Gardening Articles

For more vertical space for climbers, you can always use an obelisk that can also become an interesting and attractive feature in a border. There are many types of obelisks: metal obelisks that suit a modern garden, wood obelisks that will find its place in a formal garden and for a rustic garden you can choose a willow obelisk.

This article will show you how to make your own willow obelisk, it takes a little bit of skill but with a little patience and help from your plants to hide any mistakes that you might make, you will have your own made obelisk to add in your garden for more space for your climbers.

Many people start to grow more and more strawberries in containers or in growing bags in order to avoid the difficulties of growing them on the ground. This way are less chances of the fruits being tainted by the soil or eaten by slugs. You can build a table where to place your growing bag. Once the plants have finished cropping you can lift and move them (complete with the growing bag) and allow them to grow elsewhere in the garden until the following year. You can place on the table a new growing bag containing autumn-fruiting strawberries that are ready for producing a crop later in the year.

Old, stone troughs and sinks, traditionally used to grow alpines, are now scarce and expensive. So, if you still want your alpines to look like they are planted in a stone container, you can use a ceramic sink that can be coated with a substance called hypertufa to make them resemble stone. You can also make your one trough entirely of hypertufa.

If you want to make your own sink look like a stone one, choose a deep, glazed, flat-bottomed sink and follow the next steps. Ensure that your sink is clean and dry then score the surface with a tile or glass cutter to help the hypertufa adhere to the sink. To aid adhesion further, paint the surface of the sink with a bonding agent before applying the hypertufa. For a better adhesion you can also spread outdoor adhesive over the outside of the sink to make a rough surface on to which the hypertufa will grip.

Growing bags become more and more used for growing short-term plants, such as low-growing vegetables, that will only be there for one growing season. Some gardeners also use growing bags for cultivating cucumbers, peppers, eggplants or tomatoes. After such a crop you can still use the growing bag for a second time to grow salad crops such as lettuce or radishes, because the growing bag will contain a fair amount of fertilizer residue left from the previous crop without the need for any extra fertilizer.

A common problem encountered when you grow tall plants in growing bags is that the bags don’t have the necessary depth to allow for stakes to be used as supports. But you can solve this problem by building a frame around the bag and fastening the support structure to the frame so that the plants grow up toward the support.