8 Gardening Blunders and the Ways to Fix Them

We often see fashion blunders on TV. We may even hear ourselves giving opinions about them. But do you actually realize that blunders can even happen right in your front yard? Whether you think that your garden looks good or not, it really doesn't matter. If everything doesn't work, your whole garden will not work. So, here as our last post on gardening for a while, we enumerate some gardening blunders and the ways to fix them:

1.    Grass is not greener. This ranks number 1. Why? Most gardens have lawn, but one may be slightly greener than the other. If your lawn looks more than the soil underneath, it is time to reassess your watering, fertilizing and mowing schedule. Think where you have gone wrong and make the necessary adjustments on the areas mentioned. If nothing happens, replacing your entire lawn is a better alternative. Consider other ground covers such as periwinkle and thyme. Ask your local nursery for a possible option.

2.    Tools and clutter are everywhere. They may be useful objects, but if they are stacked in your garage because you think they are not worth the storage, they don't just look like junk, they are junk. Go over 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 home and garden can be seen from the road. There are several short- and long-term solutions to create some privacy. One quick-fix solution is to build a concrete wall that would separate your garden from the side walk. For a longer, much appealing look, planting fast-growing shrubs is a good idea.

4.    Weeds invasion. Weeds problem can be solved by keeping your lawn regularly maintained. Check for weeds as often as you can. Dig the weeds out by hand and keep the weed 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. Create a sense of lush greenery by using wall space, arbors and trellises to allow plants to climb upwards.

6.    Where's your home? If shrubs have swallowed your home, then a hedge clipper comes in handy. Cut everything that is blocking your way. Seriously, you want a garden, not a house in the middle of the forest. Also, shrubs swallowing your home is a security problem and just invites the bad guys to help themselves.

7.    Dry spell in winter. Most garden plants do not survive the winter temperature. Hence, they die. When planning for a garden, think of the plants that can grow year-round. Or you can always include evergreens and plants with winter interests.

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 the looks of your fences like the way you keep your plants.

Mulching for Free

I’m sure that if you are reading this, you have used some form of mulch during your gardening career. However, you probably didn’t know that there are many other options for organic mulching that you can explore. These days, many gardeners are discovering new sources of free mulch that has been there all along; an untapped resource. These include clippings from a lawn, or woody pruning’s from other plants in your yard. You will be surprised by how beneficial all these things can be, and how often the opportunity arises to use them.

Many gardeners have taken to spreading out their excess grass clippings across the rest of their yard. You may think this will look tacky, with big piles of grass just sitting in your yard as if you were too lazy to rake them up. However, if you spread them out enough then you won’t even be able to tell that there is an excess amount. Leaving the extra grass in the yard acts as a sort of mulch by preventing evaporation and weed growth. With this extra water, you won’t have to water nearly as much to keep your grass green. When I started leaving my grass clippings, I had to adjust the frequency of my sprinkler system because I was worried my yard was getting too much water!

If your garden is in more need of mulching than your yard, it is not unheard of to rake up all the grass and transport it to your garden. By making a small layer in the vicinity of the plant, you’ll apply all the same benefits from leaving it in your yard. My yard is rather green on its own, but I often have trouble with my plants staying green and healthy. So, rather than leave the grass clipping in my yard, I move them all around my plants. It is just a matter of choosing what your highest mulching priority is.

Sometimes, our pruning activities will lead us to have an amazing number of branches and twigs. If this is the case, you should consider renting a wood chipper to put all of those branches to use. After one day of intense pruning, you would be surprised at just how many branches you end up with. Rather than throw these away, you can turn them into a huge amount of mulch for your plants. However, if your pruning has not left you with that big of an amount, you should bundle it all up and save it to add to the next batch. This is because the chipping machines can be slightly expensive to rent, and you want it to be absolutely worth it!

Over time, all organic mulches need to be replenished. This is because they will naturally decompose in the conditions of your yard. Usually, you can tell for yourself just by looking at it, but sometimes it can look perfectly regular but still have problems. If you start to notice any poor plant growth whatsoever, you should replace your mulch. Always keep in mind that during the process of decomposition, your mulch will use up the valuable nitrogen in the soil. Without this, the plants will be missing a key nutrient. There are several types of fertilizers available on the market that are specifically designed to deal with this problem.

The use of mulches in the yard and garden is something everyone should try. Not only can it save lots of time by reducing the amount of garbage you have to transport out, but it increases the healthiness and integrity of your plants by putting that so-called garbage to good use. So, if you think you would be able to save a good amount of branches and twigs for chipping, or if you think that you are ready to stop raking up all your grass clippings, then I think that mulching is for you.

Using Gardening to Get in Shape

While gardening is usually thought of as a productive way to grow beautiful plants and obtain tasty fruits and vegetables, few gardeners have ever considered the immense amounts of exercise one can get in the process of gardening. While you can get almost as much muscle (if not more) exercise as you do working out, it is very productive at the same time.

A recent study found that gardening and maintenance activities may increase fitness level and muscle strength because they require some form of physical exertion such as carrying equipment for repair works, lawn mowing, shovelling, digging holes and carrying soil. Previous studies have also stressed the health benefits of gardening for older adults; such benefits include physical health, psychological health, cognitive ability, and low risk of depression. The study recently reported that gardening has a positive effect on the blood lipid profiles, blood pressure and level of inflammatory markers in blood.

You may wonder how gardening could possibly give as much exercise as working out. Just think about all the various facets of preparing a garden. There are holes to be dug, bags and pots to be carried, and weeds to be pulled. Doing all of these things help to work out almost every group of muscles in your body.

My best friend is a fanatic about working out. Almost every time I call his house, I end up interrupting some muscle toning activity. I’ve never really enjoyed working out, though, as it seems that the constant lifting of heavy things just puts a strain on my body with no immediate positive results. But while he is into working out, I am almost equally enthusiastic about gardening. I work outside improving my garden almost every day. I think I definitely surprised my friend when he realized that I am almost as muscular as he is, but I have never lifted a single dumbbell!

Before you go out into your garden, you should always stretch out. Even if your goal isn’t to work out and get exercise, it’s still a good idea. Often gardeners spend long periods of time hunched over or bent over. This can be bad for your back. So not only should you stretch out beforehand, but you should always take frequent breaks if you’re spending long amounts of time in these positions.

Weeding and pruning are some of the best workouts a gardener can get. With the constant crouching and standing, the legs get a great workout. If your weeds are particularly resistant, your arms will become particularly toned just from the effort required to remove them from the ground. If you plan on taking the whole workout think very seriously, you should always be switching arms and positions to spread out the work between different areas of your body.

One of the most obvious ways to get exercise is in the transporting and lifting of bags and pots. Between the nursery and your house, you will have to move the bags multiple times (to the checkout, to your car, to your garden, and then spreading them out accordingly). As long as you remember to lift with your legs and not your back, transporting bags and pots can give you a fairly big workout, even though you probably don’t make those purchases very often.

Mowing your grass can also be a great exercise. If you’ve got an older mower that isn’t self-propelled, just the act of pushing it through the grass will give you more of a workout than going to the gym for a few hours. During the course of mowing the grass, you use your chest, arms, back, and shoulder to keep the mower ahead of you. Your thighs and butt also get worked a lot to propel the mower. Not only do you get an all-around muscle work out, but it can improve your heart’s health. It’s good for you as a cardiovascular activity, as well as a great way to lose weight due to the increased heart rate and heavy breathing.

If you plan on using gardening as a way to get in shape or lose some weight, you can hardly go wrong. Just be sure to stretch out, drink plenty of water, and apply sunscreen. As long as you take steps to prevent the few negative effects such as pulled muscles, dehydration, and sunburn, I think you’ll have a great time and end up being a healthier person because of it.

The Psychology Behind Gardening

I don’t know what it is about a garden that has always drawn humans to them. But they’ve always been very popular, and an integral part of peoples’ lifestyles. Most religions feature gardens as the settings for some of the biggest events According to Christianity, humanity was started in a garden and the son of God was resurrected in a garden. The Buddhist build gardens to allow nature to permeate their surroundings. Almost every major palace and government building has a garden. But what’s so great about them? They’re just a bunch of plants, after all.

Of course, the reasoning is fairly obvious behind why people grow food in gardens. It’s to eat! If you live off the land and actually survive on stuff from your garden, it’s easy to understand the reasoning.

But I’m thinking about those people who plant flower gardens just for the sake of looking nice. There’s no immediate benefit that I can see; you just have a bunch of flowers in your yard! However, after thinking extensively about the motivation behind planting decorative gardens, I’ve conceived several possible theories and please take them with a pinch of salt.

I think one of the reasons people love gardens so much is that while we have a natural desire to progress and industrialize, deep within all of us is a primal love for nature. While this desire might not be as strong as the desire for modernism, it is still strong enough to compel us to create gardens, small outlets of nature, in the midst of all our hustle and bustle. Since being in nature is like regressing to an earlier stage of humanity, we too can regress to a time of comfort and utter happiness.

This is why gardens are so relaxing and calming to be in. This is why gardens are a good place to meditate and do tai chi exercises. A garden is a way to quickly escape from the busy world.

I’ve thought at times that perhaps we as humans feel a sort of guilt driving us to restore nature and care for it. This guilt could stem from the knowledge that we, not personally but as a race, have destroyed so much of nature to get where we are today. It’s the least we can do to build a small garden in remembrance of all the trees we kill every day. It’s my theory that this is the underlying reason for most people to take up gardening as a hobby.

Gardening is definitely a healthy habit though, don’t get me wrong. Any hobby that provides physical exercise, helps the environment, and improve your diet can’t be a negative thing. So, no matter what the underlying psychological cause for gardening is, I think that everyone should continue to do so. In the USA especially, which is dealing with obesity and pollution as its two major problems, I think gardening can only serve to improve the state of the world.

Of course, I’m no psychologist; I’m just a gardener. I often stay up for hours wondering what makes me garden. What is it that makes me go outside for a few hours every day with my gardening tools, and facilitate the small-time growth of plants that would grow naturally on their own? I may never know, but in this case, ignorance truly is bliss.