Here are my own gardening experiences. Flowers and plants are just like any relationships in your life; if you pay special attention, care and put efforts to them they will reward you handsomely.
1. Feed plant food: give plant food once in every one or two weeks from spring to summer,; this is very important. Flowers are like humans, they need nutrition to grow and produce buds during the flowering season. If you do this they tend to flower longer, bigger with more flowers and that helps keep your garden more colourful. I use Miracle-Grow from B&Q and the results are very good. Please make sure that you feed different plant the right food, for example - acid lovers such as Hydrangea.
2. Spray: If the leaves become yellow and full of holes, you need to buy some spray to kill the bugs and other insects. Yellow bugs loves lilies and they love to make lots of holes on your lily's leaves.
3. I use various treatments to kill slugs, snails and ants: Sprinkle some slug pellets or ant-killing tablets or power around your plant to keep them away from your flowers and plants. Slugs especially like Dahlia type plants and ants love Peony buds. Ant also like to farm Aphids, keeping away the bugs predators and helping them to spread.
4. Take off any dead flowers and leaves: when the flowers are finished, cut them off, this helps new buds to come out and saves the nutrition for new ones.
5. For Peonies and lilies: In late autumn cut off all the leaves when they are dry and dying and only leave the roots. It will help the roots come back strongly next spring.
6. Flower baskets and pots: they need more care than garden plants,as the nutrition from the basket soil is limited. You need to water them at least once a day and need to take off the dead buds regularly. In very hot weather you must increase the watering to stop them drying out. You can buy special soils that better at retaining moisture.
7. Lawns: To have a green, thick and weed-free lawn, you need to buy Lawn Feeder that kills weeds and gives the lawn the nutrition it needs to grow.
* Spread evenly out just before any rain, so it can be very well soaked with rain. Repeat this 4- 5 times a year from spring to summer and you will have a fabulous and lovely lawn.
* Make sure you buy quite good quality, once we bought both a cheap one and an expensive one from B&Q, we tested the cheap product on one half of the lawn and the expensive one on the other half, and interestingly we had very different results. Where the expensive lawn feeder was spread had longer,thicker grass and a healthier looking lawn compared to the patchy and shorter lawn where the cheap product was spread.
* Make sure you cut your grass regularly to have a thicker lawn. When it's a hot summer's day make sure not to cut it too short, unless you have a water feeder, otherwise the roots will get burnt. Make sure not to cut it too short during the winter time, in case frost kills the roots.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it will spread out over the year and you won't feel that it's very much work when you see the results of your labour. If you love gardening it's an enjoyment to work in the garden admiring your beautiful flowers and breathing fresh air. Remember with your care and attention you will be rewarded with a longer lasting, more glamorous garden that helps you to improve your living environment, health and quality of life.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shannon_Pentony1. Feed plant food: give plant food once in every one or two weeks from spring to summer,; this is very important. Flowers are like humans, they need nutrition to grow and produce buds during the flowering season. If you do this they tend to flower longer, bigger with more flowers and that helps keep your garden more colourful. I use Miracle-Grow from B&Q and the results are very good. Please make sure that you feed different plant the right food, for example - acid lovers such as Hydrangea.
2. Spray: If the leaves become yellow and full of holes, you need to buy some spray to kill the bugs and other insects. Yellow bugs loves lilies and they love to make lots of holes on your lily's leaves.
3. I use various treatments to kill slugs, snails and ants: Sprinkle some slug pellets or ant-killing tablets or power around your plant to keep them away from your flowers and plants. Slugs especially like Dahlia type plants and ants love Peony buds. Ant also like to farm Aphids, keeping away the bugs predators and helping them to spread.
4. Take off any dead flowers and leaves: when the flowers are finished, cut them off, this helps new buds to come out and saves the nutrition for new ones.
5. For Peonies and lilies: In late autumn cut off all the leaves when they are dry and dying and only leave the roots. It will help the roots come back strongly next spring.
6. Flower baskets and pots: they need more care than garden plants,as the nutrition from the basket soil is limited. You need to water them at least once a day and need to take off the dead buds regularly. In very hot weather you must increase the watering to stop them drying out. You can buy special soils that better at retaining moisture.
7. Lawns: To have a green, thick and weed-free lawn, you need to buy Lawn Feeder that kills weeds and gives the lawn the nutrition it needs to grow.
* Spread evenly out just before any rain, so it can be very well soaked with rain. Repeat this 4- 5 times a year from spring to summer and you will have a fabulous and lovely lawn.
* Make sure you buy quite good quality, once we bought both a cheap one and an expensive one from B&Q, we tested the cheap product on one half of the lawn and the expensive one on the other half, and interestingly we had very different results. Where the expensive lawn feeder was spread had longer,thicker grass and a healthier looking lawn compared to the patchy and shorter lawn where the cheap product was spread.
* Make sure you cut your grass regularly to have a thicker lawn. When it's a hot summer's day make sure not to cut it too short, unless you have a water feeder, otherwise the roots will get burnt. Make sure not to cut it too short during the winter time, in case frost kills the roots.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it will spread out over the year and you won't feel that it's very much work when you see the results of your labour. If you love gardening it's an enjoyment to work in the garden admiring your beautiful flowers and breathing fresh air. Remember with your care and attention you will be rewarded with a longer lasting, more glamorous garden that helps you to improve your living environment, health and quality of life.
