GARDENING

There are a lot of people who like to have a garden. They spend time in the garden for many different reasons. You will want to make sure that you consider this as a great hobby and perhaps, a way for you to spend some quality time with the family. You will want to consider this as a hobby because there are a lot of benefits to being a gardener. As to what benefits there are, you’ll have to consider the plants that you are growing. There are many reasons why you will want to use gardening as a hobby.

First, you will find that when it comes to growing your own vegetables and fruits you will be able to see the benefits clearly. You will be able to give your family a good opportunity to eat healthy. You will want to keep in mind that there are tons of things are today’s store bought produce that could be potentially harmful for your family to consume.

You will want to keep in mind that the garden is something that you can use to protect your family from things like E-coli or other bacteria that tends to grow on fresh produce. When you grow your own vegetable garden you will be able to eat healthier and that will make you feel better about yourself.

When it comes to having your own herbal garden, you will want to keep in mind that there are even more benefits. You will want to use this time as an opportunity for you to improve some of your favorite recipes. Basically, you will want to keep in mind that there are many ways that you’ll be able to use herbs in either crafts or for food preparation, but you will be glad to have such fresh aromas in your home. It will make you feel a lot better about yourself and your family will smell very good to all your arriving guests.

As for flower gardens, you will find that this is one of the most common hobbies that people like to get involved with. This is because you will be able to have beautiful flower arrangements to decorate your home with, and your landscape will look just as wonderful. You will find that there are tons of benefits to having a flower garden and you will really be able to appreciate life.

No matter what type of garden you are growing, you will find that gardening can be a great excuse for you to use in order to get outside. You’ll find that there are tons of benefits from having gardening as a hobby, but the bottom line is that it will help you to be healthy.


Before You Start Planting, Garden Design Basics to Save You Future Headaches

The only way to get good at garden design is to do it. Luckily, you can’t fail. Plants can always be moved or replaced. Even if your tastes change completely, your garden can follow suit.

What are the Elements of Garden Design?

Gardening is often called the only living art form. Like any form of art, designing a garden is subjective. Although gardening successfully requires learning certain skills, in the end, a garden’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There are no fixed rules to garden design. But there are a few elements of composition that will serve the garden designer well, when combining plants.

Why You Need Bones in Your Garden.

You’ll also hear a lot of talk about starting your garden with good bones. That basically means creating a outlining foundation, with trees, structures, paths and such, for the rest of the garden to build off of. A favorite and easily incorporated technique for creating garden bones is to use evergreens, especially dwarf conifers.

How to Create a Focal Point

Every garden, no matter what its size, benefits from a focal point. Without a main feature, the viewer’s eye is more likely to flit from plant to plant, section to section, without zeroing in to examine and appreciate the harmony of the composition.

Learning to Appreciate and Use Plants for Texture and Form

Perhaps the most overlooked tool in garden design is the use of texture. Plants are so varied in texture, you could have an entirely green garden and still have plenty of interest, if you varied textures. As you start to become more discerning about the texture of foliage, you’ll also begin to notice the interplay of plant forms. New gardeners are frequently attracted to the same type of plant over and over again. Perhaps it’s feathery foliage or spiky leaves. Too much of a good thing can make your garden looked chaotic and blurred. One architectural, bold-leaved plant, like a canna, can restore order.

Making Color in the Garden Work

Finally there’s color. Actually, many gardeners like to start with color because it’s a familiar design element. But nature pulls a fast one on us. Even though we know yellow and blue look good together, orange and red will clash and white goes with anything, there are so many shades of each of these colors; even white. Experimenting is the best way to get to know what colors work for you. But the best advice for brand new garden designers is to keep your pallette limited. Start with 2-3 colors and you won’t have to worry about making your viewers dizzy.

Tweaking the Existing Garden That Got Out of Control

Since gardening is a living art form, it is constantly changing. Gardens get better over time, with plants filling in, mingling and becoming more lush. But there will probably come a time when more is just too much and you’ll want to think about a redesign, or what I like to call, reining in your garden. That starts with taking a good hard look at what exactly is bothering you about your garden, as it is and making small changes until it’s back to where you want it.

Garden Design Plans to Use or Inspire

Don't know where to begin? Why not pick a theme and a garden design plan and just jump in. Here are a handful of plans to get you going. Once you get the hang of it, you can adapt the plans to suit your own yard and gardening tastes.