Gardening Tips – Ways To Maintain A Healthy Garden!
July 16, 2010 by admin
Filed under Gardening Tips
Achieving a healthy and good-looking garden is difficult but not an impossible task. There are some gardening tips that come quite handy in reaping a rich harvest. Following are some useful tips from the seasoned gardeners who may also have faced similar situations while moving up on the learning curve.
Every gardener faces unique problems in regard to the soil condition of the regions he is striving to succeed in. Coming to the gardeners rescue, the United States department of Agriculture (USDA) has prepared a Zone Map for Plant Hardness. It comprises of all regions divided into 11 different zones, 1 being the coldest to 11 being the warmest. Referring this zone map can help you a lot in finding out the best plants suiting the specific region and soil type.
The basic ingredients – Sunlight and Water
Plants require a regular diet of six to ten hours of sunlight daily for healthy growth. Your garden can produce wonders if it is supported by soil with rich and sandy loam. You can also consider feeding nutrients in the form of manure and compost to the soil bed of your garden. Adhering to the directional tips like planting the rows from north to south, and having complementary plants side-by-side will ensure good results. You must always use fresh and new seeds while sowing fresh plants. Watering the plants regularly will get rid of all forms of air gaps in the soil, thus, roots will be able to travel far down and wide ensuring a strong root system.
Gardening manuals suggest that bulbs require at least twelve weeks of low temperature for flowering, thus, you may consider refrigerating them before planting. The ideal time to dig-up perennials is fall. Once you have dug them up you must split the bulbs up to keep them fresh and productive. It is ideal to have four or more splits resulting in as many plants. It is also suggested to undertake such splitting procedure every three years to keep the bulbs productive.
Fall is also the time for over-wintering or vernalization of the bulbs to ensure speedy seed development. As per this practice, one should place the bulbs under the soil during fall and let them be there the entire winter. This will result in them blooming wonderfully during the spring season. Laying chicken wire over the planted bulbs and then putting mulch over it will help keeping the rodents away from digging out the bulbs.
Spring time is busy time for gardeners all over the world as it is during this season that most of the weeding, mulching, fertilizing, composting, pruning and planting is undertaken. Spring is an ideal time to begin grass seeds. You should also deadhead the blooms during springtime as it will help strengthening the plants and also control the self-seeding plants from venturing out into the other parts of the garden.
The above mentioned gardening tips will make sure that you create breathtaking views in your garden year after year.
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