soil and then just plant accordingly but we prefer to amend the soil to suit the plants we wish to grow. It’s a little more work but well worth our time and effort as we get a much better looking home garden.

This way we can grow plants, flowers and veggies, that we want. Heck we would be planting mostly water loving plants as our yard just wouldn’t drain for days at a time. Now it drains everywhere and we have all the plants we wanted.

Getting Arrangements You Want

Before you dig in take the time to place the plants you’ve chosen around the garden bed in their pots to see how they will look. Re-arrange them until you are satisfied. It’s so much better than rearranging them after you have them in the ground.

Grouping plants in sets of threes or fives usually looks better than planting in groups of even numbers. Be sure that you have an interesting combination of colors and textures of plants. Tall plants should go to the back, or the centre if your garden will be viewed equally from all sides. Try to keep your plants away from trees. The roots of trees are fiercely competitive and will steal all the nutrients and moisture meant for your flowers.

The right color scheme is one way to maintain the harmony in your garden. Imagine the color of the flowers when they are in bloom. Some colors may clash with others, but can still be planted side-by-side if they have a different blooming season. Foliage color is also important. Many flower plants have silver, grey or purplish foliage that is just as attractive as the flower. This means that they are still attractive well past the blooming season and so have added value.

It’s the end of February once again and the sun seems to be shining just a bit brighter. My little home garden is calling me and I can’t think about much else, other than fishing of course but that’s a different blog topic.

I can almost see the snow disappearing, although this is New Brunswick and I know we will have a snow storm or two yet but that snow usually disappears almost as fast as it piles up.

I keep looking out my home office window but I still can’t see our garden yet. The snow is melting really fast in the raised bed where our strawberry plants hangout.

We have two raised beds that are only a few feet apart but I can instantly tell which is getting more sunlight. I guess that’s why we get strawberrys two weeks earlier than our other strawberry patch.

The second raised bed is still under a thick blanket of snow. It really shows why location is so important.

The first raised bed, still covered with snow, is close to our property fence to the east and doesn’t see much sun in the early part of the day, while the other is facing the north property fence and gets sunlight for most of the day, at least two more hours of sunlight.

Even though our second raised bed doesn’t get as much sunlight each day it’s still a raised bed and heats up sooner than most other areas in our home garden so we still get flowers growing sooner.

Spring gardening is already on my mind and if you’re anything like us you most likely are just itching for spring so you can start gardening again. But hold on there just a minute. Have you even thought about what you can do before spring arrives!?

The reason I ask if you are thinking about spring gardening is because last year, our first real year at gardening, well we left things a little too late and ended up spending a lot more money that we had anticipated on spending. Not going to happen this year, we are planning already.

So the best spring gardening tip I can give is to start planning your garden long before spring arrives.

Spring Gardening Tips For A Better Spring Garden

1. Start your plants from seed. We are using our basement as a nursery this year but if we find the time I would like to build a small garden shed with plenty of windows so I can move my nursery out there.

Each year you could be collecting seeds from what you grew so that you have them for the next season. That way you only need to buy seeds for the new things you want to try in your garden.

When you buy seeds you usually have instructions on the pack that tells you how long it takes to germinate the seeds and how long ’til maturity, so you have a good idea of how long before spring planting you need to start them for the best results.

2. Draw Up A Home Gardening Plan. We are pretty new to gardening and have only been doing this for a couple of years now so we keep finding gardening tips that help use.

A great tip is to create a map of your yard and then start putting in the flower beds where you would like them and your vegetable garden if you have one. Doing this before planting time means you know what you want and won’t be wasting time humming and haa-ing about it. I say that because we put off creating a garden map and yes we were very indecisive about where to start our gardens.

Know Where The Sun Goes

We didn’t plan our home garden very and the proof of that became very clear in just a few weeks after planting. We started to notice that we had not taken into consideration how the sun moves across our backyard.

We ended up with sun loving plants in the shade most of the day and the shade loving plants, well you get my drift. We messed up.

So take the time to track the movement of the sun across your yard, noticing how it changes the closer we get to spring and summer, so you have a good idea of where the shady areas of your yard are.

I only put a couple of spring gardening tips here today but please feel free to leave a comment and don’t be shy to add more spring gardening tips that will benefit our readers. Happy planning.

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Home gardening is a wonderful pastime that the whole family can enjoy. Home gardening is also one of the most popular pastimes we can all enjoy today. In the USA alone eighty percent of households practice one form of gardening or another, which just goes to show that home gardening is probably the most popular hobby across the Nation.

Typically, when people start planting their garden, they start with flowers. On top of that they usually start by planting roses. Unfortunately for the new gardener they don’t appreciate that roses need more care and attention than a lot of other flowers. With such an vast amount of flowers to choose from, it is in the best interests of the novice to start of with easy care plants and flowers.

Vegetable gardens have become quite popular too. A vegetable garden gives you a lot of satisfaction, especially when the family sit down to a meal rich with fresh vegetables straight from your own garden. The list of vegetable plants is endless, so it is very important you choose vegetables to plant according to your normal climate. For instance, cool weather crops would be green beans, zucchini, and cucumbers.

Many gardeners take on planting fruits as well.  In a warm climate, you could plant watermelons, and trees such as apricots and peaches. A berry garden is also fun, planting strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. These types of berry gardens are easy to care for and take less space than a traditional vegetable garden.

Herbs are another favorite for the home garden. If you have limited space, you can grow your herbs indoors in a sunny window. favourite herbs for cooking are basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, and cilantro. These herbs are easy to grow too.

Landscaping your yard is another form of gardening. There are different types of grasses and shrubbery to decorate your yard. Decorative rocks, ponds, and statues are also included as a form of  landscape gardening. Good Landscaping can transform your yard, but as with all types of gardening you must keep it maintained in good order.

As mentioned earlier, gardening can be fun and educational for the whole family. In addition, what a delight to see the flowers bloom and harvest the vegetables. However, as with anything else, to be a successful home gardener takes work. Plants need to be weeded and watered. Do not get discouraged if the flowers are not as brilliant as expected or the beans did not do so well.  Research the plant in question and then try again next planting season, eventually you will have a wonderful garden.

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There are so many gardening tips available, you can find gardening help no matter if you are a beginner or a professional gardener. Good gardening tips can be so helpul to any gardener. These tips in particular will be helpful to you, but no matter what problem you come across, you will be able to find gardening help.

Dealing With Pests on Houseplants

One of the most common problems that gardeners experience is dealing with pests on their houseplants. Take care not to do damage to the plants while you are taking action to kill the insects.

So one of the most important gardening tips pertains to safely dealing with pests on house plants. The first step is to clean up to remove the insects. Cleaning is a good place to start because it is good way to keep good physical control, but it also allows you to monitor other controls.

Pests on household plants are smothered by insecticidal soap so it works quite well at getting rid of them. The contact between the insects and the product is very important, therefore, you need to be sure to apply the soap frequently to make sure all the pests are killed.  These are important gardening tips to know.

Seed Starting

Another of the most important gardening tips involves seed starting. You do not want to start to early because timing is everything. With the exception of plants such as peppers and tomatoes, most seedlings do best when they are started in mid-March, so don’t get too anxious and start too early before this.

These are just a couple of the thousands of gardening tips that are out there. However, good gardening help may not be as easy to find. Even if you are a seasoned gardener, you are really going to benefit by learning about as many of these tips as you can, because then if you ever do have any problems you will already be prepared and know what to do, rather than being clueless and having to take time to look up a solution.

Gardening can be an extremely enjoyable activity and not only that but produce beautiful plants for you, and so if it is not something that you are interested in, it is definitely something worth trying out.

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