"GOOD ADVICE"

My one peice of advise to a person who has just acquired a new garden would be to leave it alone for the first year and see what comes up. If you do not, you may miss out on some wonderful plants lurking in the ground.

"MORNING AND EVENING"

To avoid our July/August heat gardening is best done in the early morning or evening hours. I work on the west side of my home in the morning and the east side in the late afternoon. This keeps me in the shade most of the day.

"GOOD RECORDS"

Buy a special notebook for a garden journal and resolve to keep good records this year. You’ll want to track what plants you ordered, how many, where you planted them, how they performed, the time of bloom, special weather conditions and anything else that may affect future plantings.

"THOSE LONG WINTER EVENINGS"

Put your seed and plant catalogs into a wicker basket, along with a pen, paper and "sticky" notes. Put the basket near your favorite chair, so you can make wish lists and garden plot changes whenever the mood strikes.

"GIVE THEM A TREAT"

Give indoor house plants a good shower now and then - this will remove dust and dirt from the leaves, as well as provide moisture to their outer surfaces. Check the leaves for insect pests. If you find some, spray with insecticidal soap. GREENTIP: Make your own insecticidal spray with 5 tablespoons of mild dishwashing detergent to a gallon of water.

A good way to prepare a hanging basket is to stand it on a bucket as you fill with compost and plants.

"SOWING SEEDS"

Remember the adage: Sow seeds when it's dry; set plants when it's wet. If soil stays in a moist ball when squeezed hard, it is still too wet to plant seeds. Wait until the soil crumbles.

"BUGGED BY SLUGS"

Bugged by Slugs? - Save orange halves from juice squeezing, place in affected areas - remove slugs each morning from underneath.

"FLOWER POWER"

Brighten up your summer salads with edible flowers. Some of the most popular varieties are Nasturtium, Calendula, Pansy, Impatiens and Petunia. Pick flowers that have just opened for the best flavor, and simply sprinkle fresh blooms or petals on salads, or use them to adorn cheesecakes or other goodies.

"JOURNAL"

As part of your garden journal, save the pictures from seed packets and mark the location and date of purchase on each, then place them in a photo album. When the plant blooms, take a photo of it and place it in your album along with the original packaging.

"DO A TEST"

Wet a small soil sample, and add a little baking soda to it. If it "fizzes," you know you've got acidic soil. It doesn't, however, mean that no fizz is alkaline!

Leafmould makes a good substitute for peat in potting compost. Stack fallen leaves in a cylinder of wire netting, with a cover to keep the rain out and weight to keep the stack under pressure. Be patient - it takes a full year before it will be usable.

"GATHERING SEEDS TOGETHER"

Gather and save seeds of other annuals you may want to plant again next year, such as marigolds, Cosmos, morning-glories and zinnias. Put the seeds in envelopes and label them by name, date and color. Store them in a cool, dry place such as airtight jars in your refrigerator. GREENTIP: Don't bother saving seed from hybrid varieties because they won't grow true-to-type (that is, they'll have a different growth pattern or perhaps different color than their parent plant).

"PLAY BALL"

Float a ball on garden ponds to discourage freezing.

"POT THOSE PLANTS"

Not original but very valuable! Grow some plants, Lilies for example, in pots. These will be very useful for strategically placing in those bare patches of border during the summer. Black pots seem the easiest to hide.

"GOOD POT TIP"

If your plastic pot has large holes in it, line the bottom with a sheet of newspaper. This will stop the potting soil from washing out of the pot, will still allow the flow of water through and will eventually break down.

"COFFEE ANYONE?"

I found that if you use the coffee machine cups from a vending machine,after you have cleaned them, they make perfect 3inch pots!! It saved me a fortune.

Plant labels can be made out of plastic containers such as washing-up liquid bottles. All you need is a pair of sharp scissors.

"STOP THOSE SLUGS"

If you feel like you are just feeding the slugs & snails when you carefully set all the plants you have grown out in the garden then here's the tip for you! Slug pellets are harmful to wildlife & to pets and are best avoided - organic gardeners never use them - yet they grow good crops. One way to protect plants is to cut up plastic drinks bottles to form 10cm (4") high collars & pop those around lettuce & runner bean plants - they are a great deterrent.

"BULB PROTECTION"

Some garden wildlife appears hell bent on ruining your plans. The sight of a squirrel digging up your newly planted bulbs will be an all too familiar problem to many people. The answer is to plant the bulbs, either in the ground or in large pots, then cover with a piece of chicken wire before adding more soil. The wire is hidden from view and developing flower stems can easily grow up through the holes. However, it prevents squirrels from reaching the bulbs.

"SUNSHINE IN YOUR GARDEN"

Most of us tend to look at our gardens and think ‘sunny side here’ and ‘shady side there’, and then plant correspondingly. For a more accurate impression of her garden Josephine got up very early one sunny June day and, on the hour throughout the day, she noted the areas of the garden which were sunny and coloured in the areas on copies of the garden plan. At the end of the day she was able to add up the total hours of sunshine in different parts of the garden. These ranged from 10 hours in some areas right down to none in others. She was then able to plant up the different areas with plants that were best suited to the amount of sunshine that these received. As a result of this careful preparation the garden is now thriving.

"RECYCLING"

Rinsed out milk cartons are excellent containers for kitchen scraps waiting to go out to the compost.

A pot of compost, a few split canes and a plastic bag make a simple propagating unit for raising cuttings.

"HEATING UP"

When it gets too hot in the sun, get into the shade! Why not plant an area of shade to escape those hot sunny days.

"WATERING YOUR PLANTS"

Use a 5gal. bucket with a small hole in the bottom to water newly planted trees. Just fill the bucket full of water and place at the base of your tree, it will take several hours to drain but will water your new trees slowly.

"THOSE WEEDS"

Weed after a rainfall. Weeds pull easier. If you need to weed and it hasn't rained, water your garden first.

"GOING AWAY"

Use an inexpensive plastic kids pool filled a few inches to keep your potted plants in when on holiday/vacation.

"CLEAN UP"

To prevent dirt from getting under your fingers while gardening, scratch a bar of soap before starting to work. When you are finished, the soap will wash out from under your nails and your nails won't have those tell tale dark stains under them!

Make your own growing bag out of a strong plastic bag, but make sure it is not bio-degradable.

"A PATHWAY"

Using garden stepping stones to make an "illusionary" path that wraps around a large tree or bush and then ends, will give your garden the appearance of being much larger.

"IN THE MOOD"

Smelling a rose is proven to cause a chemical change that will enlighten your mood! Make this a daily routine!

"ROSES ARE RED, IN THE YEARS AHEAD"

Happy Mothers Day. Here is an idea for those special occasions. As nice as roses from the florist are, this year buy a rose bush for the garden. It will bring nice memories of the day you shared with your Mum. In the years to come too!

"TAKE A BREAK"

Take plenty of time-outs during weeding or you will end up with a very sore back.

"CAN IT"

Recycle coffee cans, soups cans and paint them and add plants.

"MINTY FRESH"

Plant mint in a plastic bucket with the bottom cut off. This is to stop the mint from spreading.

"CREATING PICTURES"

The best way that to remember what does well and where things look best is to take pictures and to video tape your whole garden. Start from the very begining of the season, middle of season and at the end. Then you can sit back and study them. And you are able to really see how far you have come!

"SPRAY IT"

Keep a spray bottle with water nearby when working in the garden. It's always nice to spritz your face when you get a little too warm.
I always have one handy in the house also :-) And on holiday/vacation :-)

"GETTING THE BOOT!"

Take old work boots and fill them with soil and sedum. They winter over and will bloom for years and why not put them on your porch step.

"WHAT IS IN THE MAIL?"

Try mounting a rural delivery type mailbox on a cedar post and placing it in the garden to hold hand tools and other things needed in the garden. A decorative one looks especially attractive and the cedar post serves well as a support for a vine.

"EARWIGS"

Protect dahlia flowers from earwig damage by filling upturned pots with straw and positioning them on top of canes between the plants. The earwigs will crawl inside and be trapped.

"WATER BUTTS"

Keep the lids on water butts to prevent algae infestation and mosquitoes breeding inside.

If you have any useful gardening tips I can add to this list,
I would love to hear from you.

A LITTLE SNAIL JOKE. :-)

This fellow is sitting on his deck when he sees a snail on the arm of his chair. He reaches over and flicks the snail off the chair with his finger. Six months later, he hears a thump on the door. When he goes to the door, no one is there. Then he looks down and sees a snail on his doorstep. The snail says "So, what was that all about?

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

Music playing is "Spring Rain"