Gardening is Good Exercise and Good for Your Health

Everyone is on a kick to be healthy, but rarely think about gardening to become healthy. Granted, the food you grow in your garden will be better than store-bought, it’s the weeding, watering, and trimming that keep your body in great shape. If you want to lose weight, garden for a month or two. 

You can’t go wrong with gardening, even if you have a brown thumb.  All plants need are light, soil, water, and nutrients.  Some plants don’t even need nutrients since Mother Nature supplies all the food they need to eat. Garden plants can easily be added to your dinner table.

If you just want to tone your body, gardening can to that, too. You lift plants around, hull the water hose around, lean over and weed, and plant seeds, which work all the muscles in your body. What a great way to lose weight and put food on your dinner table.

In several studies it has been shown that gardening help 9 out of 10 people lose inches in their waist after just one month of gardening. You can tell it helps because the next day your muscles will be sore. If you continue to garden, those muscles will tighten up and tone your body. You can have that beach body in a few months and fill your dinner table with all the food you need.

Not to mention how much fun gardening is when the whole family joins in to raise all the tomatoes you can eat or planting beans and peas for the table. The kids will love watching the seeds sprout up and spring into a veggie they like.  It also teaches them responsibly when they have to water and weed their very own garden patch.

So, you see how much gardening can help your health? Plus, it’s  fun to watch tiny seeds growing into a giant watermelon, carrot, or any other type of vegetable or fruit.  You can also garden in apartments, condos, and houses whether you have a large or small plot of land.

There are thousands of vegetables, fruits, shrubs, and trees that can make your garden a lovely place to relax, have a picnic, or grow a culinary herb garden. You can use any type of container or plant your garden right in the ground.  You can also grow vertical gardens  up walls, fences, and the side of a house or apartment.

You can let your imagination sore to new heights while supplying your dinner table with fresh herbs and vegetables or a lovely bouquet of flower for any surface. The amount of scents you can enjoy while your garden shines with a plethora of colors to lighten up any day. 

The Most Common 8 Gardening Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Do you realize that gardening mistakes happen right in your front yard? Whether you think that your garden looks good or not, if everything doesn't work together, the entire garden doesn’t work. Let’s talk about the most common gardening mistakes and how to fix them.

Lawn&Garden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Grass is not greener. This ranks number 1. Why? Most gardens and yards have lawn, but one may be slightly greener than the other. If your lawn looks browner than the soil underneath, it is time to reassess your watering, fertilizing and mowing schedule. Think where you may have gone wrong and make the necessary lawn care adjustments. Tired of lawn care? Consider other lawn substitute options such as ground covers such as periwinkle. Visit Greenwood Nursery for more on lawn substitutes.

2. Tools and clutter are everywhere. They may be useful objects, but if they are just stacked in your garage or tossed in a box, then you think they are not worth the storage. At that point, they don't just look like junk; they are junk. Sort through them one by one and determine whether you want to keep them or not. Your criteria when deciding if they deserve the trip to dump or not is simple: Ask yourself, do you specific plans for them?

3. Your house and garden can be seen from the road. There are several short- and long-term solutions to using plants to create privacy. One quick-fix solution is to build a concrete wall that would separate your garden from the sidewalk view. For a longer, much appealing look, planting fast growing shrubs is a good idea.

4. Weed invasion. Keeping your lawn regularly maintained can solve weed problems. Do a regular walk through to check for weeds about twice a week during the growing season. Dig the weeds out by hand to keep them from re-growing by seeding the empty areas of your lawn.

5. Limited space. If your problem is space, then here's one idea that can definitely help you maximize every square inch of your garden: think vertical gardens. With vertical gardening, you can create a sense of lush greenery by using wall space, arbors and trellises to allow plants to climb upwards.

6. Where's your house? If shrubs have swallowed your house, then hedge clippers comes in handy. You don’t want plants blocking the way from your drive to the front door so some serious pruning may be in order. You want landscaping, not a house in the middle of the forest. Also, tall and over grown shrubs are a security hazard providing a burglar with the protection and opportunity that they would need to break into your home. It's time to select curb appeal plants.

7. Selection and winter care. Some garden plants will not survive winter temperatures without proper care. When planning your garden, be sure to select the majority of your plant that will grow year round and always include a few evergreens and plants with winter interest. In fall be sure to provide your garden plants with a good thick layer (approximately 3 inches) of shredded bark mulch to insulate and provide moisture over the winter months.

8. Fences are falling apart. Fences are not just to separate your property from your neighbor's. They also add to the overall look of your garden. Make sure that you maintain your fences like the way you keep your plants. Use fences as backdrops for your landscaping projects.

8 Gardening Mistakes and How to Correct Them by Greenwood Nursery

Tips for Landscaping Basics - How to Landscape Your New Home

These tips for landscaping your new home will provide you with the landscaping basics that you need to get started. Whether you are a first time homeowner, own a new home or a new to you home, landscaping is often one of the most daunting tasks for a homeowner. Follow these steps to make your landscape project a success.

If your home is a new construction, then you may have a blank canvas to work with on landscaping. Should your new home be an existing one, keep in mind that foundation plants in landscapes generally need to be replaced every 12 to 15 years to keep them fresh looking and keep from getting overgrown. Smaller perennials and ornamental grasses will vary in their lifespan anywhere from 3 years to permanent fixtures. It really depends on the plant variety as it can vary.

For new home construction landscaping, start with foundation plants and lawn area. To keep year around color and texture, plant at least 50% of the foundation plants in evergreen shrubs. Then, blend in smaller sized flowering shrubs, ornamental grasses and perennials. Use plants that bloom at different times of the year to create interest in all seasons.

The main rule for planting trees in the landscape is to plant them at least as far away from the foundation as they will grow in height. For example, a red bud tree generally matures around 20 feet tall, so it should be planted no closer to the house than 20 feet. One can fudge a little, but over the long term, the root system from trees can seriously damage the foundation of the home.

As a new homeowner, it is exciting to begin your plan for landscaping your property. However, whether the house is new or new to you, it is highly recommended to live in the house at least one full year before beginning any major projects. A complete year will show you how the house and property react during the seasons, such as drainage, lighting, privacy and other potential problems as well as showing you how specific areas are being used by you and your family.

Keeping a journal to record the seasonal changes of the property along with pictures and articles of plants or landscapes will be invaluable to you as you begin your landscape project.

Factors to look at in planning your landscape:

Budget

How property/areas are used

Style of house

Existing hardscaping

Outdoor lighting

Foundation plants

Extensive plantings (beyond foundation)

These factors are also what a landscape architect will ask you to consider.

Once you learn the basics of landscape design, you will be able to design your own backyard, place foundation plantings, and plan for gardens and activities.

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Cheryl Jones writes articles on plants, plant care, gardening tips and landscaping ideas. Read the complete Basics of Landscape Design Her website, GreenwoodNursery.com, offers a great selection of plants including nut trees, flowering shrubs, evergreen ground covers, flowering perennials, small fruiting plants, lavender plants, red twig dogwood, and Thjua Green Giants.

Garden tools can make outdoors more fun, less tiring

If there’s anything that garden lovers enjoy almost as much as plants, then it’s finding new garden tools and gadgets.

Today, I’ll feature some products that might make your time outdoors less arduous and more enjoyable. Cheryl and I are already using some of them around our own landscape or at the nursery. Maybe one or two will be just what you’ve been looking for!

Tractor Seat on Wheels
Well, the name of this one says it all: it’s a tractor seat on wheels. This has become one of our favorite products because it saves all that wear and tear on our knees and backs. Now if there’s a job that would normally require squatting, stooping or kneeling, we pull this guy out of the barn and off we go.

The tractor seat rotates 360 degrees and there’s a garden caddy tray underneath it that holds hand tools and gloves, etc. It looks so funky with its big ol’ 8 inch wheels that your kids might actually volunteer to weed the flower beds. Or maybe not.

If you can’t find a product I mention here, drop me an e-mail and I’ll try to help.

Flat Stack self winding hose
If you hate untangling a knotted pile of garden hose or if you’re tired of winding it back onto its storage reel when you’re through watering, this might be what you need. It’s a 50 foot, half-inch hose that stretches out for use like a regular hose then simply retracts itself back into a perfect pancake-shaped circle when you’ve finished using it.

It’s a bit more expensive than a “normal” hose, but you won’t need a hose reel and it might save you a lot of sweat and under-the-breath cursing. The Flat Stack is UV and weather-resistant and should last years longer than those leaky cheapo hoses most of us have lurking somewhere in the garage.

Rain Bird Time-Release Water We haven’t tried this one yet but it certainly looks useful. Essentially, it’s water bound in the form of a solid gel that slowly converts back into water over time, sending water and nutrients from the soil to a plant’s roots over a period of 30 days or more.

Time-Release Water comes in plastic packages that are the size and shape of a 12 ounce tube of bulk sausage. Slit the “sausage,” lay it cut-side down on moist soil next to the plant stem, cover with some topsoil and it will gradually release the water that is suspended in the gel.

It costs around $1.99 per 9 oz tube and is available at most home and garden centers. If you are planning to go on vacation this summer, a few of these around your shrubs or in your container gardens might relieve you of water worries while you’re away.

Black & Decker Cordless Cultivator If you hate weeding or turning over soil in flowerbeds with a shovel or a hoe, this could be the tool you’re looking for. Don’t confuse it with a rotary tiller. It isn’t intended to cut through hard-packed sod. But it’s a good option if you need to loosen dirt for planting, aerate soil or get in and around plants without damaging them while getting at the roots of most weeds.

Because it’s cordless, it can go anywhere, using the same interchangeable 18V power pack that drives several other Black & Decker cordless power tools.

Liquid Net Insect Repellent
Cheryl and I have tried just about every spray and lotion on the market. The ones with DEET are effective, but that’s a chemical that can be absorbed through the skin and has been linked to neurological damage. We came across Liquid Net and we use it because it’s DEET-free, safe for children, has all-natural ingredients and it actually smells pretty good.

There’s even a version called Liquid Net for Pets that repels ticks and fleas without any harmful or dangerous chemicals.

The Plant Man is here to help. Send your questions about trees, shrubs and landscaping to steve@landsteward.org and for resources and additional information, or to subscribe to Steve's free e-mailed newsletter, visit www.landsteward.org