Perennials For Your Garden The Low Maintenance Choice

Writen by Jason Albright

Perennials are plants and flowers that will stay in your garden for more than one gardening season. Some perennials will bloom for up to three years, and others will bloom for longer. One of the best things about perennials is that they are very low maintenance, which makes them popular choices for a lot of people. Annuals require much more care and tending to. If you are looking for a simple garden that doesn't require much time and attention, try planting perennials. When you choose perennials carefully and plan their planting, they will last for many years.

When you plant perennials in your garden, don't expect to see much in the first year. During this first growing season, the perennials are getting used to their new environment. Some perennials will produce new blooms in the first year, but some won't have any progress until the second year. The second year for perennials is often the most dramatic. During this growing season, perennial plants and flowers start to fill out and take hold of their environment.

When you plant perennials, you need to pay careful attention to soil quality, water availability and sunlight. These factors can all affect the growth and longevity of your perennials. During your planning, make sure to plant your perennials with plenty of space for them to grow. Make sure not to put them too close together because you may have to move them in the future. Although this leaves some bare spots in your garden, it is important to leave room.

If you are concerned about the sparse look of your perennial garden in the first year, try planting annuals in the spaces between the perennials. The annual flowers will add color and vibrancy to your garden, but won't be in the way of the growth of your perennials. Annual plants and flowers grow and bloom for just one growing season, but they do bloom quickly and have an instant gratification factor that perennials don't offer.

© Cookgroup Marketing LLC - All Rights Reserved. This article brought to you by Grow-Your-Garden.com/ . You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice, author name, and URL remain intact. Jason Albright is a contributing editor at Cookgroup Marketing LLC. His background is with lifestyle topics including: Gardening, Outdoor Living, Home Decor & Travel Destinations.

The Garden Statue Stone Metal Or Gnome

Writen by Margarette Tustle

Enhance Your Yard Or Flower Bed

There are several types of garden statue available that will enhance your yard or flower bed with a tastefully decorative touch. You can choose from several different sizes, shapes, materials for your statue depending on your taste and your budget. You may want the statue to be a focal point on which all the other landscaping depends, or you may just want something to give that finishing touch to its small corner. There are statues on bases, statues that hang, and statues that are simply set on the ground. When you are putting in a garden statue you will need to consider the size, the location, the material, the design and where you will buy it.

Resin Statue

A resin statue is very popular because it is virtually indestructible and can be created to look like almost any other material. It is really hard plastic that can be molded into nearly any shape and painted to look like metal, stone, or wood. It is also a lightweight garden statue and can be cleaned simply by cleaning with soap and water.

Concrete Or Cement Statue

Another fairly inexpensive type of statue is the concrete or cement statue. These statues can be left "as-is" or painted. They can be molded into any shape, but they will not have the fine detail of some of the other garden statue materials so they are often fairly large. They are relatively inexpensive when compared to the real stone statues. They are heavy and withstand the elements fairly well, but if they are hit or knocked over they can be broken.

Fiberglass Statue

A fiberglass statue is much like a resin garden statue. Fiberglass is another form of lightweight plastic and can be easily cleaned, but they are often smoother than the resin statues and shinier as well. You can also clean it easily with soap and water.

Metallic Statue

For a more unusual look you might want to get a metallic garden statue. They come in copper, brass, iron, bronze and other metals. Some are meant to retain their sheen over time while others begin to oxidize and get a patina of green, turquoise, or rust coloring.

Stone Statue

When you think of stone statues you may envision the Roman or Greek masterpieces, but you will find that you can find some that may be perfect for your yard as well. Simulated stone is an alternative for your garden statue that allows the artist to get more detail without as much room for error. The simulated stone is just as strong and durable as real stone. Marble is a real stone that has been used for centuries to make statues in palaces and the finer homes. Marble comes in several colors and is beautiful and elegant and will add a touch of class to any garden statue.

Style Your Garden

If you want a new look for your garden, there are statues that have a beautiful glass ball incorporated into some part of the garden statue, either hanging from a chain or a hook or resting in a base. Some of the glass balls are just clear, but others have an iridescent quality. They reflect the sunlight and are really very charming.

As far as style, you can choose the whimsical-like fairies or gnomes, or the more classic styles that look like something from Rodin or Michelangelo's studio. There are modernistic forms filled with geometric shapes and straight lines. There are statues of children, animals, and almost anything you can think of. There is even a statue that fits right into the trunk of a tree that has an old gnome-like face, giving your tree a personality of its own.

Margarette Tustle writes ideas for home and family. Find statue resources for animal statues at dreamstatue.com

How To Attract Hummingbirds

Writen by Clyde Dennis

Yes! You can attract hummingbirds to your home. Even if you live in the middle of the city, and even if you've never had any luck getting them to come in the past.

Try one or more of these tips, and you should begin to see hummers around your yard soon.

Plant A Hummingbird Garden:

One good way to attract Hummingbirds is by planting a Hummingbird garden. In addition to providing them a natural diet, a hummer garden is an excellent way to attract birds to your nearby feeder since hummingbirds feed by sight on regularly followed routes. This is called traplining. Their inquisitive nature will quickly lead them to investigate any possible new source of food.

Hummers, like most birds, have virtually no sense of smell, the flowers that attract them tend to have little or no fragrance, apparently directing their resources instead toward high visibility and nectar production.

Some plants to consider that will attract Hummingbirds include:

Azalea

- Butterfly Bush (Buddleia)
- Cape Honeysuckle
- Manzanita
- Mimosa
- Red Buckeye
- Coral Honeysuckle
- Cypress Vine
- Morning Glory
- Trumpet Creeper
- Bee Balm (Monarda)
- Cardinal Flower
- Columbine
- Coral Bells
- Four O'Clocks
- Hummingbird Mint (Agastache)
- Penstemon
- Yucca
- Fuchsia
- Jewelweed
- Petunia
- Shrimp Plant

Note: none of these need to be red in color although the color red is attractive to hummingbirds.

If you're in doubt as to whether any of these will flourish in your area check with your local nursery.

You should avoid using any pesticides at all in your Hummingbird garden. The insects that you would kill off serve as a good source of protein for hummingbirds, and can also sicken or kill the birds if ingested.

Set up Hummingbird Feeders:

If you use a feeder and make your own nectar, a few words of caution.

Never use honey or artificial sweeteners. Honey ferments easily, and can cause sores in a hummers mouth. Artificial sweeteners have no food value. DO NOT use red food coloring in your solution, as this could be harmful to your hummers. Most feeders have red on them and that should be enough.

Your hummingbird feeders needs to be cleaned, and nectar changed every 3-4 days. Even more often in hot weather.

If you see black spots inside your feeder this is mold and you will need to scrub it out with a good bottle brush, but if you can't reach it with a bottle brush you can add some sand with water and shake the feeder to remove the mold.

You should never use harsh detergent to clean your feeder. Rinse out each time you change your nectar with hot water, and if you do this on a regular basis you should not have a problem with mold inside the feeder. Don't fill the feeder more than half full, because they won't be able to drink it all before it will need to be changed.

It seems all hummingbird feeders available for purchase these days have red on them, but if you are in doubt that there is enough red, try tying a red ribbon on the feeder.

Another way to attract attention to your feeder is to place it among flowers that hummers like, or hang a basket of flowers nearby.

You will find that feeder activity slows as more flowers bloom in your yard. Do not panic! They prefer natural nectar over what we give them in our feeders, so they are still around, and you will see them at your feeders more often, as the blooms start to diminish.

If you live in the Eastern part of the United States, you'll find you only have one type of hummingbird that will visit for the summer, and that is the Ruby-throated. They are very territorial and defend flowers and feeders within their favorite roost spot, so if you want to attract more than one hummer, try putting up 2 or 3 more feeders out of sight from each other. Perhaps on another side of your house.

Get more information and tips on attracting Hummingbirds by going to http://www.easyhow-to.com/hummingbirds.html

Happy humming birding!

Clyde Lee Dennis, a.k.a. "SmoothLee" has been bumping around on the web since 1999 and is a self described "Web Head, and Life long AVID music fan". Smooth Jazz Music in particular. In addition to writing CD Reviews for I Love Smooth Jazz.com he is also the Program Director, and can be heard during his daily radio show which airs on one of the internets most listened to smooth jazz radio stations, Smooth Jazz 24/7