Beginner steps to maintaining a garden and lawn
The concept of accidental gardener has never been more appropriate to me. Throughout my formative years living in cities, where flats and space are truly a premium it’s only when you move into a house in a quite suburb you realise you are getting a garden along as well. For me luckily, I have always had a love of nature and environment and this proved to be a great opportunity for me to learn new things and develop a new hobby and being dubbed “green fingers” at work for my troubles 🙂 Guess what, some of this physical activity is good for your health as well, who knew.
If you are like me with a busy life and lots of other family activities with just 2 – 3 hours to spare over the weekend then read-on please. I am going to talk about the basic things you would need to do to keep your plants, tress, shrubs and lawns healthy over an year. I would refer to some products but only because I use and trust them, I have no financial incentives or agreement with any of them. I also have to admit I am no expert here, so if any of you is a serious gardener and think i am doing something wrong, please reach out to me – I would appreciate your guidance.
Here is your activity calendar – I will be writing detailed blogs on some of these later
- Watering – regular watering is required, especially during hot summer days. We are lucky here in the UK as we get regular rain & drizzles. Deep watering is better than shallow.
- Nutritional needs – Compost, I prefer seaweed extract sprays and some slow release pellets sprinkled around the plants.
- Protection – Plant invigorator sprays, specialist tonic for roses etc.
- Pruning – Regular pruning of flowers , etc. After every growth season make sure that you trim all plants by 1/3rd of their size. Same for any large trees as well.
- Lawn – needs occasional garden feed through the growth months, scarify lawn before applying feed and some lawn grass seeds. They need watering to settle down or time it with a rainy week. Mow the lawn on a regular basis
- Weeds – I love this saying i have read – The best antidote to weeds is a gardener’s shadow. To be fair these are also just plants and nature abhors vacuum, so they grow everywhere. Set realistic expectations, there is no such thing as a weed free garden, but you can have a well maintained one by regularly removing weeds.
- Raking – Before you apply any compost or food around any plants or shrubs make sure you clear leaves and debris around so that the soil can breathe a bit.
- Tools – don’t forget your tools, always clean them after use and store. If you can apply some oil on a regular basis they will reward you with excellent utility years.
- I have tried to use natural and safe products as much as possible to ensure that we keep the earth and the environment around us healthy.
REFERENCES/FOOTNOTES
There is no one specific website, but my sincere thanks to web pages and gardening forums where i slowly started learning this craft.
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