June 2010

Your teak outdoor furniture has arrived for your summer enjoyment so now you are wondering how to give it the proper care. Teak outdoor furniture will probably outlast any other type of wood outdoor furniture with just a proper cleaning.

You need to ask yourself one very important question regarding your teak outdoor furniture care. Do you want to keep the original honey wood color or do you want the beautiful silver gray patina of aging due to the suns exposure? The gray patina is just cosmetic and quite a few people enjoy how easy it is to care for teak furniture that has developed a patina. Others folks would prefer to seal and protect the teak so they can continue to enjoy the original honey coloring of the furniture.

Vacation watering is necessary in order to enjoy your time away from home. There are vacation watering solutions for both indoor plants and your outside flower garden, and vegetable garden. Let's start off with some indoor suggestions:

If you are only going to be gone for a couple of days just more houseplants away from the direct sunlight. This will slow down their growth and help them to retain some moisture but be sure to water them thoroughly just before you leave. The containers your houseplants are in should have the capability of retaining water. The containers made of glazed ceramic, fiberglass, and plastic retain water but those planted in wood, cement or terracotta the water will evaporate more quickly. Dark colored pots will absorb heat and dry out the soil faster. Sometimes vacation watering spikes that insert right into the soil will work.

Upside down tomato plants will not get any weeds because you are not growing them in the ground. A garden with an upside down tomato plant will grow larger because the water will flow directly where they need it and they will become healthy and robust.

Growing an upside down tomato stays healthier if watered enough and is a great way to grow tomatoes in a limited space. A conventional garden of tomatoes needs to be tilled, weeded and worked on. The hard work is no longer there with these hanging planters; all you need to do is place the seedling in, add soil, hang and water and you are ready to go.

Patio gardening peppers is actually growing peppers in containers on your patio or balcony. Some gardeners prefer patio gardening due to the fact that their backyard gardening area is not large enough for a regular vegetable garden.

There are basically two kinds of peppers: hot and sweet. Hot peppers start out green at first and will turn yellow or red as they mature. Sweet peppers, or as they are commonly known as bell peppers, are also green and have a characteristic shape similar to a bell will also turn red or yellow when fully ripe. Peppers are vegetables that love the warmth such as tomatoes and eggplants and are cultivated in a similar manner.

The health benefits of cucumbers are numerous but first let's talk a little bit about the cucumber itself. In order to receive the most health benefits of cucumbers it is best if they are eaten unpeeled because that is the best source of fiber and minerals. The majority of store bought cucumbers have a waxed coating or pesticide residues on the outer skin which can be hard to remove; therefore it is safer to purchase organic or to grow your own.

Before you start growing cucumbers, be sure you have plenty of room in your garden or you give them something they can climb on. Cucumber plants are vines and if they are grown on the ground can spread to over six feet in length. If your garden is not large enough to handle these long, trailing vines, you can train your cucumbers to climb on a trellis or up a fence. A trellis trained cucumber plant will usually produce cucumbers that are better formed.

Container growing apple trees can reduce the garden pests and apple disease as well as improve the apple crop. Container growing dwarf apples can be done in large garden tubs on your patio or deck. Container growing apple trees is possible in any size garden as long as you have a few guidelines to go by.

You can successfully grow an apple tree or any edible crop for that matter in containers. The apple container should be a half-barrel or large garden tub that is at least four to five feet in diameter. You want to choose the dwarf varieties of tree so they will not become too large for their containers. Malus domestica or apple varieties that grow in large garden containers will have the same initial growing pattern as one that is grown in your garden soil. To become established or bear fruit apple trees will need at least three years. To get started you want to fill the containers with a high-quality potting mix; regular garden soil will not drain well in containers. 

Landscaping with roses is good way you can add beauty to the overall look of your yard. Part of your landscaping plans can include roses in a garden all its own, as bushes, climbers, or combined in a garden with other landscaping plants and flowers.

Among the easy to care for long blooming roses available today there are types that are excellently suited for landscape use. The small, compact roses are terrific as edges along walkways or narrow flower beds. These roses will also do very well in containers. Low spreading roses would be good as a ground cover. The upright varieties of roses can be planted as a border or 3 to 4 feet apart for an informal hedge. Climbing roses, on the other hand, are great on trellises, fences, or an archway entrance to the backyard garden.

Learning how to grow watermelons is not very difficult, the plant itself does all the work. Learning to grow them in the south is easy because they enjoy the warmer seasons; if you live in the north you can grow watermelon indoors first and transplant the seedlings when the soil is ready to work.

There are some gardeners that are very leery about growing watermelons because they think they are difficult to grow or that they take up too much space in the garden. They can take up quite a bit of room in a garden if you let them because watermelons do grow on vines.

In a landscape design shrubs and vines can be upright, weeping, rounded or spreading.The landscape design shapes will depend on how you want to use that particular plant in the garden.

For example the upright bayberry hedge is a good plant to use for a windbreak. An English boxwood which is rounded and will withstand a bit of pruning is a good hedge for a low boundary. If you have the room and you want to cover up a compost pile or anything that is an eyesore in the garden you can plant an evergreen shrub such as a myrtle, rhododendron, holly, yew, mountain laurel or any upright form of the juniper. A deciduous shrub will take care of the problem in the summer but when the branches are bare in the other seasons it loses its effect. There are many types of ground covers, shrubs, and vines that can be used as a disguise in the yard or garden. The chain link fence that runs across the back of your yard will somehow disappear if you cover it with Wisteria floribunda.