Gardening Services Guide

Archive for the ‘General Gardening Tips’ Category

Perennial gardening is gardening that caters to plants that grow back every year. Many plants need to be grown from seed or transplants every year. Perennial gardening is composed of plants like the aloe, iris, hibiscus, caladium, tulips and yucca that, once planted in the appropriate conditions, will return year after year. Yuccas, for example, grow in the desert southwest. No one is there to care for them, yet they continue to grow and thrive.

This does not mean, however, that a perennial garden is a garden that is planted and forgotten. If a gardener wants to enjoy the sights in the garden, perennial gardening does need some care and maintenance.

Before starting the garden, the gardener needs to consider where the garden will be placed, the amount of water and sunlight the garden will get and how much care the gardener can give to the garden. Even gardens designed to withstand some form of benign neglect will need occasional care. If the gardener wants a very low maintenance form of perennial gardening, the gardener can’t expect to have plants that will grow rapidly or that need some help with pollination.

Select plants that will grow in the geographic area. These plants should be proportional to the size of the garden. The colors, size and watering needs should be similar. Perennial gardening is doomed to failure if some of the plants like frequent watering and moist soil while their next door neighbors like dry soil and infrequent watering.

The gardener will also need to consider the growing season of the individual plants. Some plants have short blooming seasons, others have long blooming seasons. Some plants bloom early in the year; some like summer and some bloom in the fall. With careful planning, a gardener can select plants that will bloom at a variety of times during the year. This means that there will be color in the garden throughout the year.

Generally, when starting perennial gardening, the first year is the least attractive. The plants are just taking root and getting settled in their new location. The second year, the plants begin to demonstrate what is to come. Some gardeners will want to rearrange the location of some plants, or add or remove others. By the third year, the garden will reflect the planning, care and time put into it. People will admire the garden and the gardener’s skills. Changes can be made, but don’t try to rearrange the entire garden, or it will be another three or four years before the garden will mature.

Organic farmers produce fruit and vegetables without the use of harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides. If you are a home gardener, there are a lot of reasons why you should consider organic gardening. Home gardeners, whether they grow flowers or vegetables, and whether they live in the city or the country, till the soil just as farmers do, and therefore have an impact upon the environment. Indeed, through organic gardening home gardeners who live in urban areas actually have an opportunity to do something to improve the environment. Urban conditions tend to lower the quality of air, soil and water. With organic gardening, home gardeners help restore some of that lost quality.

Why is it good for you to use organic gardening? Home vegetable gardeners eat their own produce. No poisonous chemicals are used in organic gardening. Home gardeners therefore don’t have to worry about toxins in their food. Even among home flower gardeners organic gardening means no exposure to poisonous chemicals for anyone in the family.

Fresh vegetables always contain more vitamins than vegetables purchased at a supermarket, and organically grown vegetables have minerals that are often missing or found only in low quantities in chemically raised vegetables. Organically grown vegetables also contain protective phytochemicals that scientists believe are defenses against cancer and other diseases. Any sort of outdoor gardening is good for you because it gets you out in the sunshine and fresh air. Organic gardening makes the experience all the better because it is good for both you and the environment.

Organic gardening is good for society in general because it does not add dangerous chemicals to the environment. Organic vegetable gardening, wherever it is done, adds to food production. Because organic gardening reuses and recycles materials, it reduces the pressure on community waste disposal services and means less garbage going into landfill sites.

Chemical fertilizers add nothing to the soil, and can in fact have harmful effects. Organic fertilizers contribute to the development of good, nutrient rich soil that can be used by future generations. Chemical pesticides can leave toxic residues on food. Moreover, they kill the good insects along with the bad ones. They get into the natural food chain and cause long lasting problems far from the actual garden. Organic pest control uses nature’s own methods to keep destructive insects in check, and so allows your garden to maintain a healthy diversity of organisms.

For these and many other reasons, it is in your best interest to use organic gardening. Home gardeners who haven’t already started to do so should give it serious consideration.