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| Gardening With Love – Choose Your Plants And Care For Them | February 7, 2007, 6:00 pm | visits: 72 | wordcount: 684
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By Susan Esterbill
Crowded gardens and uncoordinated plant size, colors and varieties are typical results of our knack for purchasing plants on an impulse. Without any landscaping insights, we waste our money on plants that do not add aesthetic value to our gardens. More often than not, we do not examine the basic elements of our gardens. Take a minute and look at your plants. Are they the sun-loving types, or are they the shade-loving ones? Do they withstand prolonged heat and dryness or are they the water-loving type?
Gardening Conditions
How about your garden soil? Do you know if your soil needs fertilizers or is it alright just as it is? How about the soil pH? Is your soil pH low or high? Most plants prefer soil that low in pH level. If it is necessary to adjust the pH of the soil then do so, but it may be difficult to lower the ph in alkaline clay soils. Soil pH affects the nutrient availability of your soil. Very low pH tends to make iron, aluminum and other metals more available, while high pH has other effects. Knowing the ph range of your soil and selecting plants that naturally grow well in that range is often best.
Does your soil hold water like clay, or drain too fast like sand? To know what type of soil you have, check if your plants are exhibiting waterlogged conditions or if some parts of the roots are missing or rotten. Too much moisture allows the growth of unwanted fungi and bacteria.
Plants also are susceptible to diseases and insect pests. They make your plants look ugly and of course, kill them. The disease-causing agents are found in the soil where the root grows. Protect them with fungicides either applied through a drench or spray. Insecticide sprays protect your plants best. But the environment-friendly way of protecting your plants is using other insect-repelling plants or beneficial insects. Garlic and soap could be used as repellant against insect pests.
Landscaping Considerations
Now that you know a few basic gardening considerations, landscaping or arranging your plants so that they do not oppose each other is your next consideration. Do not buy one kind of each variety then arrange singly. You'll have a dotted effect. Arrange your plants so that they complement each other.
Arrange your plants in groups if they complement in color and size prior to planting them in a permanent spot. Do a trial combination of your plants in a temporary bed. Keep arranging and rearranging them until you are satisfied with the combinations. Do not put towering plants in front of bushes. Find contrasting colors from among your flowering plants.
Predict the time when your plants will show their flowers and what their color will be. Will they dominate one another or complement each other? If they have different flowering times, arrange them side-by-side so that your garden will always be flowing with flowers throughout the year.
Plants' foliage is also a consideration. Leaves provide the basic layout in color of a garden. The leaf sizes, shapes and shades should complement the plants. Foliage comes in various colors. Green is the most common but there's also purple, silver, red, and yellow leaves. Others, especially the perennials, shed their leaves in autumn.
Lastly…rules are meant to be broken! Maybe a scattering of different plants in the same color range looks great to you? Maybe you are a collector who sees beauty in the variety of individual plants instead of the design? Maybe you enjoy the challenge of growing things uncommon to your areas conditions? As long as you know why you are going against the grain, it may be worthwhile to do so!
About the Author: Susan Esterbill particularly enjoys planting, taking cut flowers, and even pulling th occasional weed. She is always on the lookout for interesting garden plants.
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