Category Archives: Garden

The 3 Critical Lawn Care Tips All Homeowners Need To Know About

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Has your lawn been looking dry, ragged, or unruly lately? If your lawn isn’t in the best shape but you’re not sure how to nurture it back to health, you may want to brush up on your essential lawn care skills. Taking care of your lawn may be simpler than you realize – simply follow these three critical care tips to get back on the right path.

Photo by Gibbon FitzGibbon on Unsplash

1. Keep Your Lawn Well-Watered To Ensure a Green Appearance

If your lawn has appeared unusually brown or dry in recent weeks, it may need some watering. Part of looking after your lawn turf Kissimmee FL is monitoring the lawn’s hydration status to ensure a consistently green appearance. You may be able to install sprinklers to automatically water your lawn.

2. Pull Out Weeds and Clear Out Debris Every Fall

Weeds and yard debris can present a serious problem for keeping your lawn in good health. Before winter weather hits, it’s important to take the time to prep your lawn. This means you may have to:

  • Rake the leaves throughout the fall
  • Pull out any and all garden weeds
  • Clear out fallen tree branches and other debris
  • Remove yard decorations before the first snowfall

3. Consider Putting In Some Landscaping

After you’ve taken care of the lawn care basics, you may want to go a step further and improve the look of your yard by putting in some landscaping. For instance, you may choose to clear out part of your lawn for:

  • Mulch
  • Stone walkways
  • Wooden arches
  • Flower patches
  • Mini fruit and vegetable gardens

When your lawn is looking dull or dry, going back to basics could help you nurture the turf back to health. Make sure you keep the lawn well-watered, pull out weeds, clear out debris, and consider putting in landscaping to bring your lawn back to a vibrant and healthy appearance.

Activities that Help Me Get Through Lockdown

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Many people have discovered they have hidden talent or skills during the lockdown. Some learned they have wanted to bake, cook, play musical instruments, or sing. Others develop hobbies like gardening, painting, reading, and writing. And some pass away the time binging on movie series or playing games to entertain themselves. All these activities have helped us get through this time.

I have my list of favorite activities that cheer me up through the lockdown. 

Online games

Playing online games keeps my sanity from the daily stresses. When I get tired from doing the household chores, I rest a bit and grab my mobile phone to play with block puzzles. It is like a mental exercise to me when I need to focus on something important.

When I am sitting in front of the laptop, I would be playing a fight virus game. It is a hospital simulation game where you get to destroy the nasty COVID-19 virtually. Even if it is just a game, it feels like you are doing your share protecting hospital workers and patients against the virus. 

To play this, tap or click on the virus to disinfect the hospital environment. By destroying the virus, you keep the hospital staff and patients safe from the virus infection; tap patients (with heart signs) to help them recover more quickly. A meter in the lower-left corner illustrates the percentage of how infected the hospital is. The game is over if it reaches more than 70 percent.

Korean Dramas

South Korean dramas are popular among their Filipino audience. I started binge-watching Korean dramas in 2016, around the time I was recuperating from a medical procedure. Watching KDramas has kept me company from boredom, and I’m still hooked, until now. I was thankful for this streamlined series because I have learned many things about Korean culture and fashion.

What is good about KDramas is that the seasons are shorter, and soundtracks are appropriate to the theme and unforgettable, too, even if I do not understand the lyrics. The funny part is I get the hang of reading subtitles fast while catching on to the scenes.

I watched almost all KDrama genres: drama, romantic comedy, melodrama, action, thriller, horror-comedy. I have tons of still unwatched KDramas on my list.

Decluttering

It is the least of my favorite activities. However, decluttering has helped me lessen my anxiety and focus on other things. It is therapeutic.

I have started putting away old clothes, a stack of newspapers, old receipts, old school books, and paper books. I am planning to sell the newspapers and schoolbooks to the junkshop. I have a bit of a problem with old clothes. Hopefully, I could find a recycling shop that would accept the clothes.

The next project will be decluttering the kitchen.

Gardening

Planting is one of the activities that hubby and I share. We do not have many plants, but we are content to see them grow every day. Gardening helps ease our worries from day-to-day activities. We are not getting any younger, and a simple hobby like this is good for our mental and emotional health.

The activities may be simple but, they help me get through the lockdown.

How about you? What are your coping mechanisms all this time? What activities do you think have helped you refocus your priorities, how it helps your mental state? 

Pocket Vegetable Garden

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Hubby is so excited about growing a mini vegetable garden. He started with the sili labuyo plant (chili pepper) which I bought from Halamanan sa Pasig last month. I also purchased from them three Bacularis plants which are known for their air-purifying quality.

He got inspired by the siling labuyo plant that he decided to also plant tomato seeds, spring onion stalk, more sili seeds, and later kinchay or Chinese celery.

Update: We have already picked at least eight ripened chilis. Their so small but spicy.

We’ve got tomatoes growing right here. I’m excited about this project. We’ve been planning to have our vegetable garden for so long and it is slowly being realized this year.

Update: The young onion (upper right corner) and the celery (lower right side) died. The tomatoes grew a bit.

Planting is one of the small things that made hubby and me happy these days. It’s something that eases off our stress and worries from day-to-day activities. We are not getting any younger and simple activity like this is beneficial to both our mental and emotional health. 

My certified plantito hubby. 😀 This batch (of the plant) will serve as a fence right outside our window to secure it from irresponsible neighbors who leave their garbage and whatnot on the sidewalk.

Landscaping in a Dry Climate

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Outdoor spaces are essential for bringing us close to nature. Being in a green space has a positive effect on our health and psyche. When you live in a dry climate or are going through a drought, it can be challenging to maintain the plants you love. Fortunately, there are some tips for landscaping when you don’t have access to an ever-flowing source of water.

Xeriscaping

Xeriscaping is the art of creating a pleasing outdoor space that doesn’t require water from irrigation. In this kind of design, you’ll empty plants that are native to the region, so they are accustomed to the soil and levels of rainfall. Lawns typically cannot exist in xeriscaping, but gravel and native grasses take its place. There’s a peacefulness to a landscape designed with xeriscaping in mind. There’s no concern about watering or protecting from frost or pests.

Artificial Turf

If you’re someone who loves the way a green lawn makes you feel, consider investing in synthetic turf. It may cost you upfront, but the amount of time and money you will save on maintenance will be worth the initial price. Artificial turf Thousand Oaks has some great examples. It is so realistic now; you really can’t tell the difference unless you inspect it.

Permaculture

Permaculture is a way to design your outdoor space, so there is no energy loss. Many of you have heard of companion planting. When you plant corn an beans next to each other, the nutrients one plant puts in the soil, the other plant uses, and vice versa. This idea can be applied to your whole home and yard if done correctly. For irrigation needs, you can harvest rainwater or install a gray water system.

Just because you live in the desert or are experiencing a drought does not mean you can’t have a beautiful garden!

No Dirt Growing

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Do you want to garden and produce beautiful or useful plants without worrying about soil or weather conditions? Then you want to try hydroponics. As you get started with hydroponic growing, it’s helpful to find and buy grow kits, such as this one at www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk, and you can also see more. Setting up a grow room creates the right environment for your plants and makes managing your soil-free garden that much easier.

While growing your own plants may seem overwhelming at first, aquaculture-hydroponics sells kits like Bud box aphonic Tent Kit that packages everything you need to get you started with your adventures in growing without soil. One can encounter many problems when beginning this type of gardening, and a grow kit that can be purchased and assembled is quite useful in minimizing problems that may occur (including bugs, rotting and dying plants, and inefficient or totally ineffective systems that may damage your yield). A grow kit (view our selections here) can help mitigate the difficulties you may encounter by providing you with everything you need to get started.

Visit here to see other hydroponics kits designed to meet the needs of beginning growers. Other kits to consider include the Bud box Basic Tent Kit Titan + or Titan1, both from aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk which cater to different growing needs. Another useful aspect of the packaged kits is the security and discretion, meaning that your plants stay undisturbed and your system remains more stable. The automation of the kit systems is also a plus, as it means less work for you! Such kits also have the advantage of being lightproof and lockable, meaning that you have more control over you plants, yields, and growing area.

A filtration kit is another useful tool to help you optimize your indoor, dirt-free growing space. Filtration kits, such as the one found in the Bud box Basic Tent Kit to help to optimize the growing environment and help you meet your goals of production. A kit also takes the danger out of designing your light source and enclosure material; a reflective inner coating and flame retardant material will keep you from worrying about your system when you leave.

Hydroponic systems can help you get the plants and results you want, and a kit, particularly one from aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk (our selections can be viewed here) will take the guesswork out of the design.