Once you have picked what garden you want, there are many other factors you need to decide before you actually get to work with your gardening tools. Mainly you need to choose its location. This is usually decided by several factors: How you will water it, how much shade it needs, etc. Some of these questions can be very important in deciding whether your garden lives or dies, so don’t take them lightly. You need to take each one into special consideration.

Choosing the garden’s location within your yard is one of the more important things to decide. You want to choose a location that will provide an ideal climate for the plants in your garden. I don’t know what type of garden you’re dealing with so I can’t give you specific advice, but if you do a Google search for the plant you’re dealing with then you’ll find a plethora of sites informing you about the perfect conditions for its growing. After this, it’s just a matter of finding the most shaded or most sunny spot in your yard. Read the rest of this entry »

Usually the main motivation for planting a fruit tree is just the joy of maintaining a tree and eating the delicious fruit that comes from it. However, in my personal experience it is possible to go on a quite lucrative venture with fruit trees by operating a fruit stand or participating in a farmer’s market.

When I moved to Florida, I was slightly depressed at the fact that I had just left behind years and years of hard work to get my lawn to the point it was. However, I was able to healthily channel this depression into the desire to get a new and more beautiful garden and lawn setup going. The house I moved into was nice, but the previous owner obviously had no gardening prowess. The lawn was barren of any features besides grass. Lots and lots of grass. Read the rest of this entry »

If you have a large amount of land that you have not put to use, you may consider planting an orchard. If you’ve had previous experiences with planting and maintaining trees, that is an added reason why you would be perfect for maintaining an orchard. It might seem like an overwhelming thing to undertake, but it is actually fairly simple. All it takes is some commitment.

If you’ve never grown a tree on your property, you might not want to make the time and money investment of buying lots of trees. If you are inexperienced, you will want to start with just one or two trees so that you can get a feel for the growing process. Once you have seen one tree along all the way to adulthood successfully, you are probably experienced enough to handle multiple trees. You should never plant so many trees that you are going to be overwhelmed, though. Only plant what you can handle. Read the rest of this entry »

While having a full fledged garden is rewarding and enjoyable, lots of people simply don’t have the time that is required to maintain it. Whether you have too much going on at work or too many kids to take care of, you should never try to operate a garden if you don’t think you can handle it.

For those people who are just too busy for a normal garden, I would suggest a somewhat recent method of gardening known as Xeriscaping. This minimal yet stylish theory first emerged in Colorado when water levels were at an all time low. It is a great method of having a great looking yard or garden, without having to maintain it or water it very often at all.

Here in Colorado, many places are offering free Xeriscaping lessons in order to encourage the conservation of water. If your area is undergoing a drought, you should check with the water suppliers and see if they are offering lessons. If you attend those, you will be able to get advice specific to your region (IE types of plants to grow, how much to water them, etc).

To some, the name Xeriscaping conjures the image of a yard that consists of a giant rock bed. However, this is known as “zero scaping”, and it is a considerably different concept. It focuses on reducing your yard to nothing that requires any maintenance whatsoever. Unfortunately this is usually just rocks. But this shouldn’t be your goal. While keeping maintenance at a minimum, it is still possibly to retain a nice looking yard that won’t attract the negative attention of everyone who passes by.

This might sound like it would be hard to implement without making your yard into a hideous mess, but this is not so at all. The theory basically involves choosing plants which are low maintenance to begin with, then putting them each in environments that are ideal. It is usually applied by figuring out what side of the house to place it on to get the best amount of shade, and figuring out how to group it with plants with similar water needs.

To get started in your Xeriscaping renovation, you first need to pick out all the plants you will be using. They should for the most part require a low amount of water. This doesn’t mean you can only grow cactuses in your yard. Just cut back on the really thirsty plants that you have to water every day to keep alive. You’ll want to stick with local plants for the most part, and don’t go with anything too exotic as these generally require larger amounts of water.

The second most important principle of xeriscaping is placing the plants in ideal areas. If you place them all together with plants that require essentially the same amount of water, then you will end up saving lots of water. Also place the plants in areas where they will be protected from wind or excessive sun, depending on the needs of the plants. Xeriscaping is almost the same thing as microclimating, just with more of a focus on adaptation to harsh conditions rather than avoiding them. So if it sounds good to you and you’re looking to save time and water by renovating your garden, you should look for xeriscaping lessons.

If you’re a gardener that has an unlimited supply of water, consider yourself lucky. There are many of us who live in drought zones where the garden and lawn watering rules are very constrictive to the healthy growth of gardens and plants. Many people just give up when they find out how few gallons of water they are permitted to use, but some of us have just found ways to cope with less water. There are many ways to optimize ones garden to conserve water while still keeping it lush.

Some of the ways include drip irrigation (the use of a pipe or hose with small holes to gradually seep into the roots of the plant), the placement of plants in groups of equal watering needs (to prevent wasting water on plants that don’t need it), and using compost or mulch to insulate the water and prevent drainage. Read the rest of this entry »

The one thing that usually shocks new tree growers is the fact that the fruits produced by their tree are much smaller than the ones they’re used to seeing at the grocery store. “What is wrong with my tree?!”, “My God! What have I done!?” are some cried you may hear from the disgruntled tree grower. However, small fruits are a natural occurrence. But while smaller fruits might be what nature originally intended, it is possible to attain larger fruits without any genetic altering or added chemicals. It is only through advanced techniques that the professionals reach such large sizes with their fruits.

Usually in the early stages of a fruit trees growing, veterans do something called “fruit thinning”. The theory behind this process is that with less fruits to pay attention to, the tree will be able to more efficiently send cells to the leftover fruits. When there are hundreds of little fruits on one tree, competing for the available materials necessary for growth, you will most likely just end up with a bunch of stunted fruits. To take care of this problem, simply pluck a third of the fruits extremely early on in the process. You should notice larger fruits that season. Read the rest of this entry »

Having a steady supply of fresh fruit from your backyard is quite a nice thing. Many people strive to attain this dream. However, many people fail to realize how easy it is to obtain a fairly serious infestation of worms in their fruit. I can’t think of anything more unpleasant than biting into an apple off of the tree you’ve slaved over for so long, only to find that you have not been diligent enough with your pesticides.

Even though it seems like a hassle to always be spraying pesticides, it is something that you should never overlook. Spraying pesticides is a fairly quick and easy process, and you shouldn’t have to do it very often at all. Believe me; it is worth it to just get out there in the yard every couple of weeks and spray. Read the rest of this entry »

If you live in an area that is slightly parched of water, you know better than anyone that one of the things that decides whether a tree survives or not is your ability to supply it with sufficient water. Unfortunately, many people don’t take this in to account when buying a tree. They will just go for the nicest looking tree, and then wish they could give it more water. If you do a little planning before you rush out and buy a tree, you should be able to find trees that can survive on lower amounts of water.

Usually the most adaptable plants are the ones that are indigenous anyways. If you live in a zone that is suffering a water crisis, usually the only plants that survive are the ones that have been there all along. This is because they are used to the conditions and know how to survive. Just take a drive through the undeveloped regions of your city, and look at what trees are green. Find out their names, and buy them. They might not be the most attractive trees, but you rarely have to make any modifications to your soil to get them to grow. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, there have been only a couple different kinds of apple trees that you could buy. But now, thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering, if you want to buy an apple tree you are able to choose between many different types of apples and flavors. Here I will outline five different popular types of apples that you can consider for your first apple tree.

First introduced in Japan, the Fuji apple has been around since 1962. The Fuji apple has yellow-green skin with red streaks down the side. The inside is delicious and sweet. It is white, firm, crunchy, and very flavorful. It becomes ripe in the middle of September, but tastes the best if it is left to fully mature until October or November. These apples will start growing early and grow in abundance. They are good for pollinating other apples. The Fuji tree can tolerate wet, dry, or poor soil, but the fruit quality will most likely reflect the quality of the soil. The apples always taste the best when they are fresh, and are great for cooking. Read the rest of this entry »

If you have just recently planted a new fruit tree, I think it is safe to assume you are not yet an expert on the subject. More fruit trees die in their beginning years due to poor care habits than any disease or pestilence. Therefore it is vital that you understand how to care for trees in a way that will ensure their immediate success as well as future good health.

During the first stages of the tree’s life, the roots, trunk, and branches have not yet fully developed to a self supporting strength. Therefore if your tree is growing fruits, occasionally the combined weight is enough to snap off an entire branch. If this is the case, you should provide external support for your branches – prop them up with boards, or tie them to something at a higher altitude. As long as you can provide your tree the support it needs in these early years, it should grow to be independent in no time at all. Read the rest of this entry »