Archive for category Home Garden

Trends Gardening 2011

Posted by admin in Home Garden, Organic Gardening, Vegetable Gardening on June 10, 2011

With summer just around the corner, it is time to start reflecting on current garden trends. Gardening trends, just like fashion trends, change with every year and season. Whether it’s colouring, garden furniture, textures or customisation, gardens certainly require significant changes throughout the seasons. In order to accommodate for these changes, it’s good to have a few respected companies on gardening speed dial. For example, for garden furniture, Capital Gardens have a selection that change both with season and fashion. Let’s have a look at a few of the current garden trends taking root across the UK.

Keeping it organic

Going organic has been a strong trend since the days of 2009. Maybe because of the economic downturn, maybe because of other factors, but growing our own vegetables took off. This trend has continued into 2011 and doesn’t look to be going anywhere. With a recent Which? study professing that more Brits are finding 2011 economically tougher than 2011, there is no wonder growing edible flowers, fruits and vegetables in our own gardens is still ever-popular. And after all, a garden full of home grown edibles is every gardener’s dream.

Customisation in 2011

Every gardener loves customising their garden. Beautiful gardens take a lot of work, all year round. This year, Zen is the main theme. This means creating an area of tranquillity, full of fragrances and textures that are calming and promote spiritual wellbeing. In order to create a quintessential Zen garden, think of Japanese-style influences. Keep chairs to a minimum but make sure the style of chair you do choose is appropriate to your Zen aura. Styles like Alexander Rose garden furniture are great for their versatility and often cutting edge look. Also think about lighting. Soft lighting at night, by means such as far eastern looking lanterns can be really effective. Just don’t leave them outside at night or dew and British summer time rain will soon damage them. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Simple Solution to Japanese Beetles

Posted by admin in Home Garden on June 10, 2011

These half-inch, green colored beetles are especially fond of roses and grape vines, as well as the leafy parts of your garden plants. If they haven’t already arrived, they will shortly, as well as those equally inevitable Japanese beetle traps that spring up in neighborhoods everywhere.

There is a yard and garden commentary in our local weekly newspaper, The Mount Olive Messenger, Mount Olive, NC. This week, Dr. A.J. Bullard’s commentary addressed ways of dealing with the Japanese beetle. He is not an organic gardener as such, but from time to time does offer solutions that organic gardeners can use.

I have mentioned companion plants before and along those lines, he mentions potted geraniums. Potted so that you can move them to where you need to have your plants protected. But, not just any geranium, white geraniums seem to be the color Japanese beetles favor.

The essential oil of geraniums have been used to ward off mosquitoes and head lice, as well as taken to improve circulation and other medicinal applications. The point is, geraniums do have insecticidal properties, but what is not so well publicized is the attraction that white geraniums specifically, seem to have for Japanese beetles. And, all it takes is one bite of the geranium and its instant death for our little green pests.

By accident, Dr. Bullard noticed that it was the color white, more than anything else, that seemed to attract Japanese beetles. He had 75 five-gallon buckets of various colors scattered throughout his orchard. He had set them out to augment watering his plants during hot, dry spells. What he noticed was that the white buckets would fill with dead Japanese beetles, while the other colored buckets…red, green, and orange, were empty of beetles!

So, if you’re looking for a simple solution to the annual invasion of Japanese beetles, you may want to put out some white buckets of water. You don’t necessarily want to put the buckets IN your garden, you don’t want to attract these beetles into your garden, but rather a short distance outside of your garden to keep them away. Read the rest of this entry »

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