3 Acre Garden: January 2013

English Garden Landscape Design - The Mystery and Romance of a Secret Garden

Materials, accessories, and, of course, appropriate plant life are all important aspects of a romantic cottage style garden design that brings elegance and beauty to your outdoor space, as well as your home. Natural, twisting walkways, edged with flourishing plants and shaded by majestic trees, thriving lawns for relaxing and playing, and traditional county cottage style accessories create a simple outdoor living area full of beauty that complements your home.

Building English Garden Paths

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Secluded walkways with graceful curves and abundant, free-flowing plant life are the foundation to creating a genuine English landscape design. Garden paths meander through the landscape, allowing peaceful enjoyment of nature's pleasures. The materials used to build the walkways are the key to a romantic, English atmosphere.

English Garden Landscape Design - The Mystery and Romance of a Secret Garden

These materials and design tips are perfect for your English garden style outdoor living area:

Natural materials, like gravel and bark, make beautiful paths with a simplistic look. These materials are inexpensive and relatively low-maintenance.
Stylish brick or stone pavers are a more luxurious option, lending an element of charm and grace to your outdoor design.
Combine stone, gravel, and brick materials for a more genuine English garden landscape design.
Avoid formal angles and conservative patterns, integrating soft lines and curving designs that suggest romance instead.

The Charm of English Garden Accessories

Your quaint English garden should be a relaxing and tranquil place that allows you to enjoy the beauty of fine outdoor living. The garden accessories you choose are an important influence on the overall atmosphere and theme of your outdoor space. Select decor that complements the free-flowing, natural uniqueness of the English countryside.

Green lawns with picturesque views of the most beautiful aspects of your design are made functional with wooden garden furniture, like teak, that has an antique, aged appearance. Romantic benches or intimate cottage style outdoor furniture, along with quaint arbors and fragrantly adorned trellises, create the appeal of the country without detracting from the modern beauty of your home. Gazebos, quaint foot bridges, and rustic fences can also add the charm of your country style garden.

Wildlife's Role in the English Garden

Traditional English gardens were abundant with a variety of insects, birds, and other wildlife that only complements the natural beauty of this landscape style. Garden accessories, like water gardens and rustic bird baths or feeders, are one way to attract a number of species to your outdoor living space.

Certain plants and ground coverings are known to attract wildlife like butterflies and hummingbirds. Plant fragrant lavender, clover, and small bushes with bright colored berries throughout the garden. Undisturbed grasslands and natural rock arrangements are also inviting to area wildlife.

English Garden Plants

The country garden style is characterized by a lavish array of flowers, shrubs, and vines in a rainbow of vibrant hues, complemented by majestic, curving trees providing relaxing shade from the afternoon sun.

Select a variety of country garden plants for your design, including blooms that provide color in each season. Some flowers and shrubs to consider are:

Traditional country rose bushes, aromatic honeysuckles, foxglove and primroses, and the native, graceful lily of the valley are excellent plants for shady areas.
Potted herb gardens and planters filled with cornflowers, violas, and petunias can tolerate the tranquil shade of your English garden as well.
Native flowers, peonies, easy to care for geraniums, and fragrantly luxurious sweet peas are other suggestions.

English garden landscape designs provide unique outdoor living areas with a fun and whimsical atmosphere. A landscape design plan that blends the style of your home into the simple, natural charm of your outdoor space can be perfected with the assistance of a professional landscape architect or garden designer. Your design firm can also offer advice on the best country garden style for you and your home.

English Garden Landscape Design - The Mystery and Romance of a Secret Garden

Allen Quay is a professional landscape designer in the Southern California area and specializes in custom high-end landscape designs. You can find more valuable landscape design tips and information on Allen's website, the Landscape Design Advisor: http://www.landscape-design-advisor.com

Your Efficient Garden Maintenance Checklist

If you are a Hertfordshire resident frustrated with the condition of your garden and no matter how hard you try, your garden maintenance efforts are not succeeding. You might want to consider one of the many gardening firms in Hertfordshire who offer effective and efficient garden maintenance services.

The majority of Hertfordshire based gardening services companies are well versed with the requirements of what it takes to successfully carry out garden maintenance and achieve the result required results. Of course, every garden is different and its important for you to understand your requirements.

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It is a good idea to have a checklist that you can use to assess whether the gardener you are speaking to, is able to offer a full maintenance service that meets your needs. Also, having a checklist removes the emotion from the exercise and will help you to look at it more objectively.

Your Efficient Garden Maintenance Checklist

Set out below is a garden maintenance checklist that will help cover off main areas and hopefully make you aware of some others.

Lawn and Turf Care

- Lawn Maintenance
- Grass Cutting
- Lawn Treatments
- Lawn Scarifying
- Lawn Top Dressing
- Lawn Core Aeration
- Turf Replacement and Removal

Maintenance of Flower Beds and Hedges

- Weed Prevention
- Hedge Trimming
- Weeding Planted Areas
- Pest and Disease Control
- Pruning and Planting

Miscellaneous Garden Areas

- Pressure Washing of Paths, Patios & Driveways
- Rubbish removal
- Leaf Clean Up
- Rubbish removal
- Sprinkler Maintenance & Irrigation Systems

Set out below is a garden maintenance checklist that will help cover off main areas and hopefully make you aware of some others.

Lawn and Turf Care

- Lawn Maintenance
- Grass Cutting
- Lawn Treatments
- Lawn Scarifying
- Lawn Top Dressing
- Lawn Core Aeration
- Turf Replacement and Removal

Maintenance of Flower Beds and Hedges

- Weed Prevention
- Hedge Trimming
- Weeding Planted Areas
- Pest and Disease Control
- Pruning and Planting

Miscellaneous Garden Areas

- Pressure Washing of Paths, Patios & Driveways
- Rubbish removal
- Leaf Clean Up
- Rubbish removal
- Sprinkler Maintenance & Irrigation Systems
- Fences/Sheds painted and repaired

In addition, an efficient garden care provider should also offer sound horticultural planning services to fit your individual plans. Better still, if they offer hard and soft landscaping services, you can consider their garden design skills for future projects.

Fences/Sheds painted and repaired

Your Efficient Garden Maintenance Checklist

Efficient Garden Maintenance Services in Hertfordshire and Garden Design in Hertfordshire is offered by Quality Horticultural Landscapes in St Albans, Berkhamstead, Tring, Watford and across the county of Hertfordshire. We are passionate about creating and maintaining beautiful gardens.

Visit here: http://www.qhlservices.co.uk/garden-maintenance-services

Grow a Vegetable Garden at Home

It is very rewarding to grow a vegetable garden at home. It is really good exercise and the home grown vegetables taste better than something bought in a store. You are also aware of precisely what's gone into the produce. A vegetable plot requires an assortment of jobs for which you will need the correct equipment. The basics will suffice and they are a fork, spade, hoe, trowel and a rake. It really is best to get good quality brands. Others may be cheaper but they are not as likely to last as long. A barrow is also helpful and a watering can. Sometimes, there are drought orders and it is good to have one or two rain butts. If you are starting your vegetable garden from scratch and it is a sizeable area, you may want to use a rotary cultivator to help you do the digging. It will save you loads of time and a sore back. They can be leased if you do not want to buy one.

Firstly, you need to locate and draw out your scheme. Plants must be moved around in order to keep the ground healthy. Apply a soil tester to check which sort of soil your yard has. This is important because different sorts of soil need different methods of treating it. The soil could be dense clay, light, sandy, chalky or alkaline. It also affects what variety of vegetables you can raise in your veg patch, as crops respond differently to different types of soil.

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The soil will need breaking up so the seeds can settle in and so water and air can get through to them. Unless the soil is particularly hard, you can a spade as opposed to a fork. Take the weeds out and add fertilizer or organic manure. It's a sensible idea to start a compost bin near the vegetable garden. This will be a free source of fertilizer for the soil.

Grow a Vegetable Garden at Home

Once you've set up the area and fed the soil, you are ready to start planting and sowing. Split the vegetable plot into root crops, brassica and produce not in the first two groups. Root crops can include potatoes, carrots, swede, beetroot and onions. Brassicas are cauliflower, kale, cabbage, broccoli and sprouts. That leaves garden vegetables such as sweetcorn, peas, squash, beans and salad plants like tomatoes and cucumbers.

You could start some plants growing underneath a cloche or in a greenhouse, especially if your are in an region where there can be lots of cold or windy weather. Make sure you keep up with the irrigation and weeding. Many gardeners put up a wall chart and plan their jobs in the vegetable plot, on a monthly basis.

Grow a Vegetable Garden at Home

Visit the grow a vegetable garden [http://growavegetablegarden.org] website for practical tips concerning planting vegetables, from growing a culinary herb plot, to planning a raised bed vegetable garden [http://growavegetablegarden.org/raised-bed-vegetable-garden/raised-bed-vegetable-garden/]. Plus all the latest news about this year's veggie garden trends.

How to Get the Most Out of Solar LED Garden Lights

Solar LED lighting fixtures are increasingly becoming more popular as a mainstay in homeowner's landscape lighting designs. Today's outdoor solar lights are environmentally friendly, come in a wide range of attractive styles, and are constructed of high-quality materials capable of withstanding all of nature's forces.

It's easy to think of the obvious uses for solar LED garden lights. They are most commonly used as accent lighting for pathways and driveways, where the main goal is either security or safety. Yet solar LED lighting can successfully be employed for many other purposes as well.

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All exterior solar lights are popular for the following reasons:

How to Get the Most Out of Solar LED Garden Lights

(1) they're reliable,
(2) safe,
(3) easy to install,
(4) versatile,
(5) and a great source of renewable energy.

The utilization of free solar power to recharge LED light bulbs and batteries, which only need a fraction of the amount of electricity to deliver just as much light as traditional lights bulbs gives solar landscape lights an overwhelming advantage over traditional bulbs in terms of both energy savings and a clean environment.

How To Install Outdoor LED Solar Lights

If you want to get the most out of your garden lighting system, it's important to consider a few major factors before taking the plunge and purchasing and installing solar LED garden lights

The most important factor by far is sunlight.

Rechargeable batteries are what power your solar garden lights. How long the bulbs remain switched on at night is roughly equivalent to the amount of sunlight the solar charging panel has been exposed to during daylight hours.

As you can imagine, people who live in northern latitudes during winter months are going to have a problem getting enough sunlight to sufficiently recharge their solar garden lights. This problem can be resolved by doing one of two things:

(1) Turn the lights off for one or two nights. Doing this will enable your solar panel to fully recharge the batteries.

(2) Remove the batteries and recharge them using a traditional battery recharger.

An initial primary objective when installing solar garden lights is to situate the solar panels (also known as the Photovoltaic (PV) cells) in an area that receives an abundance of natural daylight. Ideally, you want them to absorb as much sunlight as possible to ensure optimal performance. But the solar panels are able to obtain a reasonable charge even amid overcast days.

Buildings, trees and other obstructions are naturally going to limit the daylight recharging cycle. Consequently, this is going to limit both the duration and brightness of the exterior solar lights once evening arrives.

Another point to consider is whether your solar LED garden lights have a central solar panel or an integral solar panel. Whichever type of panel you have, the solar panel incorporates a slight tilt that enables it to face the most amount of sunlight during the day.

Solar lighting that connects to a central solar panel has two distinct advantages:

(1) Since only one solar panel needs sunlight, the lights can be situated without regard to the amount of sunlight they will receive during the day.

(2) All of the solar garden lights can be controlled from one central location.

But, to accomplish this, you'll need to connect each of the lights to the shared solar panel through the use of wires.

Exterior solar lights that utilize an integral solar panel do not require wires and are therefore much easier to install. All you need to do is locate each light where you want it to be placed. But, since there is no central solar panel, each light needs to be exposed to as much daylight as possible.

The Best Batteries for Solar Landscape Lights

Once you have factored in the amount of sunlight you can provide for your solar panel, you can then move on to choosing the best battery for solar LED garden lights.

Before you make a purchase of solar garden lights, be certain to check the type of battery that is supplied. If the supplied batteries are of low quality, you may want to consider purchasing higher-quality batteries. Not only will these batteries last longer, but they'll also improve duration and light levels.

Lead acid batteries have an extremely limited life span and are not very good at holding a charge. Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) batteries perform better, but have the distinct disadvantage of being a fairly toxic heavy metal. This will cause troubles when it comes time to dispose of them because a number of US states and European countries mandate these batteries to be disposed at waste recycling plants.

Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries are the best option today because they charge easily and have a terrific life span. Some manufacturers of these batteries claim up 3,000 recharge life cycles, with the range being between 1,000 and 3,000. This means that, if you run a complete recharge/discharge cycle every single day, you can expect your batteries to last 3 to 8 years. On top of this, you can expect your solar garden lights to last longer and look brighter.

Even as this is the case, Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries are steadily advancing on and taking over from where NiMH batteries left off.

Just be sure to responsibly dispose your rechargeable batteries. A recycling bin is typically provided by stores that sell such batteries.

Just as with most things in life, if you decide to skimp on quality, it'll end up costing you in the long run. If you do your homework and insist on only the highest-quality solar garden lighting and batteries, you'll experience first hand just how effective and enjoyable modern solar LED garden lights can actually be.

How to Mix Solar LED Garden Lights with Low Voltage LED Lights

Many people believe it's not wise or even possible to combine solar-powered LED lights with low voltage LED garden lights. But nothing could be further than the truth. Combining the two very often produces superior results. All you need is a good understanding of what differentiates solar-powered lighting from main powered lighting: namely the nature of the power source.

The two main constraints of battery power are:

(1) how much electricity it is able to deliver while discharging, and
(2) how long it can provide a charge.

One affects the other, so a battery will discharge more slowly with a lower load (dimmer light), and more quickly with a higher load (bright light).

Rechargeable batteries found in outdoor solar LED lights can discharge fully over a period of time of up to 12 hours (although between 8 and 10 hours is more common). And this affects how much power they can deliver to light up a bulb or LED light.

This is not a lot of power, and is the reason why the light source contained in many solar garden lighting systems is well below 1 watt. It also explains why solar LED garden lights are so prevalent these days: for the same amount of electricity, they are able to both last longer and deliver much more light.

To put it in simpler terms, solar outside lights provide a softer, more ambient light. While this isn't always the case, it is the case for the vast majority of solar garden lights purchased in garden stores and DIY stores. For many spaces, this type of ambient light is perfectly suited for the environment it is intended for.

This goes against many people's objections that solar garden lights simply are not bright enough to illuminate their pathways or driveways. In thinking this way, they completely overlook one of the main advantages of solar LED lanterns - a soft, low-level ambient light.

A well-designed garden and patio lighting design incorporates varying illumination levels, colors and beam angles to create a captivating look and feel that is completely different from what the garden looks like during daylight hours.

This is the whole idea behind the proper implementation of outdoor LED lighting. You have the opportunity to give your garden its own distinct character when dusk arrives. You are only limited by your imagination as to the kind of environment you choose to create. Being able to mix solar LED garden lighting with low voltage LED lights gives you the opportunity create a stunning and captivating display.

How to Get the Most Out of Solar LED Garden Lights

Choosing the right Solar LED Garden Lights involves a bit of time and reading. A great place to start looking for all sorts of Outside Landscape Lighting is checking out a website devoted to the topic.

Make a Bog Garden in a Garden Pot - How to Create a Bog Garden in 5 Easy Steps

If you have a horrid wet patch in your garden, and this is often the case if your local soil is a heavy clay, you could always turn it into a bit of a bog garden. The effects can be quite lovely. Due to the abundance of water, the plants always look so lush, green and generally healthy.

If the thought of a full size bog garden seems a bit beyond your capabilities, and you fancy trying your hand at something a little more downsized, how about a bog garden in a pot?

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There is a huge range of pots available theses days, to suit all manner of tastes, styles and budgets so you're sure to find something that you like.

Make a Bog Garden in a Garden Pot - How to Create a Bog Garden in 5 Easy Steps

Creating a bog garden in a pot makes it so much more adaptable. You can change the location of them, put them on a balcony, and if you fancy a change, you can just replant the pot with other things.

Follow these easy steps to get started.

Choose a large container to house your bog garden. It doesn't need drainage holes, but if there is hole already there, get a big matching saucer to go underneath that will help the water sit there.
Half fill the pot with compost. Regular potting compost will be fine, as it's a good mix that already has lots of fibre incorporated.
Hopefully you've assembled your plants before you started, so now's the time to get planting. Just like with bedding plants, ease them from their pots and stand them on the compost in the pot to get a feel for how they will look at the end. Do any shuffling round that you need to and make sure that you have some idea of how high the particular plants will grow. Make sure the taller one go at the back. This will provide a nice backdrop for the others. It always looks nice to have a trailing plant or two at the front, depending on the size of the pot.
Plant the plants fairly close together, this emphasises the green and lush theme. If you have any gaps, sprinkle in so pebbles and this will also help prevent the evaporation of the water.
Give the whole thing a really good watering, so that the composted is soaked, and if you have a tray beneath your bog garden pot, fill that up with water too.

Your bog garden will do best kept in the sun, but keep the water levels topped up, as they won't appreciate drying out at all. In the winter, the plants will go into dormancy and won't need quite so much water, and often the weather alone takes care of things, but if you just keep them topped up they'll be perfectly happy.

When the spring comes, it's a good idea to turf out the whole lot and re-pot the plants using fresh compost. Any plants that have got too big for the pot can be divided up and planted somewhere else.

So, there you are, not a post graduate course in bog gardening, but hopefully you can see how even total beginners can have a go at something bit different and get great results.

Make a Bog Garden in a Garden Pot - How to Create a Bog Garden in 5 Easy Steps

Salena J Newport does not profess to be an expert on gardening. What Salena is however is a person that likes to try new things. However, before giving them a try she does a lot of research to make sure that she knows how to do them properly.

That's where gardening comes in. Salena has a large garden and in order to create the best results possible, she researches and then put plans into action. The results of some of her information quests can be found at http://www.garden-pots.com

The gardening articles written by Salena are intended to provide simple, straight forward and non-technical, but nonetheless complete hints and tips to help other new starters get the most out of their new hobby. After all, we all need to start somewhere!

Salena does have a website at http://www.garden-pots.com if you'd like to find more information to enable the journey to garden expert to feel a bit smoother.

Organizing Garden Sheds - Four Tips and Ideas For Easily Organizing a Garden Storage Shed

If you're like many garden lovers, you tend to accumulate a lot of supplies for your hobby over the years. And this is why garden storage sheds can be so handy. Even if you don't have an outdoor shed large enough to use for a big greenhouse, you can still organize smaller sheds to make the most out of it for your gardening supplies and activities. So let's look at a few organizing tips.

1. Hang up tools. If your garden shed is small, you can get more out of the limited space you have by hanging items from the ceiling or walls. Hang your longer gardening tools such as rakes, shovels and hoes on the wall, then hang extra pots and containers from hooks in the ceiling.

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2. Put in shelves. Having shelves in your garden shed will give you a small area to do everyday gardening maintenance such as re-potting plants, mixing compost into soil, and starting garden seeds. Try to have one shelf that's large enough to use for table top activities, then put in several more above which can be used for sitting smaller items on and keeping your garden magazines, books and journals organized.

Organizing Garden Sheds - Four Tips and Ideas For Easily Organizing a Garden Storage Shed

3. Use storage bins. Storage bins are excellent organizers to use in a garden shed, because they come in a variety of sizes and can be used for a wide variety of things. Put storage bins under your small potting table for instance, to hold extra soil and compost. Store spring or fall bulbs in storage bins, and even store your plant stakes in small storage bins too.

4. Use planters for small storage. One of the things most garden lovers have is plenty of extra pots and containers. And even some of the smallest of these can be used to store a variety of things. Use the small starter plant containers to hold seed packets, organized by type. One could have vegetable seeds for instance, while another holds seeds for annual flowers, and a third holds perennial flower seeds. Alternatively you could group your seed packets together based on the soil and sunlight conditions needed for them to grow.

Larger pots and containers can hold small trowels and shovels, or mulch materials such as bark and sawdust. Some containers can even hold landscaping materials such as small stones.

Organizing Garden Sheds - Four Tips and Ideas For Easily Organizing a Garden Storage Shed

Browse through this selection of Garden storage sheds from http://www.OutdoorsStorageSheds.com/