Garden Design & Landscaping Ideas

Many people enjoy gardening and love to spend time in their own landscaped garden. For many the garden is a place in which to relax and forget about the normal stresses of life. Whether it is a small patio garden with water feature, landscaped courtyard garden with selected plants and unique garden edging or a large backyard complete with garden shed, furniture, lawn and thriving vegetable patch.

A well thought out garden design not only makes doing the gardening a whole lot easier but is also means that your family can spend more time enjoying your home garden. With most people becoming more environmentally aware there is a big shift towards more sustainable living and nowhere is this more evident than in the household garden. Planting the right plants, growing your own fruits and vegetables, recycling water and creating your own compost or mulch are things that are high on the agenda for avid gardeners.

Having a thriving and practical garden does not have to cost a fortune. You can employ the garden services of a professional or you easily do it yourself, because there are plenty ways in which you can save money on gardening whilst still designing and creating your ideal garden. Once you have finished creating your dream garden setting then you will not only have a great place for entertaining guests but will also create money by increasing the resale value of your house.

Gardening Supplies and Services
Gardeners love bark and/or mulch because it not only makes the garden look good but also inhibits weed growth and reduces the amount of garden watering that is required. When you are ordering it from the garden supply store make sure that you go with the larger sized wood bark chips or mulch so that it doesn't blow all around the garden on windy days.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Save Money Gardening
An even better idea than buying packets of seeds is to collect your own seeds from your vegetables and use them again next year. Empty matchbox containers provide the ideal place to keep seeds dry and organized until next year.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Landscape Garden Design Ideas
Make sure that your garden design gives your plants enough room to grow into. Consider making the garden beds slightly larger and lawn area slightly smaller when you design a garden, as there will not be any real perceivable difference by the casual observer.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Garden Lighting and Equipment
It is always better if you can work outdoor garden lighting into your landscape design as it is generally much harder to add garden lighting later on and it also may require you to dig up your garden and/or lawn.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Planting Seeds and Transplanting Seedlings
You can plant garden seeds in any number of household containers including yoghurt tubs, cottage cheese tubs and restaurant take away trays. Fill the container with quality seedling mix and put small drainage holes at the bottom.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Garden and Vegetable Produce Ideas
If you have a pumpkin vine in your vegetable garden and it is not producing any pumpkins, or they are falling of when very small, it is because they have failed to pollinate. You can pollinate the pumpkins by rubbing the pollen from the male flowers, which have the fingertip, onto the female flowers, which have the small pumpkins beneath them.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Making Cut Flowers Last Longer
When you cut flowers from your garden and put them in a vase there are a few things that you can do to make them last longer. Woody stems should have their ends crushed to help increase their intake of water, add a tablespoon of sugar to a litre of water for daisies, asters, chrysanthemums, petunias, carnations & sweet peas and finally hydrangeas will keep fresh for a week if you split the stems 1cm at the base & add a spoonful of powdered alum to the water.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Controlling and Removing Weeds
Keeping weeds from getting started will always be much easier than getting rid of them, so Never Let Weeds Go To Seed. Each weed plant can produce hundreds or thousands of seeds, so if you remove weeds from the garden and placed in the compost heap before they go to seed then thousands of seeds won't be added to the garden.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Killing Snails and Slugs
To attract snails and slugs that attack the plants in your veggie patch make a simple trap out of a recycled plastic milk bottle. Simply cut the bottom 5-8cms from the bottle, sink it into the soil so the top rim is level with the soil and fill with beer, which will attract them from all around the garden.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Repelling Insects and Cats
For a more automatic alternative sprinkle the cat's favourite digging spot every few days with black pepper or the following powder mix of 2 parts cayenne pepper, 3 parts dry yellow mustard and 5 parts white flour.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Free Indoor Plant Foods
If you steam or boil vegetables in unsalted water then drain off the water, allow it to cool and use it to water the plants. This vegetable water is full of nutrients which act as a fertilizer and your indoor garden plants will love.   ...  Read Many More Tips

Compost and Outdoor Plant Foods
Kelp from the sea is particularly good for your garden soil as it decays quickly, adds lots of vital nutrients and doesn't introduce weed seeds into your garden. You can apply fresh kelp directly to the soil, mulch it and apply a 2 to 4 inch layer around your garden plants or alternatively add it to your compost pile.   ...  Read Many More Tips