Using Landscape Gardeners Can Mean Lots of Choice for Your Garden

Using professional landscape gardeners to help you design, implement and maintain your home garden is a great way to ensure your garden is at its best and pleasing to you. Your garden outside is a big part of your home just as the inside. By taking the time and making the investment to hire qualified and talented professionals, you can maximise your enjoyment, use and the beauty of your garden space. In pleasant seasons, the garden is essentially an extension of your home living space. Spending time outdoors in a pretty garden is a great way to enjoy nature and take in the fresh air from time to time.

By definition, landscape gardeners are in charge of the design of outdoor spaces, both public and private. These professionals use a combination of skills in the areas of fine arts, horticulture, architecture and botany to work aesthetic and nurturing magic in the garden. The purpose of landscape gardening is to provide an inviting and pleasing space that encourages people to spend time in nature. Fresh air is very good for people of all ages and walks of life. A well-designed park space encourages fresh air times and social interaction as well as working to preserve natural beauty.

When it comes to home garden design, gardeners bring a wealth of experience and talent to the table. While many homeowners might have ideas about what they want in the garden, often the professionals have an edge with experience in design and what plants will thrive together and the like. They will work with you to find a design that makes your garden inviting and brings you hours of joy just to look at it and spend time there. By employing landscape gardeners, they can offer you many options in ideas, services and products you might otherwise have not known about. This benefits you and your garden greatly.

Hiring a home landscape gardener to beautify your landscape around your home enhances the overall attraction and appearance of your home. Adding beauty makes the outdoor space inviting and enjoyable while designing it to your specifications makes a statement of individuality and personal preference. An attractive garden around your home increases the overall value of your home and property as well as making it look great and function well. Nature is soothing and restful to the soul and spending time there is good for everyone. A well-designed and well-kept garden is a perk in so many ways.

Whether it is flowers, greenery, trees, vegetables or some combination of all that you enjoy in your garden, employing professional gardeners can help not only with the design of your outdoor space, but with the upkeep as well. The upkeep of a beautiful garden is sometimes what stops people from doing what they would like to out there. By hiring a great landscape service, you gain their knowledge in design and also their help in upkeep. A beautiful garden around your lovely home is inviting and wonderful, an investment you will not likely regret.

For further details on landscape design including using landscape gardeners in Birmingham, please visit Genuine Home Services, who have a great deal of knowledge in paving, sheds and tree surgery in Birmingham.

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Growing Deciduous Trees on Clay Soils

Let's face it - gardening on clay soils can be tough going. Soil which is wet and sticky in winter and then dries out like concrete in summer isn't exactly the favorite choice of most plants. And it can nearly you drive to despair when just about every tree at your local nursery carries a label saying: "needs friable, free-draining conditions." What about trees for clay! I hear you cry. Well there are trees that will grow in heavy clay and some hardy types will actually thrive in the stuff.

Deciduous trees often do better than evergreens when it comes to surviving in clay. This is because many deciduous trees don't come into leaf until late spring (by which time the soil is warmer and drier) so they're less likely to suffer from wet feet due to cold, wet conditions.

Three great deciduous species for heavy clay soils are Oaks, European Ashes, and Liquidambars.

European ashes are well-suited to clay soils because they can not only handle wet, sticky conditions in winter, but also have good tolerance of hot, dry conditions in summer (ashes are a member of the olive family). Not only that, but they grow quickly and look green and healthy all summer long. However, Asian and American ashes are not as clay tolerant as the European ash, so be careful when choosing varieties.

Oaks come in various forms and have a high tolerance of hot summer winds. Pin oaks, which are also known as swamp oaks, come into leaf in late spring and are particularly good for low-lying spots which don't drain very well in winter.

Liquidambars have similar leaves to maples and put on a fine display in autumn with their colourful foliage. They have higher moisture requirements than ashes and oaks, but are fast growing and also have pretty good tolerance of strong summer winds and hot conditions.

To make sure your trees get off to a good start, be sure to plant them correctly. In clay soils it's necessary to dig wide planting holes (two to three times the width of the root ball of the tree is recommended). This will allow the roots to spread out into the surrounding soil and help the tree get established faster. Don't be tempted to add lots of soil amendments like compost or sand since this may turn the planting hole into a water sump that attracts water from the surrounding soil during wet periods.

After planting, you'll need to pay some attention to watering and mulching, especially during the first few years. Water trees deeply during dry weather to encourage them to put down deep roots. Mulching is essential around new trees in summer as it helps preserve moisture and stops the surface of the soil from baking hard and restricting the growth of surface roots. The best time to lay down mulch is in the spring when the ground is still moist.

Use organic mulches like straw or rotted compost, and apply them thickly. At least 7-8 cm is necessary to conserve moisture as mulches quickly rot down in hot weather. If using lawn clippings make sure to add some nitrogen containing fertilizer like urea or sheep manure as lawn clippings temporarily take nitrogen from the soil as they rot down. Organic mulches also help to condition the soil by increasing its humus content and encourage worm activity, which helps to aerate the soil.

Once established, these tough deciduous trees will only need occasional watering during particularly dry conditions. Otherwise they usually need little attention as they don't tend to suffer from many pest and disease problems.

Michael H Carr is freelance journalist and a keen gardener with experience in developing new gardens on heavy clay soil subdivisions. He currently lives in New Zealand.

He has produced an e-book entitled Clay Soil Gardening, a no-nonsense guide to growing plants on heavy clay soils in temperate climates.

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4 Tips For The Organic Garden

Gardeners need to take more care of the organic garden than conventional gardeners. A conventional garden can always rely on a handful of chemical fertilizer, or bug spray, or weed killer to get than out of a jam. The organic gardener must think ahead to avoid the problems that a lot of other gardeners get themselves into.

The following 4 tips will help you be better prepared this garden season. The tips cover plant care, weeds, pests and harvest and replant. They will help you grow safe, tasty and nutritious veggies for your family.

Plant care

Growing time is the time for watering and feeding. It is best to check the plants growing habits to see how moist to keep the soil. Some plants are different. Most of the time you just want to add water ever couple of days to keep the soil in the root zone moist, but not wet. Give your garden plants a little compost during the garden season, by carefully scratching it into the soil surface.

Weeds

That dirty word... weeds. To some the weed is the thorn in the side for their garden, but it does not have to be that way. Here are two big tips for weeding your garden. One, mulch your garden with straw, leaves, grass clippings, newspaper or just about any organic material. Place it under the plants as soon as they are big enough. Second, walk through your garden every evening after work. As you walk pull any weeds that stick their heads up through the mulch. It will keep your garden weed free and lift your spirits at the same time.

Pests

We do not have enough space to cover all pest, so we will just cover a few. Bugs are everywhere. If you have a garden you have bugs. Some bugs are good so we do not want to kill everything. You can quickly hand pick, and place the bug in soapy water, as you are doing your daily garden walk.

Row cover is a great invention. It is available from your garden center and is placed over your veggies. It lets in rain and light and keeps bugs out, works great.

Harvest and replant

Once, you have enjoyed your beans, or cabbage, or whatever don't let that soil sit there and grow weeds. Rake in a little compost and plant a different variety of vegetable and harvest again from the same spot.

Following these 4 tips for the organic garden will help you harvest more produce from your garden and have more fun while doing it. Organic gardening is easy, once you learn how to do it. Just remember to care for your growing plants, consistently take care of the pests and weeds and replant after you harvest.

If you would like more tips on how to improve your gardening skills you can click here. For a free newsletter of gardening tips go to http://solutionsfororganicgardening.com/.

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