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Zodiac Flowers: Gemini

Did you know that there are 4 Gemini birth flowers? Lavender for charisma, lily of the valley for openness…read on to learn all about these flowers and how to grow them if you’re a Gemini!

If you were born between May 22 and June 21, then you’re a Gemini. Gemini is represented by the twins, ruled over by the planet Mercury, and represents the element of air.

Geminis are excellent at gathering information, making social connections, and exploring the world with childlike wonder and curiosity. You’re likely to be quite talkative and pick up languages and social customs with ease. But because you adapt so well, others may feel that they never know who you actually are. Is what they see really you or what you’re pretending to be? You may contribute to this problem by being evasive.

Here are 4 Gemini birth flowers and their meanings!

Lily of the Valley for Openness

Lily of the Valley symbolises simplicity, innocence, and openness, like seeing the world with child-like curiosity or nurturing your beginner’s mind. This describes the strength of Geminis to a tee. When you’re able to see like a beginner, you can expand your horizons beyond what you thought was possible.

In the language of flowers, Lily of the Valley means a return to happiness or humility. With your gift with people and ability to learn and adapt, you could become quite arrogant — but that’s unlikely to make you any friends. Use Lily of the Valley as a reminder to keep some humility along with pride in your abilities.

To grow this reminder in your garden, you don’t actually need much. They love partial shade and moist soil, but get along with full sun to full shade, or even dry. Plant in the late fall.

As all parts are toxic when ingested, take care when using it as a floral arrangement around pets and children. They’re a pretty adaptable flower, working well with many other flowers or as a simple arrangement on its own.

Lavender For Charisma

You never see one lavender flower alone. Even one stem contains many flowers, and a lavender plant keeps growing more stems. Like lavender, you’re rarely alone as you’re great at making friends. You’re both full of charisma and charm. There’s nothing that says “I got to go there” like a lavender field at sunset.

Representing silence and serenity, this flower also reminds you that even though you love being surrounded by friends or studying the world, you still need time to relax by yourself. Once you’ve rested and given your mind time to process, you’ll be even better at your pursuits.

To bring lavender into your garden, pick up seedlings from a garden centre or challenge yourself by growing them from seed (the difficulty may appeal to you as a Gemini). If you have mild winters, you can plant them directly into a garden bed, but they also thrive in containers.

As a cut flower, you can either use fresh lavender flowers or dry them for a bouquet that will last for years.

Daffodil for Hope

Like Lily of the Valley, daffodils represent rebirth and new beginnings as its one of the first perennials to bloom in the spring. It symbolises your beginner’s mind and the childlike wonder and curiosity you have as a Gemini when facing the world.

Their bright white, cheery yellow, and orange hues brighten up the garden wherever you go, just as you brighten up your friends’ day.

In China, they’re believed to bring good luck and prosperity. Cancer research organisations use the yellow daffodil as a symbol of hope to find cures. (The ability to learn quickly, taking a fresh look, and processing that information into real-world uses would certainly come in handy for that.) There’s even a variety called Gemini Girl!

To bring cheer and good luck to your garden, plant these perennial bulbs in the fall in clusters. When winter passes, they’ll pop right up.

Plant one of these 4 Gemini birth flowers for yourself or brighten up your favourite Gemini’s day with a bouquet.

Chrysanthemum for Cherishing

As a Gemini, you’re great at making friends and talking with a lot of different people. And while some may claim that having too many friends means those relationships must be superficial, that doesn’t have to be true. Chrysanthemums represent long-lasting and truly meaningful friendship.

Chrysanthemums also represent positive energy. Giving a bouquet of chrysanthemums will cheer up a despondent friend. Likewise, Gemini are full of childlike joy and delight, seeing the wonder in everyday minutia and bringing joy and ease to relationships. In North America, they represent longevity and love, and are a great flower to give friends suffering or recovering from illness.

To bring this cheerful energy to your garden, either start them indoors during the winter or direct sow in mid-September to October. In mild climates, with a little winter insulation, they will come back year after year.

For a bouquet, you can go with just chrysanthemums or match them with roses and lilies, or other large flowers.

Flower of the Week: Sweetpea

Flower of the Week:

Sweetpea

Despite the name, sweetpea is not just an aromatic pea, but a member of the genus Lathyrus in the Leguminosae family. As a hugely popular ornamental plant, sweetpea has large, bright, richly colored flowers that are distinctively fragrant. The plant blossoms each year in late spring and early summer for several weeks.

With its thin, weak stems, sweetpea is an annual climbing plant that requires fences or lattices for support when planted. Nonetheless, artificially selected sweetpeas have long, straight stalks and make good cut flower material.

A Beautiful Flower From Italy

Although native to southern Italy, Sicily, and the Aegean islands, sweetpea began showing up in European gardens in the late 17th century. The early history of its cultivation is very mysterious. Francisco Cupani was a Sicilian monk and botanist who brought sweetpeas to the attention of Europe when he sent seeds of various colors to the Netherlands and England. When it first hit the market, there were divergent theories about where it came from, with Malta, Sri Lanka, China, and even South America mistakenly identified as its original habitat.

After two centuries of cultivation, a very large number of sweetpea varieties have been developed. Some were adapted to growing in the garden, and others were more suitable for use as cut flowers. At the end of the 19th century, Scottish breeder Henry Eckford greatly enriched the strains of sweetpeas. He cultured more than 150 varieties of sweetpeas in his garden in Wem in Shropshire, England, including the revolutionary large flower line.

Since then, Eckford’s extensive exchanges with the American horticultural community made California one of the centers for sweetpea cultivation. California sweetpea seeds of various colors were not only sold to various parts of the United States, but also supplied in large quantities to the British market.

The Pursuit of Yellow

Sweetpeas are available in a wide range of pastel colors, including blue, orange, pink, white, and have many two-tone and even multi-colored varieties, but there has never been a yellow strain. Horticulturists have been as ardent in their quest for yellow sweetpeas as they have been for blue roses, but have had little success.

In recent years, horticulturists have attempted to hybridize sweetpea with Lathyrus belinensis of the same genus, even employing embryo rescue techniques, to try to introduce the latter’s yellow gene into sweetpeas. The experiment has produced some interesting hybrids, but no stable yellow strains have emerged yet.

A Delightful Aroma

Sweetpeas are known for their aroma, which is “as delightful as the Mediterranean sun.” Their delicate, sweet scents have also led major brands to compete for the release of perfumes with sweetpea among the main notes.

However, the scent of sweetpea in perfume comes from the formulation of other fragrances, not from a direct extract like rose essential oil. The amount of fragrant substances that can be extracted from sweetpeas is too little to be of commercial value to the perfume industry.

Be Careful Of Toxicity

Although both its flowers and seeds are similar to peas, ingesting large amounts of sweetpeas can cause severe osteolathyrism. The toxins contained in sweetpeas affect the formation of collagen, resulting in damage to bones and connective tissues.

Sweetpea pods

However, there is now research looking to turn these toxic substances into useful drugs. For example the toxins might be able to prevent disruption of skin contraction after skin-grafting.

Can I Grow Sweetpea Well?

Sweetpeas are easy to cultivate, requiring just a little extra care. Varieties can be selected according to your needs. The classic varieties tend to have stronger aromas, while new varieties have more colorful flowers.

They prefer to grow in environments with warm winters and cool summers, ample sunlight, and humid air. They have moderate water requirements, are intolerant of waterlogging and frost, and need protection in open-field cultivation. Also, fencing is required in areas where hares are present.

After the final singling of seedlings, each sweetpea plant should be equipped with a climbing pole, and after the plant grows taller than 30 cm, they can be pinched back to promote branching. In the peak growing season, the rapid growth of sweetpea branches require pruning and tendril removal. Overly dense side-branches should also be removed promptly; otherwise, blooming can be hindered. In the flowering season, sweetpeas need a potassium-rich compound fertilizer once a month.

The first round of sweetpea flowers are usually short-stalked and small, and can be cut back to promote the second round of bloom.

Size: 1-2.5 m tall, 0.3-0.6 m wide

Hardiness: USDA Zone 3-9

Light: Full sun, half shade

Soil: Well-drained loamy, sandy, or clay soil, slightly alkaline

Bloom Time: Late spring to early summer. Certain varieties keep blooming until fall.

Houseplant Soil 101: Necessary Ingredients and DIY Recipe

Houseplant soil is very different to the soil that your outdoor plants are growing in. Because your plants are living in pots, they need an open mix that can hold some moisture but is also free draining. Here’s all you need to know and an easy do-it-yourself recipe.

When it comes to growing lush and healthy houseplants, the soil that you use is of the utmost importance. Because your plants are growing in pots, their soil requirements are far different to those plants growing outside in the ground. The roots of your houseplants are confined to just the soil in the pot, and garden soil does not have the right structure for roots grown in a confined space. Plus, the soil in your garden can easily become compacted when it dries out too much.

In order for your houseplants to thrive, you have to use a good quality potting mix. You can either purchase a ready-made mix from your local garden centre or you can easily make your own if you’re keen.

The Necessary Ingredients in a Quality Potting Mix

A quality potting mix needs to be open, friable and lightweight. For healthy roots, the soil that they grow in has to have air pockets. This is because roots need air as well as water and nutrients. If the soil becomes too compacted, the roots of your plants will suffocate.

Your potting mix also needs to have a little water retention so it doesn’t dry out too quickly but it also has to be free draining. If the soil becomes waterlogged and doesn’t drain freely, the roots will also suffocate due to lack of air. Plus, most roots will rot if they sit in water for too long.

A good potting mix should have a combination of the following ingredients.

• Compost. This could be compost made from vegetative materials such as vegetable scraps, grass clippings, dry leaves and composted bark. Many commercial mixes also use peat moss or coconut coir. However, in recent years, it’s become apparent that peat moss is not sustainable and the peat bogs that it’s harvested from are slowly diminishing.

For this reason, it’s far more advisable to use coconut coir which is a sustainable and renewable product with similar qualities. Coconut coir is a by-product of the coconut industry and is made from coconut husks.

Other ingredients that are used in the compost part of the mix are animal manures and worm castings. This compost provides your plants with their initial nutrient requirements.

• Perlite or vermiculite. These two ingredients help to aerate the mix and to retain moisture. They’re derived from mined minerals and volcanic glass. They help to keep the mix both light and friable. Most commercial mixes will use one or the other and you can do the same if you’re making your own mix.

• Sand. This helps to improve the drainage of the mix. Coarse builder’s sand is the type of sand that is commonly used. The larger sand particles open up the mix, to create air pockets for the water to flow through and drain away easily.

• Fertilizer. Although the compost does contain many nutrients, these will quickly be used up by the roots of the plant. That’s why a lot of commercial potting mixes also add a slow-release fertilizer. These slow-release granules will release their nutrients as the plant needs them.

How to Make Your Own Potting MIX

If you have many houseplants and you’re repotting often, you might like to make your own mix. It’s really simple and ensures that the mix contains all the necessary ingredients for healthy plant growth. Here’s a simple basic recipe to get you started.

All these ingredients can be purchased from your local garden center. When measuring out your ingredients, it’s important to measure them by volume rather than by weight. This is because some ingredients have a greater mass weight than others.

Once you’ve measured out your ingredients, it’s just a case of mixing them together really well. You can do this in a wheelbarrow, a garden cart, a large plastic bin or even on a groundsheet.

Store any mix that you don’t use immediately in a sealed plastic bag or a garbage bin with a sealed lid. You want to ensure that no critters get into the mix while it’s stored. Therefore, make sure you keep it in a cool, dry spot out of direct sunlight.

This mix is ideally suited to most houseplants. However, if you’re growing succulents or orchids, you will need a different mix. This is because succulents prefer a much drier mix or one that will dry out quickly. Orchids, on the other hand, are epiphytes and don’t need compost in their mix.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you now understand the basic soil requirements of your houseplants and why you should never use garden soil in your pots. The mix that you grow your plants in has to provide them with all the water and nutrients that are necessary for healthy and lush growth.

The potting mix needs to be open to allow for air pockets and free drainage. It also needs to be light so that the roots can easily access all the water and nutrients that they need.

In addition, the mix has to have some water holding capacity so that it doesn’t dry out completely. Remember that plants growing in pots indoors will have different water requirements to those that grow outdoors in the ground.

When selecting a commercial potting mix, make sure that you check the ingredients on the packaging and buy the best quality that you can afford. Or, you can save yourself some money and easily make your own mix using the easy recipe above.

How to Install a Pond in Your Garden Area

While a garden pond is an enticing idea to many, building such a feature calls for you to follow a distinct set of steps. Each step is vital to the health and success of your pond. This article will give you clear insight into each part of the process.

Many people dream of having an impressive water feature in their garden. One of the best ways to achieve that vision is to install a pond in your yard. Ponds can be both highly attractive, and they can do their part to support the local ecosystem. Reaping those two rewards will only come about if you are able to successfully plan and install your garden pond. This article will serve as a guide to help you do just that. Read on to learn about the steps you will need to take to add a pond to your garden area.

Plan the Size, Shape, and Location of Your Pond

Installing a pond in your yard requires some significant forethought. The first issues you’ll need to address are the size, shape, and location of your new pond. One of the best ways to determine those characteristics is to use a combination of field measurements and plan view sketch drawings.

Regarding size, you will need to evaluate the overall space you have available in your yard. As you would expect, a smaller yard will only allow a relatively small pond. Those with more acreage will have more leeway when deciding their pond’s size. Regardless of how large your yard is, your goal at this stage is to integrate your pond into your landscape without creating a conflict with any existing features.

After gaining a rough idea of how large you would like your pond to be, you can proceed to determining the exact shape and location of the pond. Ideally, you should locate your pond on a relatively flat portion of land. This will make excavation a much simpler task. You should also locate your pond near a power supply so that you can run your pump and filtration system with ease. When it comes to shape, the form you choose for your pond is partly a matter of what will work well with the unique existing features of your pond and partly a matter of personal taste.

Excavate Your Pond Safely

Now that you have figured the basics of where your pond will be and what it will generally look like, you are ready to begin excavation. But, before you do, you need to make sure it is safe to dig in the area where you intend to install your pond.

Be mindful of any utility lines that may run underground where you plan to excavate. Making contact with a powerline while digging can be extremely dangerous. So, before you dig, double-check to make sure you know what is underground.

When you are confident that you can dig safely, begin excavating in accordance with the drawing you created in the last step. Create the general shape of your pond first. Then you can fine-tune any curves later on as you see fit.

Install a Pond Liner

A pond liner is an essential component of any man-made pond. These liners play a pivotal role in maintaining the water level in your pond. Without one of these liners, your pond water would likely seep through the soil below, leading to an empty pond.

With the shape of your pond excavated, all you need to do is lay the liner on the bottom and sides of the pond. Leave some excess on either side of the pond. Then place stones on top of the liner where it overlaps with the edge of the pond. This will help keep your liner in place over the years.

Add Plants to Your Pond

Aquatic plants are a vital component of any garden pond. These plants not only add to the appearance of your pond but also help to keep the water clean and provide support for local wildlife. There are two ways that you can add plants to your new pond.

The first way to grow pond plants is with containers. You can find containers that are ideal for pond settings. Once you do, simply put your plant in that container and rest the container on top of your liner. This approach will help container the plant roots so that they do not disrupt the liner as they grow.

The other way to grow plants in your pond is to plant them in soil. If you choose this method, you should add a layer of clay soil on top of the liner. Then plant your aquatic plants in that soil. Choosing this route could lead to some root damage to the liner in the future. But on the plus side, it creates a more naturalistic look.

Install a Pond Pump and Filtration System

Plants help a lot to filter the water in your pond. But it is still a smart idea to incorporate a pond pump and filtration system. These systems can come in several different varieties, all of which serve the same fundamental purpose. Your pump and filter will keep your pond water moving so that it is harder for algae blooms to form. It can also remove a great deal of filth and particles from the water. As long as you located your pond close to a power supply, you should have no issue running your pump and filter.

Fill Your Pond

This final installation step is the easiest one. All you need to do is turn on your garden hose and fill your pond with water. As you fill the pond, check to make sure that your liner remains in place. If it does, your pond will be complete as soon as it is full of water.

Keep Up With Pond Maintenance

Our final pond tip is to stay up-to-date with all forms of pond maintenance. Ponds require a lot of care and attention, so if you are not willing to keep up with your maintenance tasks, a pond is not right for you.

Most importantly, you should clean your pond often. Removing items like dead leaves or other plant debris will discourage the formation of algae. You should also check your pump, filter, and water level regularly. Doing so will allow you to notice any issues as soon as they arise. If you follow these care tips and the steps we described for installation, you’ll get to enjoy your pond for years to come.

Flower of the Week: Viticella Group Clematis

Flower of the Week:

Viticella Group Clematis

Clematis (Clematis spp.), crowned the “Queen of Vine Flowers”, is a family of flowering deciduous climbing plants. With a flowering season that lasts from summer to fall, it can be planted in open fields or in pots to decorate yards or balconies. Clematis flowers can also be appreciated as cut flowers, lasting over a week in clean water.

The cultivars of clematis consist of a complex family, including 12 different groups. Among those, viticella group clematis, belonging to Cultivar Group 3, is a small-flowered variety that became popular in recent years. Compared to the large-flowered clematis which was popular earlier, viticella group clematis flowers are small and plentiful, with a flower diameter of 4-13 cm. Clematis only blooms on the new branches of each year’s growth.

Viticella group clematis originates from Southern Europe. It’s more adaptable to various climates and more disease-resistant, making it perfect for gardening beginners and enthusiasts.

Forming a Scenic Wall of Blossoms

Clematis’s best partner is a wire lattice (with the diameter of the support structures less than 2 cm). When the plant matures, flowers and leaves interweave to form a thick layer of beauty on the wire grid.

Growing clematises and Chinese roses together on the wall of blossoms could create a charming scene. One dark- and the other light-colored, Chinese roses provide vining support to clematises, while clematises fill up the gaps on a wall of Chinese roses. The duo’s flower seasons start and end at different times, but overlap for a period. To supplement the wall of blossoms, try lilies and iris.

Fake Petals

Clematis flowers generally have 4 to 8 “petals,” though there are also double varieties. However, the so-called “petals” of clematis, as with all other ornamental plants in the Ranunculaceae family, are actually calyxes: sepals forming a whorl that encloses the petals and forms a protective layer around a bud. For some double varieties, the ornamental parts include the calyxes and the vestigial stamens.

Popularity Trends Under Artists' Painting Brushes

Quite a number of famous artists have painted clematis-themed subjects, tracing the change in popularity trends of clematis from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Curious which shapes and colors of the flower are more in style in a particular era? Look for answers in the paintings!

Henri Fantin-Latour (France) Rose and Clematis, 1883

Oscar-Claude Monet (France) Clematis, 1897

Alphonse Mucha (Czech) Clematis, 1897-1898

Anna Archer (Denmark) Living Room with Lilac Curtains and Blue Clematis, 1913

Nicolae Tonitza (Romania) Clematis Red Flowers, 1935

Can I Grow Clematis Well?

Clematis likes light but can’t tolerate sunburn. Its succulent roots like loose, air-permeable substrate, prefer moisture, don’t tolerate waterlogging, are cold-resistant, and love a slightly cooler climate. It’s best to grow clematis in sun-facing places with good drainage.

Late Large Flowered Clematis ‘Ville de Lyon’

Choose a seedling with a plump root ball and transplant it to a planting pit bottomed with ample base fertilizers, deep enough so the first two clusters of leaves are fully buried into the ground. Cover with soil carefully, water thoroughly, and cover with a 5 cm-thick layer of organic mulch, such as shredded bark. If the soil is clay-heavy, mix perlite, vermiculite, or sand in the soil to improve its air permeability.

In daily care, keep the soil moist and it well-drained, too, especially in rainstorm-heavy summers. Apply liquid fertilizers once a week from the beginning of the flower season through the end. As the seedlings begin to grow, guide them with gentle ties to the wire lattice or stakes so they grow in the direction you desire.

One of the viticella group clematis’ key features is that its flowers only bloom on the newly-sprouted branches of the year. Thus, pruning needs to be performed in accordance with its variety, considering where flowers may blossom after new branches develop. When pruning, try to keep plump, robust buds beneath the cuts. Remove spent blooms so nutrients promote new ones. In the fall, prune heavily for winter dormancy.

Size: 2-4.5 m tall, 0.5-2 m wide

Hardiness: USDA Hardiness Zones 4-11

Light Duration: Full day to half shade

Soil: Moist, well-drained sandy soil, loam soil, or chalk soil

Blooming Time: Summer

Zodiac Flowers: Taurus

As a Taurus, have you ever wondered about what your zodiac flowers might be? Learn all about these lovely zodiac flowers and how to easily grow them in your own garden.

If you were born between April 21 and May 21, then you’re a Taurus. Taurus is the bull, and its constellation is one of the oldest in the world, originating in Ancient Mesopotamia as the Great Bull of Heaven. This constellation marked the time to plow and plant vital plants, and to this day, represents the element of earth. So what better way to celebrate your birth sign than with growing these four Taurus birth flowers?

Tauruses have a steady, patient, and generous personality. With your endurance and stubbornness, you’re in it for the long haul, dedicating yourself to seeing projects and relationships to the end. These positive traits can turn against you if you stick with something long after it stopped being a good idea.

Here are 4 Taurus birth flowers and their meanings!

Poppies for Persistence

Today, poppies are most often used to symbolise the massive deaths in World War I, since they thrived in barren fields churned up by fighting and shelling. That’s because poppies are resilient. While other plants struggled to return, poppies sprouted and grew everywhere, standing their ground. Like poppies, Tauruses are persistent and resilient, keeping going even when faced with monumental challenges.

The other, more historical association with poppies is opium, which added pleasure and oblivion to its meaning. They’re also incredibly beautiful, representing a Taurus’ love of being surrounded by love and natural beauty.

Poppies will bring beauty in warm reds and oranges to your garden year after year. It’s best to sow seeds in the fall or early winter as they require stratification. They will self-seed.

Cut poppies are rather delicate and require careful handling. Pair them with other wildflowers, with the poppies facing different angles so that you can fully appreciate their beautiful petals and black underside. Or wait until poppies go to seed and use the seed pods as accents.

Roses for Relationships

Like Taurus, the planet Venus rules over roses, making roses the primary birth flower for Taurus. Today, we mainly think of roses as flowers of romance. You give your special someone a bouquet of roses on Valentine’s Day.

But depending on their colour, roses symbolise many aspects of relationships, from the romantic (red), to perfect happiness (pink), to friendship (yellow), to unity (red and white), to gratitude (peach), to mourning the loss of someone (dark crimson). As a Taurus, you dedicate yourself to your chosen relationships.

Roses are a fantastic, fragrant addition to the garden. They’re much easier to grow than commonly thought. As a gift, consider a miniature potted rose so they can enjoy their fragrance in their home.

As a cut flower, they’re best as a single flower bouquet with baby’s breath for contrast, or mixed in with other bold flowers.

Foxglove for Practical Creativity

Foxglove represents insincerity, and sometimes, when you’ve got your head done grinding away, you come off to others as not expressing your genuine emotions. But you can also be wildly creative, intuitive, and magic, just like foxglove.

Foxglove contains a chemical called digitalis. When taken in correct doses, digitalis heals many heart conditions. But when taken in excess, it can prove deadly. Likewise, as a Taurus, your greatest strength — your endurance and persistence — can be your greatest weakness.

In the garden, foxglove makes a magical addition to flower beds with its bell-shaped flowers. To grow, press seeds into the soil in the autumn (no need to cover with soil). Foxgloves will reseed themselves each year.

Unlike the other flowers, foxglove is better in your garden than in a bouquet, as it can be quite toxic when ingested. Keep it away from children and pets.

Roses, poppies, daisies, and foxgloves. All seemingly different, but adding up to the determinate, persistence, practicality, creativity, and valued relationships that Taurus are most known for. Plant one of these Taurus birth flowers for yourself, or give as a gift to a Taurus friend.

Daisies for Determination

Daisies are actually composite flowers, meaning each one is actually two flowers combined into one. This gives them the symbolism of true love, as two flowers complete each other, and represent a Taurus’ devotion.

In the 1800s, “ups-a-daisy” was coined to encourage children to get up when they fell, which has become “oopsy daisy” or “whoops-a-daisy”, another callback to a Taurus’ tenacity. When you stumble in a challenge, you get back up and keep persisting. Daisies also represent fresh hope and new beginnings.

Daisies are a perfect low-maintenance addition to your garden as a simple pleasure. They’re rhizomatic, so they spread quickly once planted.

As a cut flower, you can either keep the bouquet to just daisies (put the tallest ones in the centre), or add to a mixed flower arrangement. Giving your special someone a gift of red daisies means that you’re utterly devoted to them.

How to Make a Neat Edge for Your Flower Bed

It may not seem like the edge of your flower bed matter. However, the truth is that a neat edge on a garden bed can give your landscape a more professional appearance. Thankfully, making a neat edge is a simple task that you can learn in just a few minutes.

Neat edges on your flower beds are a sign of a well-cared-for landscape. While these edges are a subtle detail compared to the rest of your garden, they are surprisingly effective in making your garden look like a professional team created it. Along with that visual appeal, a good edge also serves a functional role by setting a clear delineation between your beds and the other areas of your property. That is why we created this guide to help you create by yourself.

Define the Shape of the Bed

Before you make your flower bed edge, you need to define the shape and size of your flower bed. You’ll have complete artistic license over the general form of the bed. The more important matter here is that you have a clear idea of what you intend to create from the beginning. One of the best ways to envision your flower bed is to lay a rope or some similar item on the ground. A garden hose will work well for this as well. Once you have made your flower bed shape, you can follow along your hose as you cut the edge.

At times, it can be tempting to make a bed with many wild curving lines. These complex curves may be your preference. However, there are a few reasons they may not be the most desirable shape. First, the more complicated your bed shape is, the harder it will be to make an accurate edge that matches your intended shape. Also, if your flower bed borders a lawn, a complex shape will make it difficult to maneuver your lawnmower around the bed. For those reasons, keeping your bed shape simple is likely a better choice.

Cut the Edge With a Flat Shovel

The quickest and easiest way to make an edge for your flower bed is to use a flat shovel. At your local garden supply store, you’ll find some shovels whose main purpose is to create garden bed edges. But if you don’t have one of those specialty edging shovels, any shovel with a flat blade will work. Once you have that tool, follow these steps until you have cut a neat edge along the entire perimeter of the bed:

After you complete that process, there is one important tip that you will need to follow to ensure that your edge is as effective as it can be. Make sure that you never fill your edge to the top with soil or mulch. Filling the edge will make the edge less definitive. It will also make it far easier for plants from outside the bed to grow into the bed. So, instead of filling the edge, make sure that you leave about an inch or two of the edge empty.

As we just mentioned, this is by far the fastest way to make a neat edge. However, this method is also the least long-lasting. Since there is no physical material holding the soil in place, the edge will eventually erode. Because of that natural process, this method requires you to recreate your edge occasionally. If that does not sound appealing to you, the next section will provide you with some alternative options.

Consider an Edge Material

Instead of simply cutting the earth with a shovel, you can use a stronger material that will hold your garden bed edge in place for longer. Here are a few of the most common materials that gardeners use to make neat edges on their flower beds:

Making an edge with these materials will take much longer, but your edge will have greater longevity. This approach also gives you the chance to select a material that will complement and enhance the appearance of your garden.

Why Flower Bed Edges Are Important

Flower bed edges contribute to the overall visual effect that your garden has. However, there is also a practical use for these edges. In most cases, flower beds will exist adjacent to a lawn or some other planted area. A strong edge to the bed serves as a barrier between those two spaces. Regardless of how you make your edge, it will help to prevent grass or other plants from growing into your flower beds. This can make maintenance easier as there is less of a chance that you will need to pull unwanted plants out of your garden.

5 Ways to Use Geometry in Garden Design

Geometry plays a big role in every great garden, from ratios to proportions. Learn how to use 5 simple tricks to design a classically beautiful, balanced garden.

You know how some gardens feel just right? In a well-designed garden, everything seems to harmonize, and it isn’t a coincidence. Exceptional gardens don’t just happen—they are rooted in solid design principles, wise plant selections, and good old geometry. That’s right, geometry. Don’t worry if math isn’t your thing, because garden geometry isn’t about calculations. Garden geometry means using volumes and shapes so that your garden feels balanced and beautiful, rather than chaotic and thrown together.

Garden designers use form, function, lines, and symmetry in their work. The end result might seem like magic, but it isn’t. You can use and apply these well-understood ratios and easy-to-follow guidelines to your own gardens. The basic rules and principles of garden geometry are covered in detail below.

Using Form in the Garden

Form refers to shapes, starting with the built environment—your house, fence, shed, pool— then garden elements—trees, shrubs, trellises, pathways, and ornamental plants. To create a garden with good geometry, look at the form of the buildings around it and design garden beds that complement the overall shapes and dimensions. Large evergreen shrubs and small trees are often referred to as “foundation plantings” because they visually anchor gardens. Use foundation plantings to create focal points and to give an overall sense of entry, enclosure, and dimension to your garden.

Line in the Landscape

Good use of line is what separates amateur gardens from professional ones. Beneath the lush growth and wildness, a “regulating line” is what gives a garden a sense of order and structure. You can use any part of the built environment to establish a line: A swimming pool, the edges of a deck or patio, a fence, gate, or exterior house wall. The line is an invisible ordering mechanism that you use to organize the garden. Use this principle to decide where elements such as pathways and borders start, end, and intersect.

This is not to say that you must use straight lines, certainly not! Establishing regulating lines gives you a framework to guide where all of the elements should go. A curved path or a round fire pit and seating area should be in a harmonious relationship to the lines governing the flow of the garden. Design elements can be centered, off-set, or aligned to the regulating lines. Play around with lines, marking them with ropes or landscape paint to see how they look before you commit to them.

Repetition and Pattern

One of the most powerful ways to apply geometry in your garden is through the use of repetition. There are many different ways to establish a pattern, including color, shape, texture, and even with building materials. For example, if your home has a red brick exterior, you could install pathways using brick pavers, or use brick in the construction of your flowerbed borders. You can also lay out a garden on a formal grid or repeat the same plant palette throughout the garden to establish rhythm and pattern. These cohesive elements make a garden feel intentional and will give your garden a more professional overall look and feel.

Working With Scale

Understanding scale in the garden can be a little tricky, especially if you are a beginner. It can help to imagine the garden as a room in a house. First comes your foundation: the walls and ceiling, next you have furniture, and last you have decorative items. In the garden, you have your buildings and your foundation plantings; next pathways, fire pits, seating areas, and swimming pools; and last you have your ornamental plantings. In a vegetable garden you might have walls, fences, and fruit trees; then trellises and raised beds, followed by veggies and flowers.

The most critical thing to grasp about scale is to “stack” elements from large to small so that taller things are in the background and smaller plants and elements are in the foreground. You want to create transitions between smaller garden elements and larger ones by having plants of intermediate height in between. You’ll notice that in professionally designed gardens, this effect makes it feel like you are in a room or series of rooms. You can also use scale to visually draw attention to a focal point—like a statue or a colorful Japanese maple—by placing it in an area with low groundcover plants or hardscape so that it is the most prominent feature.

Symmetry and Balance

Symmetry and balance are at the heart of creating gardens that are pleasing to the eye. The ultimate example of symmetry in garden design is the crisp, ornate parterre garden at Versaille. While a garden of this level of sophistication isn’t possible without full-time staff, it is possible to take inspiration from it and apply it to your own garden. Consider planting solid borders of one ornamental plant and then filling the border with masses of color in an orderly, symmetrical arrangement.

Some people have an innately good sense of proportion and are able to intuitively arrange large and small elements harmoniously. The rest of us can create balance in an asymmetrical garden by using the classical “golden ratio”. Used in garden design, this ratio of 1: 1.6 becomes the “golden rectangle.” Put simply, if a rectangle has sides A and B, then to achieve the golden ratio it should measure A÷B = B÷(A+B). The math is simple, and it is the reason why you see garden beds that measure 5 by 8 feet (1.5 by 2.4 meters).

Even if you’re just a beginner, using these principles of garden geometry will give your garden a professional look. If you’re an experienced gardener, they can help you improve or reinforce what you already know.

What You’ll Need to Create a Classic Cottage Garden

The classic cottage garden is one of the most popular styles around. But to achieve that appearance, you need to understand the critical elements of this design style. Read through this article to learn what those elements are and how you can develop them on your property.

A cottage garden is a place where you can expect to find a wild abundance of colorful plant life. Yet while these gardens are informal, they also have a few distinct traits that set them apart from other styles. This article will introduce you to those defining elements while giving you an idea of what you’ll need to create an enchanting cottage garden of your own.

Find an Area With Plenty of Sunlight

The first element you will need for your cottage garden is ample sunlight. Since bold masses of flowers are one of the hallmarks of this style, you will need to ensure that your area has enough daily light to support those species. It is not impossible to design a cottage garden in an area of partial shade. However, the best examples of cottage gardens are those that receive six to eight hours of sunlight each day.

Design Your Path System

After selecting a sunny location for your cottage garden, it is time to begin designing. The first element that you should design is your path system. While plants are the stars of the show in a cottage garden, the comparatively dull path system that runs through those plants is vital to the functionality of the garden.

There are no hard rules for how your path system should work. However, there are a few guidelines you should keep in mind at this stage. The paths you lay are what will allow you to access and maintain the plants you will grow later on. While a cottage garden may look like an area where plants have free reign to grow as they please, the truth is that those plants require a lot of ongoing care to look their best.

You should also consider creating multiple paths that connect to one another or a path that forms a loop. This approach will allow you and your garden guests to circulate through the entire garden and admire the plants that grow there. Remember that as you design your paths, you are simultaneously designing your planting beds. The voids left over after your paths are complete are where your plants will live.

The last tip we will give you about cottage garden paths relates to materials. If you want to make your cottage garden authentic, you should use a material such as gravel or crushed bricks. These materials are what you would find in a traditional cottage garden in England, where the style originated.

Focus On Flower Variety

Now that you have created your paths and your garden beds, it is time to move on to the most exciting part of planning a cottage garden. The plants that you choose to grow are what will bring your cottage garden to life. Unlike some other styles, cottage garden design almost always includes a wide array of plant life, including many types of colorful flowers.

A Few Flowering Plants Cottage Garden

An alluring cottage garden boasts copious amounts of flowers. Often, masses of perennial plants are the best way to achieve that look. Here are some of the many perennial flowering species that you should consider planti

Include Edible Plants

Flowering plants are not the only species you should plant. If you know the history of cottage gardens, then you understand that they originally served a functional role. Most notably, cottage gardens were where herbs and vegetables grew that would later find their way into the cottage kitchen. As such, the best cottage gardens are those that feature both flowers and edible plants

Some Easy Herbs and Vegetables for Cottage Gardens

The edible plants that you should grow are those that are tastiest to you. But if you are searching for a few types that would belong in a traditional cottage garden, here are a few authentic options:

Add Structure to the Garden

With your paths and plants in place, it is time to add the final touches to your cottage garden. A few structural elements will make your garden look complete. However, the structures that exist in a cottage garden are a bit different than those you might find in another garden style. Cottage garden structures don’t typically serve as focal points that draw attention to themselves. Instead, they are often somewhat rustic but also functional.

You could add a wooden fence to define the extent of your garden, or you can add structures that will allow you to grow hanging plants. But while those are great options, there is another garden structure that should have a home in your cottage garden. An arbor is one of the most common structures you can find in one of these gardens. Most often, a cottage garden arbor will provide support for any climbing plants you grow. Regarding those species, climbing roses are most emblematic of a traditional cottage garden.

Do You Need a Cottage to Have a Cottage Garden?

A quality landscape design complements any nearby architecture. This principle leads to one pressing question on the topic of cottage gardens. What many people wonder is whether you can have a cottage garden even if you don’t live in a cottage. The simplest answer here is that you can design whatever type of garden you want, regardless of what kind of house you have.

However, there is a certain aesthetic charm that comes about when a cottage garden pairs with a quaint cottage home. Rest assured that there are other architectural styles that will also work well with a cottage garden. Most of these have a rustic appeal that complements the wildness of this garden design style. Still, even if you don’t own such a home, you shouldn’t let the architecture of your house prevent you from creating the cottage garden of your dreams. All you need to do is follow the advice in this article to turn that dream into reality.

How to Measure Your Garden to Create a Perfect Lawn Space

Creating a lawn space takes careful planning. In the early stages of the process, getting an accurate measurement of your future lawn space is one of your most important objectives. Fortunately, there are several reliable ways to measure the size and shape of your lawn.

A lush lawn space is a great place to play and relax in your garden. But healthy lawns only come about through a careful planning process. One of the most important aspects of that planning process is determining how large your lawn space will be. That is why we’ve created this guide to teach you how to measure your garden to create the perfect lawn space.

Find the Right Measuring Tool

Before you can calculate your lawn area, you’ll need a way to take accurate measurements. Below are three of the most common tools that gardeners use to measure their yards:

Paces – This is the quickest but least accurate way to measure a lawn space. Simply walk along each dimension with even strides. Assume each stride is about three feet.
Tape Measure – Using a tape measure will give you greater accuracy than paces. However, in most cases, you will need a partner to hold the other end of the tape while you take measurements.
Measuring Wheel - A measuring wheel might be the best tool you can use when measuring an outdoor area. Measuring wheels will give you a quick, accurate measurement that you can take by yourself.

Measuring Regular Areas

The easiest areas to measure are those that are rectangular. All you will need to do is take the length and width of the area, then multiply those two figures.

There are a few other regular shapes that you should be prepared to measure as a part of your lawn. While rectangles may be the most common, you may encounter triangles and circles as well. Thankfully, finding the areas of those shapes is also straightforward.

For a circular lawn area, measure the radius. Then square that number and multiply the product by pi. For a triangle, multiply the base by the height. Then divide that number by two to find the area. At times, a garden space may consist of multiple regular shapes that connect to one another. In that instance, measure each shape individually and add their areas together at the end.

Measuring Irregular Areas

Measuring an irregular lawn area is a far more difficult task, which will require you to make some approximations. To help you with this task, we recommend that you use a pencil and graph paper to create a bird’s-eye-view drawing of your garden.

Use the gridlines to make sure your drawing is at an accurate scale. For example, you could imagine that one square on the graph paper represents one square foot of actual garden space. Alter this scale as you see fit based on the size of your lawn.

Next, you will need to sketch your garden in its current state. Remember, your drawing does not need to be aesthetically pleasing. Instead, it will serve a functional role in helping you determine the size of your lawn. After establishing the existing features, draw your desired lawn area. The next step will be easier if you shade in this lawn space.

After shading the lawn on your drawing, count how many squares the lawn fills completely. Use your scale factor to calculate that rectangular area. Then look at the squares that the lawn covers only partly. Evaluate these squares one at a time and estimate the percentage of each square that the lawn covers. Use your scale factor and that percentage to approximate the lawn space area for that square. Complete that process for every partly filled square and add each area to your total.

Once you have your total, you are ready to purchase sod. Our final tip here is to ere on the side of buying slightly more than you need rather than slightly less. After all, it is better to have a full lawn space with some leftover sod than it is to have an incomplete lawn. With that in mind, you are now well on your way to adding a pleasant grassy area to your garden.