Promoting garden biodiversity is a great way to support the environment and enjoy the beauty and variety of nature. There are many ways you can make your garden more bio-diverse, depending on the size and type of your garden. Here are some general tips that you can try:
Plant a range of flowers that provide pollen and nectar for bees, butterflies and other insects throughout the year.
Grow a mix of trees, shrubs and climbers, or a mixed hedge, to provide food and shelter for birds, mammals and insects.
Dig a pond or install a water feature to create a habitat for aquatic animals such as frogs, newts, dragonflies and water beetles.
Leave some areas of your garden wild and messy, such as a pile of dead wood, a patch of long grass or a heap of leaves. These can provide shelter and food for many species that are becoming rare in the countryside, such as stag beetles, fungi, hedgehogs and grass snakes.
Use environmentally friendly practices to control pests, diseases and weeds, instead of using chemical pesticides.
Bird Feeders are great way to attract variety of birds. There are many shapes and sizes in the markets but you can check out the products we have chosen below.
In this post we will outline how to maintain and keep your garden healthy. Turfing services
1. Examine plants carefully before buying
The easiest way to limit disease in your garden is to avoid it in the first place. Getting a disease from a new plant is not the kind of thing that any of us want.
It is a good idea to read a few books, magazines, and catalogs that show what a healthy specimen looks like. In general take home a plant with dead spots, rotted stems, or insects.
In addition to checking the tops of plants, always inspect the root quality. It is not common to see customers doing this in a garden center, but it should be regular practice. Place your hand on the soil surface with the plant stem between your fingers. Gently invert the pot and shake the plant loose. You may have to tap the edge of the pot against a solid surface to loosen the roots from the pot. Roots should be firm, usually white, and spaced all over the root-ball. Dark or mushy roots are not a good sign. Even when the tops appear healthy, it’s just a matter of time before a rotted root system kills a plant.
2. Use fully composted yard waste
Not all materials in a compost pile decompose at the same speed. Some materials may have degraded sufficiently to be put in the garden, while others have not. Thorough composting generates high temperatures for extended lengths of time, which actually kill any pathogens in the material. Infected plant debris that has not undergone this process will reintroduce potential diseases into your garden. If you are not sure of the conditions of your compost pile, you should avoid using yard waste as mulch under sensitive plants and avoid including possibly infected debris in your pile.
3. Keep an eye on your insects
Insect damage to plants is much more than cosmetic. Viruses and bacteria often can only enter a plant through some type of opening, and bug damage provides that. Some insects actually act as a transport for viruses, spreading them from one plant to the next. Aphids are one of the most common carriers, and thrips spread impatiens necrotic spot virus, which has become a serious problem for commercial producers over the past 10 years.
4. Clean up in the fall
It is always best to clean out the garden in the fall, even if you live in a moderate climate. This is not only an effective deterrent to disease but also a good way to control diseases already in your garden.
Diseases can stay on dead leaves and debris and attack the new leaves when they emerge in spring. Iris leaf spot, daylily leaf streak, and black spot on roses are examples of diseases that can be dramatically reduced if the dead leaves are cleared away each fall. If you are leaving stems and foliage to create winter interest, be sure to remove them before new growth starts in spring.
5. Apply the correct fertilizer
You need to take care when fertilizing plants since too much of any fertilizer can burn roots, reducing their ability to absorb water. This, in turn, makes the plants more susceptible to stress from drought, cold, and heat. Plants starved for nutrients are smaller and can be badly affected by leaf spots, while a stronger plant can fight off diseases. An overabundance of a particular nutrient is another way to put stress on a plant.
Getting a soil test through your local extension agency will provide you with accurate information on nutrient levels in your soil. Without it, any feeding of your plants is likely to be guesswork on your part and may result in too much of one nutrient or not enough of another.
6. Plant disease-resistant varieties
Disease-resistant plants are those that might get sick with a particular problem but will fight off the disease instead of succumbing to it. For instance, some tomatoes are coded as “VFN resistant,” which means the tomato variety is resistant to the fungi Verticillium and Fusarium and to nematodes.
If you start looking for these codes on flowers, you’ll probably be disappointed because disease resistance is rarely identified on plant tags. This doesn’t mean that numerous flower varieties are not resistant to disease. Many rose companies offer plants that are resistant to diseases like powdery mildew and black spot.
Nursery employees and fellow gardeners can help you identify the best or most resistant varieties of many plants. Reference books and catalogs may also list plants and varieties resistant to particular diseases.
7. Prune damaged limbs at the right time
Trimming trees and shrubs in late winter is the best time than waiting until spring. Wounded limbs can become infected over the winter, allowing disease to become established when the plant is dormant. Late-winter pruning prevents disease from spreading to new growth. Although late-winter storms can cause new damage, it is still better to trim back a broken limb than ignore it until spring is underway. Always use sharp tools to make clean cuts that heal rapidly, and make sure to cut back to healthy, living tissue.
8. Choose allocating plants appropriately
Successful gardening is based on using plants appropriate for your zone and site. If you set a shade-loving plant, like an azalea, in full sun, it will grow poorly and be easily attacked by diseases and insects. I once had a crape myrtle planted where part of its leaves were in the shade. This was the only part of the plant that had powdery mildew.
Plants have defenses similar to a human’s immune system, which swing into action when plants are under attack from an insect or disease. If plants are under stress, they cannot react with full strength to fight off or recover from diseases. Stressed plants, therefore, are more likely to succumb to these afflictions.
9. Water properly
Watering your garden is a good thing, but since many diseases need water just as much as plants do, how you go about it makes a big difference. Many pathogens in the soil and air need water to move, grow, and reproduce. To avoid giving these diseases an environment they love, choose watering methods that limit moisture on a plant’s foliage. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation accomplish this. If you are watering by hand, hold the leaves out of the way as you water the roots.
The most common leaf problems are exacerbated when leaves are wet, so overhead sprinkling is the least desirable option. If you choose this method, however, water at a time when the leaves will dry quickly but the roots still have time to absorb the moisture before it evaporates.
Also remember that more isn’t necessarily better when giving your plants a drink. Waterlogged soil or pots promotes some root-rotting fungi and can also suffocate roots, making them easy targets for the rotting fungi.
10. Don’t crowd plants
Take care when spacing transplants, and keep an eye on established plants as they spread. Crowded plants create their own humidity, which allows diseases like powdery mildew (photo, right), rust, and downy mildew to thrive. Improving airflow around your plants reduces this high relative humidity and allows foliage to dry more quickly.
Plants that are placed too closely together tend to grow poorly due to competition for light, water, and nutrients. These weak plants are more susceptible to attack. Diseases also sometimes spread when an infected leaf comes into contact with a healthy one, which is more likely when plants are next to each other.
To lessen the likelihood of disease, trim out crowded, damaged, or old stalks on plants that are prone to powdery mildew, like Phlox paniculata. Dividing or rearranging your plants when they need it will also help.
The deck is swept and ready for summer barbecues, the lawn is freshly mowed, and the outdoor furniture is dusted off. In short, the stage is set for cookouts, family gatherings and entertaining late-night porch hangouts. But don’t get left in the dark.
According to the American Lighting Association (ALA), proper outdoor lighting is just as important for a beautiful landscape as a lush lawn, bright flowerbeds, green plants and manicured shrubs.
Jeff Dross, corporate director of lighting education and industry trends for Kichler Lighting, recently explained that homeowners are opening up to new ideas with landscape lighting.
Use Indirect Light
Dross says the current trend is for homeowners to highlight their landscaping with indirect lighting, which essentially uses a source to reflect the light emitted by the light fixture. This creates more of an atmospheric tone, allowing the light to spread across a wall off the side of a house more effectively. Indirect light will illuminate flower beds, gardens, bushes or other decorative landscaping art. Additionally, the light will bounce off the ground and create a nicely lit walkway around flowerbeds.
The Shift to LEDs
LED light bulbs are beginning to dominate the landscape lighting industry. For the majority of homeowners, outdoor lights and landscape lighting are typically left on longer than other home lighting, which makes LEDs the more affordable and logical option.
Additionally, LEDs can be manufactured in much smaller sizes, which give homeowners more options to use them in unique spaces. Dross explains that LEDs are so small, they can be used as application lighting, as well as for aesthetic purposes. Hardscape designs are easy to mesh with LEDs, because the style creates both a passageway lighting source and indirect lighting for stone or brick landscapes.
Keep It Simple
Two significant trends in landscape lighting is simplicity and cleanliness. What this means is that more homeowners are choosing to go with fewer ground fixtures to illuminate their entire home. According to Dross, residents who simply align their light fixtures along a walkway in a very orderly and organized fashion are providing a lot of unnecessary light and wasting energy.
Going for a more simplistic design can still highlight plants and flower beds while giving just enough light to illuminate a backyard or around a patio. Also, homeowners are moving toward fewer lumens in light fixtures. This allows the light beam to spread more efficiently and even out the overall light sources.
