gardening-for-dummy

Are you looking for something to add a little spice to your already blooming garden? Why not make that beautiful garden into a backyard oasis? Add a simple, yet elegant water garden to create an exotic feel and make your friends and neighbors envy you.

A water garden isn't that hard to set up as long as you follow some simple steps.
The first thing you'll need to do is figure out where to place the water garden. The best placement should be close to your home, so it can be easily viewed, but not too close to trees or anything that would cause too much debris to fall into the pond.

A pond would look nice framed with trees, but you would constantly be cleaning it out from fallen leaves and dirt, so try to keep it at a fair distance away from any trees on your property.

Once you've decided how big the water garden will be and what shape it will be, you should then start digging to the proper level based on the size of the water garden. Place your pond underlayment that you've cut to the right shape.

The thick pond liner will go on top of the underlayment. Make sure everything fits snuggly. Then install all of the components to the waterfall feature following the directions of the kit.

All the hardware and the excess pond underlayment will then need to be hidden, so place the pebbles and stones around the water garden so the equipment isn't seen. You can now fill the pond with water and add any nutrients or substance to take care of any chlorine in the water.

Make sure all of the components work. By now, the water should be recycling around and streaming down your waterfall feature. When you're sure everything is working properly, its then time to add the aquatic plants.

Make sure you add the anarcharis water plants because they'll take care of any nutrients that would otherwise keep algae thriving. Water lilies are a popular aquatic plant to use because they help give the illusion of a natural made pond.

Your water pond is ready for your enjoyment. If you want to create a real oasis for your water garden, consider adding some goldfish to the pond. Add only a few at a time to ensure their survival.

Add a few plants near the edge of the pond to help it blend in with the rest of your backyard oasis. Once it's all in place, you'll need to take care of it to keep it going for many years to come.

There are many guides and books to browse through that will go into detail on the best ways to set up your own water garden. They show how to get the different sizes and shapes of ponds to allow for the water to properly flow. Check them out and plan for your own water garden to spice up your backyard oasis today.

1.)County Extension offices have Master Gardeners on duty throughout the growing season to answer phone questions or diagnose problems.

2.) Most garden centers have staff trained well enough to diagnose more common problems.

3.)For more complex issues, Extension offices can explain how to pack specimens to send off to bug and plant-disease labs for diagnoses(at least in PA-go Penn State!)

4.) University of Maryland's Plant Diagnostic site
http://plantdiagnostics.umd.edu

5.)http://bugguide.net

About fifty yearsago Reginald Farrar discovered the butterfly bush or buddleia in Kansu, China. Every June this delightful shrub becomes a purple waterfall of fragrant flowers.

Prune immediately after flowering or by picking the blossom sprays for the house. Plant in a rich, well-drained soil, and sunny location. While the blooms open in profusion in June they also continue the rest of the summer. They attract myriads of butterflies, especially in late autumn, hence the name.

Spirea is another "immigrant" from the Himalayas. From English gardens comes the variety Spirea arguta, the garland spirea, a foolproof hardy sort. Give sun, rich loam, moist location, and in June it is transformed to a tumbling mass of white flowers. The mahogany red seed pods in July are equally attractive. A wicked young woman so beguiled St. Peter with several sprays of meadowsweet, so runs the tale, that he inadvertently let her slip into heaven. Spirea was also a Middle Ages "strewing herb," and Queen Elizabeth's favorite. With this they "strewed her chambers withal."
The Rose of Sharon, originally from Syria, suggests the great hibiscus flowers of the tropics.

Large blooms appear in July
or August and continue forming on and off till frost. Give the plant full sun, well-drained soil. It needs no pruning, attracts no bugs, makes a fine hedge. The flowers of the newer varieties are like large saucers, and nearly five inches across. They are in white splashed with red, blue, deep scarlet, and pure white. Blue Bird is an especially beautiful blue one.

Hybrid Lilacs
Hybrid lilacs are perhaps larger and lusher and more dramatic than the common sorts, but some are less fragrant. Persian lilacs and French lilacs are but two of the many classes to choose from, but none excel in fragrance the old-fashioned garden lilac so prevalent around the early New England homes.

When spring is really here the saucer magnolia unfolds flowers from gray twigs. The large, exotic blossoms, purple outside and white within-tropical in appearance-have a delicate fragrance. They smell sort of the way a lemon drink makes you feel-fresh and cool. Though of Asiatic origin, they thrive here, preferring rich and porous soil. The best time to transplant them is, strangely enough, when they are in flower. The delicate roots will best survive bruising when in the midst of growing. Likewise, prune in the growing season.

In early June the doublefile virburnum unfurls great flat plates of flowers. The horizontal branches are covered with a perfect mosaic of blossoms with spidery sunburst centers. When fully out they completely obliterate the shrub, and resemble a fall of snow. Fine berries and autumn color are added assets.

The flowers of mockorange smell like pineapples growing in the sun. Large or small, double or single, they make graceful bouquets. In Indian country the straight new shoots of the mockorange were avidly sought by the young women. Being light in weight the shoot could be woven into excellent back
shafts.
The ingenious chiefs also used mockorange for both tobacco pipes and stems. They cut a six or eight-inch piece from the bottom of a shoot where it widened out to form a bowl. How did they clean out the pith without breaking the branch?

By imprisoning the grub of a beetle in one end. With backward escape impossible, he ate his way through the soft pith to the other end. The stem was thus hollowed, and the wider end ready to be stuffed with tobacco.