Spring is the season of new beginnings for everyone and everything!
Garden Maintenance: Tips
Garden Maintenance: 8 Top Wild Life friendly Garden Practices for winter
- If you don’t already have a water feature, bird bath or water trough in your garden, think about installing one now. Water supplies are difficult to find in the winter months and by offering this precious commodity, it will help the wildlife survive the season.
- Keep the dying and dead leaves of perennials and bulbs and grass stalks until the end of winter. Many creatures like spiders, wasps, butterflies etc., will live under the leaves and amongst the grass stalks. If you cut them down now, there will be no place for next season’s beneficial insects to live out the cold weather.
Garden Maintenance: Wild Life Support in your garden
Now that winter has arrived our climate is cooler, and our nights are longer. Plants respond to the winter climate and to a process called photoperiodism, where the shorter days and longer nights, signal preparations for a slowdown period.
Many living creatures in the garden slow down their body processes too. Snakes, lizards, frogs, toads, Millipede Assassin bugs and ladybugs and many other insects all slow down, so that no extra energy is used up.
Garden Glamour: Mirrors
Glamorise your garden by adding mirrors. Tiny mirror chips laced onto florists wire entangled into a branch add a subtle bling to your garden during day or night as they catch sun and lamp light. These little mirror reflections add movement, interest and excitement to your garden.
Drab walls can be elevated with mirrors to create a sense of space and distance. Mirrors place onto boundary walls in small gardens give the illusion of an extended garden.
Over time mirrors that are exposed to the elements, getting a spekkled back ground. Your choices are to either accept the old worl look or look at making a change. You bring a dimension that it hard to pardon.
Garden Glamour: Plant Cage
From parrot cage to plant cage!
1. Find Polly’s old cage (that noisy parrot that drove us all insane!). Sadly, Polly left for birdie heaven years ago and his cage is just sitting in the garage collecting dust and is always in your way. You have threatened to throw it out so many times, then the guilt steps in and you don’t, poor Polly what would he think? Here’s what he would think, let’s turn it into a flower cage
Garden Glamour: Hanging Baskets
Hanging baskets always conjure up memories of dried up flowers in desperate need of water, hanging from your granny’s balcony, collecting every bug, spider and dust particle in sight. Lucky for us, that’s not the case anymore, especially for those of us that don’t have gardens to play around in. Now we can be so creative with hanging baskets, from beautiful flowering annuals that you can change as the season changes, to succulents that seem to go on forever, demanding almost no attention, even fruit, like strawberries are perfect for these baskets.
Garden Glamour: Garden Lighting
MAKE YOUR GARDEN ENTERTAINMENT-READY WITH NIGHT LIGHTS
A healthy garden is like a mini eco system, where life abounds. All eco systems are balanced and there will be as much life in your garden at night as in the day. By day we marvel at not just the flora in our garden but also the fauna, most folks not realising that when the day shift goes off beat a vibrant night shift takes over. Few people are privileged enough to spend a lot of time in their gardens in the day time, but after a hard day’s work there is very little more relaxing both physically and mentally as spending time admiring the beauty of your garden in the cool of the evening, full moon will add soft light to your garden for a few days once a month.
We share a few clever ways with lighting, to ensure you get your maximum garden benefits this summer.
Image by : Inhabitat.com
LED POT LIGHTS
A new innovation called light pots will bring the romance of the full moon to your garden every night. The soft light provided by these pots will allow you to observe all the nocturnal life in your garden, if you are still and patient the little night creatures will treat you as part of the furniture! These lovely light pots will extend your gardening hours and your gardening pleasure.
Image by: Familyhandyman.com
OUTDOOR SOLAR PATIO LIGHTS
It is a great idea for your garden, and for the greening of our planet, to replace old wired lights with outdoor solar lights. They require less energy, look great in the garden, and don’t require any wiring installation. They make for a really beautiful display when strategically placed along footpaths and in your garden beds. Whilst they don’t provide massive amounts of light, they certainly adds a beautiful touch.
HANGING LIGHTS
Hanging lights are a very popular trend that ads a real splash of delightful glamour to your garden. They can be hung from trees, awnings and eaves, and provide magnificent soft lighting. Perfect for a romantic outdoor setting! Be sure that your wiring is weather-protected if you’re hanging them in weather-exposed areas.
Image by: Familyhandyman.com
Garden Glamour: Garden Accessories
We don’t always think of accessorising our gardens as quickly as we do our homes, but being that the garden is such an important part of the house and surrounds, it’s really important to consider with care how to bring the most out of your garden. This can be as big or as small as your budget will allow, with maybe a beautiful old garden swing that invites you to come have a ride, or a water feature that bubbles away in a corner creating the most soothing sound. These are really “do it yourself” type projects that the whole family can get involved with.