Here are the major reasons why one should consider getting a pair of trusty gardening gloves:

Gloves protect your hands from blisters, thorns and cuts while doing rough work like digging or pruning in the garden. Investing in one or more pairs of quality gloves is a good decision.

Here are some tips on how to choose the pair that will suit you best: 1. Look for quality leather gloves with a cloth back; this will let the gloves breathe and keep your hands dry, cool and comfortable.

2. If mud bothers you, select rubber gloves with cotton lining.

3. When spraying pesticides or chemicals choose gloves that are made from neoprene. Gloves made from latex or any type of plastic may not offer the best protection.

4. When pruning roses, use gloves that reach up to the arms.

5. If you usually operate large garden machinery, buy gloves in brown instead of red as the latter may dye your hands.

6. Light cotton or even fingerless gloves may be useful for transplanting seedlings. They will allow more dexterity and so help to prevent the tiny roots from being crushed.

7. And of course, make sure that the gloves you buy actually fit your hands. If you have small hands, try the children’s gardening section. there’s nothing worse than trying to garden is gloves that are too big.

Your gloves must be comfortable as well as give protection to best serve your gardening needs.

To read about planting rhubarb and planting azaleas, visit the Planting Tips site.

To make sure that your prized roses remain in the best of health, simply follow these tips.

1. Black Spots on Leaves

This disease is commonly known as black spot. Black spots appear as circular with fringed edges on leaves. They cause the leaves to yellow. Remove the infected foliage and pick up any fallen leaves around the rose. Artificial sprays may be used to prevent or treat this kind of rose disease.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Malformed or stunted leaves and flowers

This is caused by spider mites. They are tiny yellow, red or green spiders found on the underside of leaves where they suck juices. The application of Orthene or Isotox may help in treating this infestation.

5. 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.

6. Flowers that don’t open or are deformed when they open.

Thrips could be the reason behind this problem. They are slender, brown-yellow bugs with fringed wings that also suck juices from flower buds. Cut and discard the infested flowers. Orthene and malathion may also treat this problem.

Remember that roses are hungry feeders that require much fertilizer to become healthy bushes.

To learn about planting apple trees and planting blueberries, visit the Planting Tips website.

The National Home Gardening Club offer many benefits to its members.

It is said to be the largest home gardening organization with paid membership. For a nominal fee, various benefits are available.

If you choose to become a member the National Home Gardening club, you will be entitled to the following perks. 1. Members can enter competitions to win free gardening products such as gardening accessories, tools, and other gardening supplies.

2. A coupon will be given to members to claim a free gardening shears.

3. Members can also access a free trial subscription of the Gardening How-To Magazine.

4. They may be eligible to test and keep gardening tools such as pruning shears. These are some of the products tested by members in the past two 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 enjoy a free directory of public gardens, which contains information about lush gardens, arboretums, and conservatories throughout the US.

6. They can interact and talk about tips, ideas and methods with other members.

7. Members can obtain gardening and landscaping tips and plans for the completion of various gardening projects.

8. They have access to the members-only gardening website.

9. Members can also preview gardening books, gardening videos, etc.

Indeed, the for-members-only benefits are that grandiose. They are all for the gardening enthusiasts to grab.

After the 30-day trial, you can continue your membership for only $1 per month.

Many garden-lovers think this is a small price to pay for all these privileges.

Read about planting bamboo and flower planting at the Planting Tips website.

When creating a butterfly garden, the possibilities of what to include in your butterfly garden design are endless. Below are some suggestions to help get you started. They are designed to spark the creative process of your mind and get you started on your way to creating a lovely butterfly garden.

Before you even begin your butterfly garden, find out which species of butterflies are in your area. Consider taking an exploratory hike around your location with a butterfly identification book. This may take a little extra time and effort, but the results will be worth it. After you have compiled your list of local butterfly species, be sure to write down in your butterfly garden plan what these particular species of butterflies use for nectar and food plants.

Be sure that your garden is in a location that provides at least six hours of sunlight per day. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures and therefore do better where they are warm and sheltered.

Wind can be a butterfly’s worst enemy so be sure to have plenty of wind protection in your design. You can plant tall shrubs and other plants in order to create a wind break, but a location that avoids heavy winds is even better.

The best of all would be a butterfly garden placed on the sunny side of your home with windbreaks on both the west and east sides, or wherever the prevailing wonds come from in your area. Try and locate your garden close to a window so you can view the butterflies from indoors. Provide seating outside too.

If possible, you could excavate an area and build a stone wall around it. This would create the ideal windbreak for your butterflies. Mmake gravel pathways around your garden to save walking in mud.

There are many creative ways for constructing a butterfly garden. Take your time to design a garden that you will enjoy and be proud of.

To read about planting acorns and planting rhubarb, visit the Planting Tips site.

Hydroponics was derived from the Greek word hydro, which means “water” and ponos, which means “labor or water-working”. Hydroponics gardening involves growing plants with their roots in other nutrient solutions and without soil.

Hydroponics gardening is as simple as ordinary gardening. Both of them necessitate sufficient light, water, temperature, light, and humidity. But with hydroponics, no soil is used. Instead a soil substitute holds the roots while nutrients are carried by the water. Indoor hydroponic gardening is not that hard and plants respond well to this method of growing.

This is one of the major considerations in hydroponics gardening since it sustains the plants. One has to make sure that this nutrient solution maintains a pH level of 5 to 6 after dilution. In hydroponics gardening, the plants should be watered more than three times a day. this is usually done using a pump and timer.

If your hydroponics garden is located indoors, the most suitable temperature is between 71 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, this temperature may change depending on the different types of plant you are working on, e.g. tropical plants.

Place your plants somewhere they can receive ample amount of light. Otherwise artificial light must be used. High pressure Sodium lights or bulbs are a suitable substitute for natural light.

Humidity is good. When the room’s temperature rises, the air will be able to hold the sufficient amount of moisture your plants will need.

A hydroponics system can be fully automated. Since it is water-based, the gardener has no soil to dig or weeds to pull. Also, the water can be re-used to prevent wastage.

With hydroponics, an excellent yield of quality plants can be easily achieved. Home hydroponics systems and DIY kits are are readily available in most hardware stores.

Engaging the Senses

“We each have our own, unique ideas about how our garden should look and feel – the common element is a clear identity. A garden with a clear sense of place might thus be a tranquil, simple space within which to escape from the frenetic pace of modern life, or it may be a lively, colourful area where the whole family can enjoy games and barbecues.”

Dean Hickson, Tutor

As a gardener, what does the phrase, ‘a sense of place’ mean to you? We thought of the following meanings, but you may have thought of others:

A clear sense of identity – even ‘personality’;

a sense of belonging – whether within the landscape or in harmony with the house;

a feeling of cohesion and completeness;

timelessness – garden design, like any other area of design, goes through fashions and trends, but the strongest gardens are often timeless.

Designers may adopt contemporary ideas and incorporate them into an existing garden, but this will probably not change the ’sense of place’ greatly; instead it should enhance it.

“People like circular or curvy gardens with plenty of movement…. They don’t want formal gardens – they are looking for something softer, more relaxed and easy to live with.”

Carol Gallagher McCulloch, Scotland on Sunday, 2005.

A garden with a strong sense of place works in every respect – cohesion, design, colour, identity. The design is confident (although that does not necessarily mean bold) and visitors feel comfortable within it.

“You always know when you’re entering a balanced, well-proportioned garden because it feels comfortable – lines lead you naturally through the space, and shapes and volumes are restful on the eye … Most of us want our outdoor spaces to offer a peaceful sanctuary.”

Diarmuid Gavin, Design your Garden.

Sensory Experience

We experience a garden through every one of our senses, and a true sense of place is created when there is harmony between the different sensory messages we are picking up – touch, smell, sound, vision and even taste. For this reason, when creating a garden, you need to be aware of the different ways in which your design harnesses the senses.

How do you think a garden design could engage the following senses: hearing, smell, touch, and taste? There are many possibilities here, but some that we thought of immediately include:

Hearing – water features, wind chimes, plants that rustle or rattle in the wind.

Smell – open patio fires, especially if burning scented wood; flowers; scented foliage. Smell is often used to create a welcoming, tranquil atmosphere in the garden.

Touch – when it comes to experiencing a garden, touch is often of central importance. Examples range from spiky ornamental thistles to the feathery, plume-like flowers of astilbe and Cotinus Coggygria. Hard landscaping may also be important, ranging from soft, warm wood to cold granite or slate. Texture is a key feature of many successful designs.

Taste – This is often associated with smell, so it can be a particularly important sense around the patio area. Because vision, smell and taste are closely linked, your design can engage the sense of taste indirectly. For instance, a patch of strongly scented mint will set the taste buds tingling, as will a tree laden with luscious citrus fruits. You see a citrus fruit and catch a hint of their aroma, and before you know you can almost taste them too!

Vision

Of all the senses, vision is the one with most impact when we first walk into a garden.

The way we see colour evolved primarily as a survival mechanism, and today colours still gives us important messages about safety – for instance, the warning colours of a poisonous snake, or the red-orange glow of a hot ember – but more than this, colour helps us to enjoy the beauty of our environment. Scientists have argued that our ability to experience colour is far beyond that we might need simply for survival purposes and we seem to have an inbuilt ability to find pleasure in colour. Researchers Padgham and Saunders note:

“Our ability to see colour is highly elaborate for the mere necessities of reproduction and survival. Our capability is far beyond what is needed to distinguish ripe from unripe fruit or acuity for mobility. Joy in colour is a bonus of our senses.”

Scent

Our sense of smell is a powerful tool. Among other things, it tells us:

If something is good to eat or has gone bad;

How something tastes – if you nip your nose when you eat, you will not be able to taste the food properly;

Often, if there is a danger nearby – for instance, a gas leak;

If we find someone or something attractive – smell is an important hidden component of attraction.

Smell can also evoke memories and help us to identify people or places, even when we cannot see them. As we have seen smell is central to creating a strong sense of place in the garden.

Many of us under-use our sense of smell, choosing instead to rely on our vision. Try to become more aware of the way everyday items, places and people smell. As you go through the day, close your eyes sometimes (but only when it safe to do so!) and experience your environment entirely through smell.

Think about what smells can tell you? They might, for instance, tell you that the chicken you are cooking for dinner is fresh and will taste good. On the otherhand, they might tell you that there is something old and out-of-date lurking at the back of the fridge! Some smells will evoke memories. These may be pleasant, or rather less so. Understanding more about aroma and how it affects mood can help you to make the most of scent in the garden too.

There has been much research into the powerful psychological impact of smell. For instance, researchers at Yale University in America found that the aroma of apple and cinnamon has a powerful stabilising influence on some people, especially patients suffering from nervous anxiety. The smell was even found to reduce the blood pressure and ward off panic attacks. In the garden, similarly, the right smells may have a calming and soothing effect.

The area of the brain associated with smell is called the olfactory centre. It is directly connected to other parts of the brain concerned with basic drives such as sex, hunger and thirst, and also with much more sophisticated aspects of understanding, including emotion, memory, intuition and creativity.

Advice from the Garden School.

To try a free trial home study course visit Learning Curve.

Different kinds of gardens require different kinds of garden tools. Hardware stores mostly cater for a wide range of tools, but there are shops that specialize in the more expensive kind of garden tool that shouts quality. Wherever you decide to shop, here are a few pointers to advise you.

Do you have small garden or a large one? A small garden will not require the same large equipment that would be of use in an extensive one. A ride-on mower is unnecessary if you only have a small strip of lawn. Another point to consider is who does most of the gardening? Some tools are too heavy for use by women.

When you buy secateurs make sure the blade always stays sharp to avoid damaging the plant. Look for models that have blades that can be sharpened or replaced, models with tension control and with sizes that best fit your hands. Secateurs usually cost around $50 – $130.

Hedge trimmers or shears are handy – but only if you have a hedge, or plan on growing one. Some hedge trimmers have curved blades to stop branches from sliding out when cut.

Forks are used for turning and aerating compost and breaking up lumps of soil. The cheaper ones are often not strong enough for heavy soil, so go for sturdiness instead of price. Forks usually cost around $30 – $100.

A shovel has a scoop blade and is best used to move around dirt and garden soil. A spade has a flat blade great for cutting edges, digging and dividing plants. The edge of a spade should be kept sharpened for clean and efficient cutting will cause the least amount of damage to plants. These are a basic garden necessity and usually cost from $30 – $50.

A pruning saw is used for pruning trees and larger shrubs, while secateurs are for plants like roses. Pruning saws have a narrow curved blade that fits between stems or branches and easily and cuts them as you pull the saw backwards. They are approximately $27- $55.

A chipping hoe is a handy tool for getting rid of small weeds. The Dutch or push-hoe is slightly more user-friendly as the action required to use it does not jar the neck and shoulder quite so much.

A rake is also a basic requirement for the garden. The strong rake with the flat head and sharp metal prongs is used for smoothing a garden bed and getting out the last of the bumps and weeds. The plastic rake is used to gather leaves and grass clippings only.

Gardening tools don’t have to be expensive. Flea markets and garage sales can be excellent places to pick up great tool bargain.

Read about flower planting and planting apple trees at the Planting Tips website.

How to Save Money by Growing More of Your Own Food

Grow highly productive vegetables – lots of yield for the space allocated – that you enjoy eating and that you can harvest from spring through fall.

Since you’re limited to the surface area that you have on the ground, “go vertical” to get the most production from the space that you have.

Waste nothing. Eat it, share it with someone in the community, or compost it.

Money-saving Vegetables

Pole beans – they’re delicious, good for you, can be harvested over a long period of time, and the seeds are easy to plant. A single 20 foot row of pole beans on a homemade twine trellis will provide dozens of fresh servings and some extra beans to freeze for later.

Growing beans on a trellis also makes them easier to pick than bush beans … there’s little bending or stooping required.

Greens packed with Nutrients – spinach, Swiss chard, and mesclun mixes are more interesting and more nutritious than lettuce. Bright lights Swiss chard is also extremely attractive in the garden.

Tomatoes – are America’s #1 home garden vegetable … and for good reasons. Entire books have been dedicated to the tomato! There are many gardening benefits to growing tomatoes – they’re good for you, they’re tasty, they add delightful color to the garden, and the dollar value of the yield can be very significant.

Peas are another high-yield crop. They’re not as easy, and not quite as productive as pole beans, but, if you have the space, Sugar Snap or Sugar Ann peas are wonderful because you can eat the entire pod.

Leaf lettuce is extremely easy to grow from seed and will yield plenty of produce over a long period of time. Multiple plantings will extend your harvest. You can save a lot of money by growing your own.

Less Obvious Money-Saving Gardening Ideas

Composting – making your own compost is, by far, the best long-term investment you can make for your garden. There’s just nothing better than natural compost for your garden’s soil. It will help your plants defend themselves from diseases, too!

Grow Your Own Tomato Plants from Seeds – it’s fun and it’s easier than you might think. All you need is a container (egg carton, yogurt cups, etc), a little soil, and a sunny windowsill.

An Apple a Day – well, not immediately. How about planting an apple tree? Apple trees are great dual purpose trees – obviously they provide good fruit; but, they’re also an attractive shade tree.

Garden Grown Gifts – home grown vegetables and flowers make wonderful hostess gifts. All you need is a little basket or vase, and you can create a gift that is inexpensive and attractive at the same time.

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