Planning a Water Garden...

Written by Gordon Goh


A water garden isrepparttar area of your landscape that will provide you with relaxing sounds ofrepparttar 113301 water, while adding torepparttar 113302 overall details of your landscape. The water garden is a project that you must 'plan' for continued success. If you are lucky enough to haverepparttar 113303 room in your lawn for a water garden, you are already one step ahead of many gardeners! Let's talk a little about how to plan for your water garden. A few important factors about placement of a water garden that often are forgotten are:

Do you have children inrepparttar 113304 neighborhood? If you have or live near children, you will want to keep your water garden in an area that will be close to your home. You will want to be able to see what is 'going on' byrepparttar 113305 water. Children are curious and they love water! Being able to see your water garden will save you worry later afterrepparttar 113306 creation of your water garden even ifrepparttar 113307 children are inrepparttar 113308 yard.

Do you have a natural spring in your lawn area? When planning a waterfall inrepparttar 113309 water garden,repparttar 113310 use of a natural spring or water source is going to makerepparttar 113311 continued success of your water garden much easier. A water garden is possible with a waterfall even if you do not have a natural spring or water source, but it is a little more 'work' to create that special effect. You can find more information about this in another article on this site.

The lay of your land is important. While we will discuss this in other articles as well, planning your water garden aroundrepparttar 113312 lay of your land is important. If you are lucky enough to have a flat lawn, you can plan your water garden in various areas. The landscape that includes hills and slopes are a little tricky but usingrepparttar 113313 slope in your lawn, you can createrepparttar 113314 water garden that takes care of that little 'wet patch' atrepparttar 113315 bottom ofrepparttar 113316 yard!

Understanding Weeds – How to Kill them?

Written by Chris Coffman


When I was a child, I loved to pick Dandelions. The pretty yellow flowers were small, colorful, and looked nice tucked behind my ear! However, if one had popped up inrepparttar front yard, my hair accessory would have been considered an atrocity!

I often feel sorry for weeds. They are plants too. In fact, if you flipped through a botany field guide, you may be surprised atrepparttar 113300 plants you find classified as weeds! But simply put, a weed is really defined as a plant out of place. Clover in one persons flowing lawn may be considered fashionable, whereas on another, not. Golf greens are often covered with bentgrass, but if it crept up in some yards, it would be considered a weed. While perhaps pretty on their own, weeds stick out like a sore thumb in yards because they may be of a different color, size or texture. This is distracting fromrepparttar 113301 beauty ofrepparttar 113302 otherwise sprawling green turf. Aside from aesthetic values, weeds can also drain nutrients from grass and other plants, and this competition of resources can thin what should be lush. And what’s worse is that weeds are fighters. They can withstand conditions that your wanted greens cannot, so they are almost inevitable!

Treating weeds begins with correct identification. There are two classifications of weeds: Grassy and Broadleaf. These are further broken down into groups like perennial, biennial, and winter and summer annuals. These, as you may gave guessed, depict their growing patterns. Grassy weeds are, as they sound, like grass. However, they are unwanted grass, or grass that is growing in a different type of lawn. Some examples are annual bluegrass, barnyard grass, crabgrass, creeping bentgrass and foxtail. Broadleaf weeds may appear more to be what most people picture weed-like growth to be. Since they are broad, they are more easily distinguished. Some examples are yarrow, knotweed, chickweed, clover, ground ivy, thistle and my favorite,repparttar 113303 dandelion.

Once you understand what is growing in your lawn and decide that it is unwanted, you can treat it and/or control it. Weeds can actually be controlled by your lawn care maintenance. If you maintain a dense and vigorously growing lawn, you are already combatingrepparttar 113304 problem. Weeds can be a sign of underlying problems inrepparttar 113305 environment beneath. So by just killing them, you are simply putting on a band-aid, not solvingrepparttar 113306 problem. For example, some weeds grow in situations of compacted soil, such as knotweed. You can also controlrepparttar 113307 growth by taking better care ofrepparttar 113308 grass, rather than focus onrepparttar 113309 weeds. You can raise or lowerrepparttar 113310 mowing height, changerepparttar 113311 frequency of mowing and changingrepparttar 113312 amount of time between irrigating. Also, you can increase or decrease application of fertilizer and aerifyrepparttar 113313 soil. This will maintain better grass, thus keepingrepparttar 113314 growth dense and vigorous, which as discussed above, does not attract weeds.

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