There are literally thousands of gardening books and websites out there. With so much information available out there, however, you might spend the entire day browsing around websites while seeking out accurate info. Fortunately, this article provides you with hints and tips to help you start growing any type of garden. Continue reading in order to get this advice.
If your plants do not grown very tall, try buying some knee pads used for horticulture. Gardening can really put a lot of pressure on your knees that will leave you cramped and uncomfortable. Having a pair of excellent knee pads for horticulture can help cushion the knees to provide additional comfort.
You should divide irises. Increase your iris population when you divide up overgrown clumps. Lift bulbous irises when the foliage is dead. The bulbs will automatically split in you hand, and will likely flower the year after being replanted. You can divide rhizomes with a knife. From the outside cut the new pieces and then get rid of the old center. Divide your pieces carefully; they should each have one good quality offshoot apiece. Do this cutting beside your garden bed, so that you can place your new groupings into the ground immediately.
Put money into a quality wheelbarrow and kneeling stool if you plan to do garden work often. Spending a lot of time near the ground working is very hard on the knees, so a lightweight and portable garden stool will make horticulture more comfortable. Horticulture also typically involves transporting bags of topsoil, fertilizer and other heavy items, so using a wheelbarrow to make these tasks easier is a sound investment for your garden, and your back.
Choose trees that come to fruition in the fall. While most people think mostly of leaves in terms of providing the most vivid fall color, several varieties of trees offer beautiful fruit that is quite decorative in nature. Berries range in color from deep reds to orange-reds and yellows, lasting through a good portion of winter, and they provide some nice garden color and food for birds. Good varieties include holly, crabapple, hawthorn and chokeberry.
When you water your garden, do it with care. A soaker hose is a great way to water all of the plants at once, and will save you a lot of time. Keep the water running slowly so it doesn’t spray up onto the plants’ leaves. Just use it on your foliage for a few hours.
Tempt your cat away from the plants he has been bothering by planting catnip or wheat grass near them. Try putting mothballs or citrus on your soil to wards pets away.
Water is very important to having a healthy garden. Every living thing needs water to survive. When the temperature is especially hot, plants can become dried out very quickly. Watering the garden properly can make a garden be productive.
While most plants suffer in the cold, some annual flowers actually do better. When plants become too out of control, simply prune them back. Following the pruning, it generally takes only a couple weeks before blooming occurs again, which creates a lovely image compared to the traditional foliage of the winter months. Dianthus and petunias are two annuals that fare well in cold weather. Likewise, snapdragons do well, too.
A great gardening tip: to remove salty deposits from pots made of clay, use rubbing alcohol and vinegar. It is common for build-ups of salt to accumulate over long periods of time on pots made of clay. Spray the inside of the pot with a mixture containing water, vinegar and rubbing alcohol; all in equal parts. Wash your pot with a scrub brush that is plastic and let the salt go away. Rinse the pot thoroughly, and allow it to dry before you plant anything in it.
Novice gardeners should read the manuals on all horticulture tools and chemicals prior to using them. Otherwise, you are likely to have skin irritations flare up, which can be extremely painful and uncomfortable. Protect your plants and yourself by knowing how to correctly use all of your gardening implements.
Try growing your peas indoors for the first couple months. Pea seeds tend to germinate much better when planted indoors, before being moved to an outside garden. They will also be healthier and hardier, allowing them to better resist pests and disease. You will be able to transfer the seedlings outdoors after they become better established.
Deciduous shrubs need protection from the cold. Cold weather significantly affects these plants, especially if they are in pots. The tops should be tied together, and the wigwam should be loosely covered with a sheet or blanket. Using fabric, rather than plastic, allows air circulation and prevents rotting from moisture build up.
Be diligent in your efforts to banishing weeds! Weeds can turn a beautiful garden into an eyesore. To aid in this venture, you might want to use white vinegar. White vinegar will kill those pesky weeds. If you are too busy to pull weeds by hand, make a white vinegar solution and keep it handy for a quick spray when needed.
Cooled water left over from steaming vegetables can be fed to them as a little snack. You may fertilize the soil with tea or coffee for plants that favor acidic environments, like rhododendrons and gardenias. Chamomile tea is a good remedy against fungus.
Horticulture is a very relaxing and rewarding hobby. The more you learn, the better your horticulture skills will become. You should take all the good information you can get. If you begin by applying the suggestions from this article, the garden of your dreams will be better than you could have ever imagined.