What’s in Store for National Home Gardening Club Members?
The National Home Gardening Club, the largest home gardening organization with a paid membership, offers many benefits to its members.
For a small fee, there are various benefits are available.
If you choose to become a member of the National Home Gardening club, here are some of the benefits you can expect:
1 A coupon for free gardening shears.
2.Free competitions to win other gardening supplies.
3.Free trial subscription for a How-to gardening magazine
4. Opportunities to do product testing for new gardening equipment.
Here are some of the products tested by members in past issues of the Gardening How-To magazine:
– Honda Harmony Lawn Mower
– Miracle-Gro Garden Weed Preventer
– Sunflower Garden
– Cobra Head Precision Weeder and Cultivator
– Preen ‘n Green
5. Members can share tips and gardening stories with other members.
6. Access to a free directory of public gardens.
7.Access to a members only gardening site
8. Members can also preview gardening books, gardening videos, etc.
These are some pretty great benefits for those who enjoy gardening and would like to socialize with like minded people.
After the 30-day trial, you can continue your membership for only $1 per month.
Layering Garden Landscaping
Adding garden landscaping to your home can be a fun experience to get your imagination working and to keep you happily active by planting and caring for plants and flowers.
By layering your garden landscaping beds you will be able to add a different level of beauty to your landscaping design. Your landscaping is a statement for your home. It is a great talking point for visitors and can be a fun place to spend your time.
Layering your garden landscaping design is easy to do. The first step is to pick out the flowers that you will be using in your landscaping design. The layout of your landscaping will depend on the kinds of flowers you choose. This is because you don’t want to end up having shorter plants hidden behind taller ones. This is obvious, so you should make a rough sketch of where you want things laid out for your garden landscaping before you begin. This will help you to keep things as simple as possible. This will help prevent future problems with your yard.
It is typical to plant around three layers. Your back row should face north, if it can, and should have the tallest plants and as the rows descend so should the heights of the plants and flowers. The trick of this kind of garden landscaping is that oftentimes the plants we buy are baby plants. Make sure that you do research and talk to the people you buy the plants from to make sure you know what to expect. This is the key to successful garden landscaping. If the front or middle row of your garden landscaping design is going to grow much higher than the last row, then you will have to do some rearranging.
Layered landscaping with native plants accomplishes more than simply beautifying your lawn. California wildflowers can attract bees and butterflies to your yard. This is important due to the reduction in the pollinator population across the country. When you plant native California flowers you help bring pollinators to your area, improving your own vegetable garden and the produce yields of local farms.
California buckwheat is a tall, bushy plant with white flowers. It grows best in sandy soil and can serve as the background of your layered landscaping. Another tall plant is Deergrass. Deergrass is non-flowering and lends an elegant touch of greenery to your lawn. Coyote mint is medium in height with purple flowers and is a favorite of butterflies.Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed, a medium height plant with white flowers, and the caterpillars eat milkweed leaves. California blue-eyed grass is short, with lovely purple flowers with yellow centers.
The layering affect of your garden landscaping design will add depth and make your garden much more interesting to look at. This is what will make your garden landscaping a success.
Contact us for more suggested native plants for your layered landscaping that will survive California’s weather and attract bees, butterflies and even hummingbirds to your yard and garden. Call us today at 805-773-5395
Home Landscaping that Best Work for You
Home landscaping is no different than other kinds of landscape in that you are working hard to make the area around you look great. You put just as much effort and planning into it. Here are some suggestions for your home landscaping ideas.
Research home landscaping ideas online
There are products that can help you to find the best home landscaping idea for your home. There is even home landscaping software. These programs can be a great help to you as you are trying to figure out what will suit your home and yard the best. With these types of programs you will get to see a few different layouts which will help you to narrow down your choices.
If home landscaping software programs are not for you, then you can try looking online for some great home landscaping ideas. The internet is full of great sites that you can use to get everything done the right way. It is important to do plenty of research before you start your own home landscaping so that you keep the number of mistakes made down to a minimum. If you do make a boo-boo, don’t worry about it, anything can be fixed.
Choose the landscaping company that will do the best work for you.
Picking your landscaping company shouldn’t be a random choice. Whether your job is big or small, it is important to find a trustworthy and reliable company that will leave your landscaping looking great. Finding a company with experience and rive is important. It is best to find a company that knows what they are doing and are commuted to doing their best.
You’re checking up should not end there however. You still need to find out just how well run landscaping companies they are. Look at it this way: most landscaping companies are small business and they only have a few people working there. The owners have to do the bulk of the work on their own. That is why they are not always as reliable as they should be. Like other contractors they have a lot on their plate and they can at times get overwhelmed and not show up for a job when they were supposed to. While I do not excuse it I can understand it. They have a lot of people demanding certain things from them. The owners of the landscaping company will generally have to do all of the free estimates themselves, take the appointments, get to the appointments, do the books and then does the actual landscaping company work. Wow, that is enough to run anyone into the ground. That is why you should find out how many clients a potential landscaping company has at the time you are going to hire them. If they sound as if they will be too busy then you might want to choose another landscaping company, one that will have the time that you need. You need to choose a landscaping company that will be dedicated to the work that you are getting done, you are paying for a service and you deserve for it to be as good as it can be.
Before you start your home landscaping, you will need to look into any gas lines and electrical lines that may be running through your yard. This is very important if you are planning to be doing a lot of digging. You cannot afford to hit any of these things, not only can it cost you a bundle to fix; it can also be very dangerous. Hitting an electrical line with a metal shovel can be fatal. You will also need to find out about zoning restrictions that could affect your home landscaping. In some places you cannot have trees too high and even some fences are not allowed. Find out these kinds of things before you start your home landscaping work and you could save a lot of time and money.
Need more assistance in your home landscaping needs? Contact us at 805-773-5395 or
Best Decorative Landscaping Ideas for your Garden
There are many reasons exist why you should incorporate decorative landscaping ideas to your gardening. The main one however is for beauty, pure aesthetic beauty. For any decorative landscaping designs to look perfect it must have layer which is a tough thing to achieve without the use of it.
Decorative Landscaping Ideas
What is landscaping stones?
Landscaping stones are not the only way to give your yard depth but they’re the easiest way. You could attempt to alter the slop of the yard. You could dig lower sports and make up higher ones but this might take forever and you would have to know a lot about landscaping to try and tackle employment like this. Just think of the problem you could get into using the drainage issues if you were to get it wrong! No, it is much easier to simply use landscaping stones to bring some depth for your yard.
You should use landscaping stones to accent certain servings of your yard; you can even plant some plants in these landscaping stones. They look great round the patio and the fence and you will even get colored one to create more color to your yard. This sort of color is especially nice to possess in the winter months when everything is so bare and cold looking. The fact of the matter is you can transform the entire look of your yard using the simple use of landscaping stones. They are like jewelry just for the yard.
There are many different types of landscaping stones and they come in all shapes and sized. The landscaping stones that are best for you are determined by the result that you are attempting to create together with your yard. And various parts of the yard may need different sized landscaping stones. You can get a wide variety of colors and perhaps you may want to mix a couple of colors together to produce a whole new and interesting look.
If you are planning to overhaul your yard this year you will want to start looking into using landscaping stones in your design. These will bring the whole yard together and if they are used right will add balance and harmony to your entire garden.
What is landscaping rock?
Landscaping rock can come in a couple of different forms. There are many colors, sizes and types of landscaping rock
available and different ones will yield different looks in your design. You can use landscaping rock to add some depth and texture to your landscaping design.
To keep it from looking haphazard or like you are trying to cover something up, fully integrate landscaping rock into your yard and the design. Place them thoughtfully in areas that do not take away from the rest of the design. If you were to just put your landscaping rock here and there you will be doing nothing for the yard and your yard will look unbalanced. Instead of using rocks as an afterthought, carefully plan where they will be placed.
Make sure to bury your rock so that it doesn’t look randomly placed. By burying it, it will look more natural and add to your yard.
How far should you bury your rock in the ground? The depth will all depend upon the landscaping rock that you finally choose from your yard. If you choose a very large landscaping rock then it should be deeper than a smaller landscaping rock. Four to six inches is a good depth for your landscaping rock to be buried.
It is easy to bury your landscaping rock. Just dig a spot about the size of your landscaping rock and place the rock into it. You can then just tuck some dirt into the spot around the rock and then you are done.
Think about it, this is what rocks and boulders look like when you see them out in nature. The next time that you are out taking a walk or you are hiking keep an eye out for any large rocks, look at how they sit in the dirt and then try to get the landscaping rock in your yard to look just as natural.
You will find landscaping stones and rocks at your local gardening center as well as some home building stores. Look around and discover different decorative landscaping ideas that may fit your home as well as your needs best prior to you making an order.
Interested for more decorative landscaping ideas? Contact 805-773-5395 to schedule an appointment or
Flowers: How to Care for Them?
Dealing with Rose Diseases
When watching for rose diseases, look for these issues:
- Flowers that don’t open or are deformed when they open.
If your flowers are not opening, or aren’t looking quite right when they do, it could be due to Thrips. Thrips are thin, brownish yellow bugs with fringed wings that suck juices from flower buds. Cut and discard the infested flowers. Orthene and malathion may also treat this problem.
- Leaves with black spots on them.
Black spots appear with fringed edges on leaves and can cause them to yellow. Remove the infected foliage and pick up any fallen leaves around the flowers. Artificial sprays may be used to prevent or treat this kind of rose disease.
- Stunted or malformed young canes
Known as powdery mildew, this is a fungal disease that covers leaves, stems and buds with wind spread white powder. It makes the leaves curl and turn purple. Spray with Funginex or Benomyl to treat this fungal disease.
- Flowers andleaves that don’t form correctly or fully.
Spider Mites are small yellow, red or green spiders that live on the underside of leaves and feed off of them. The application of Orthene or Isotox may help in treating this infestation.
- Blistered underside of leaves
Known as rust, this disease is characterized by orange-red blisters that turn black in fall. It can survive the winter and will then attack new sprouts in the spring. Collect and discard leaves that are infected in fall. A Benomyl or Funginex spray every 7-10 days may help.
- Weak and mottled leaves with tiny white webs under them
This is caused by aphids. They are small soft-bodied insects that usually brown, green or red. Often clustered under leaves and flower buds, they suck plant juices from tender buds. Malathion or diazinon spray may help roses to survive these bugs. Remember that roses are hungry feeders that require much fertilizer to become healthy bushes.
How to Care for Tulips
Tulips are flowers that enjoy cold weather, but that doesn’t mean you can’t grow them in California! If you want to enjoy these beautiful flowers in the spring, you’ll need to get started sometime in November. We will show you the right way to care for your tulips so you can enjoy a colorful spring flowerbed.
- Faking Cold Weather
In Zones 8 through 11, the ground doesn’t often get cold enough for tulips to grow. These bulbs like at least six weeks of soil temperatures below 45 degrees, otherwise they’ll stay dormant. If your soil temperatures don’t drop that low, the best thing to do is dig up your tulip bulbs in November and store them in the refrigerator. Keep them in the veggie crisper, and pack peat moss around the bulbs to draw away excess moisture and keep the bulbs healthy.
- Planting Your Tulip Bulbs
In January, you can take your tulip bulbs out of the refrigerator and plant them in your garden. Avoid planting your bulbs in areas that are too shady or a spot that is too close to your home. While it won’t hurt the bulbs, shady areas stay cool, which will make your tulips bloom later, while a warm spot next to your home will make the tulips bloom too early. Make sure the flower bed you’re going to plant them in is well drained. Bulbs, including tulips, are prone to rotting if the soil is always soaked. If your soil is hard or has lots of heavy clay, use compost or peat moss to soften it. Tulip bulbs should be planted approximately seven inches deep, with the pointed ends facing upward. Space the bulbs so that they’re four inches or more apart. Water the bulbs once you’ve planted them, but avoid topping them with mulch until the shoots are two or three inches high. Mulch will trap water, and could cause the bulbs to rot. Once you’ve planted the tulips, you’re ready to sit back and enjoy the show! Remember to remove blooms as they fade to promote healthy growth, and when the foliage turns yellow, you’re free to cut it away. In November, you can come back and dig up the bulbs to get ready for the next year.
Interested for more tips on how to care for your flowers? Don’t hesitate to contact us at 805-773-5395 or
Factors to Consider in Building your Ideal Garden
Building your Ideal Garden
Selecting the location of your ideal garden in your yard is among the more essential items to decide. You need to select a location which will offer an ideal climate for those plants inside your garden. I’m not sure which kind of garden you are coping with and so I can’t provide you with specific advice, but when you perform a Search for that plant you are coping with then you will find an array of sites telling you concerning the perfect conditions because of its growing. Following this, it’s only a matter of locating the most shaded or most sunny place on your lawn.
Obtaining the perfect quantity of shade for the garden could be a difficult endeavor. After you have a fundamental idea for in which you would like your garden, you might like to watch it and record the number of hours it stays in sunlight and just how many it stays in shade. Compare your findings for an online site, and you ought to have the ability to see whether the place you’re considering is perfect or otherwise for planting and beginning a garden in.
Obviously the total amount can change because the seasons change, but this will provide you with a wise decision of the items to essentially expect for that relaxation of the season. If required, later you are able to set up some type of shade to safeguard a garden from getting burning. After you have selected what garden you would like, you will find a number of other factors you have to decide before you decide to really make a start together with your gardening tools. Mainly you have to choose its location. Normally, this is made the decision by a number of factors: The way you will water it, just how much shade it requires, etc. A few of these questions can be quite essential in determining whether a garden lives or dies, so do not take them gently. You have to take each one of these into special consideration.
For those who have a sprinkler system already installed for the grass, then maybe it’s a wise decision to place your garden in the center of your yard. It can get watered simultaneously, and require no work out of your part. But when this does not offer a great place for a garden, then you definitely might finish up watering it by hose or dragging a sprinkler available. Within this situation, just make certain a garden is at the perfect distance for any hose to achieve. Although this may not appear just like a positive thing to base the whole location of the garden on, you will be amazed at how nice it’s to organize in advanced.
Other Factors in Garden Creation
So now you’ve picked out what type of garden you will have, what the location will be, and what kind of fertilizer you need, now is the time to really get started in choosing your garden environment. First you’ll want to choose what your garden barriers will be. What will separate your garden from the rest of the world? Next you’ll want to choose the decorations and support for your plants. Often some kind of metal mesh is necessary to keep your plant standing up. You will also want to choose how much soil and fertilizer to buy, and how to arrange all the plants in your garden.
Choosing a border is actually a fairly important step in getting your garden started. It might not actually affect the well-being of the plants, but having a garden is a fairly aesthetic ordeal for many people anyways. So usually you will want to choose between metal and wood. You can stack up boards around the perimeter of your garden, and give it a rather nice cabin look. If you’re looking for a more modern look, you can obtain some metal lining at your local home improvement store for rather cheap, and installation is medium difficulty. Finding something nice-looking to support your plants can be a little bit more challenging. Sometimes a short metal pole can work well, but often for plants such as tomatoes you will need a wire mesh for it to pull itself up on. You can find these at any gardening store, usually pre-shaped in a sort of cone shape ideal for plants. The plant just grows up through it, and usually it will last until the plant is grown enough to support itself. After that you can take a pair of wire-cutters and just snip it free. Deciding how much soil to buy can be slightly easier. Look up information on your plants and find out the ideal soil depth. Then dig out that much from your garden, take the measurements, and find out the exact amount of cubic feet of soil that you will need. Go to the store and buy it, preferably adding on a few bags just so you can replenish the supply if it compresses or runs out. If you live in an area where the ground is rough, dry, and barren of nutrients, then you might even want to add a few inches of depth to the original recommendation.
Arranging the plants is rather important to the success of your garden. I’m not talking about some kind of feng-shui thing, but depending on your watering, some plants might hog all the water and leave the other plants high and dry. Some plants have longer roots than others, and are more aggressive in the collection of water. If you place one of these plants next to a plant with weaker, shorter roots, it will quickly hijack the water supply for itself, and choke out the other plant.
After you have determined the perfect spot for a garden and whether or not this has the correct quantity of sunlight, and whether you’ll have the ability to easily water it, you are a measure nearer to really achieving your ideal garden. I hope I’ve led you to realize that placement isn’t the only important thing about a garden. There are many other factors that might not seem very significant, but spending a proper amount of time considering them could change the outcome of your garden.
So if you’re working on building your ideal garden, use any reference you can find (the library, the internet, and magazines) to look in to some of the factors I’ve mentioned. Obviously you will find additional factors which I have overlooked here, but mostly you need to have the ability to decide whether where you are is nice, or otherwise according to good sense. Imagine: Basically, if I we’re a plant; would I have the ability to flourish here? If you’re able to honestly answer yes, I think it’s time to go to the local gardening store and purchase the required soil and fertilizer and begin to have some fun!
Looking for more tips and suggestions for your ideal garden? Grab your phone and dial 805-773-5395 or
