Monthly Archives: September 2010

Butterfly Gardening

Enhance Your Walkthrough Garden With Wind Chimes

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Whether oriental in design, or a Southwest festival of color and flora variety, you can enhance your walkthrough garden with the use of wind chimes.

Nothing more perfectly enhances the garden yard décor and stimulates the senses like a quality crafted wind chime that has been precision tuned. Appealing to the eye, and alive with movement, wind chimes catch the wind and harmonize with nature; permeating the surrounding area with a tantalizing yet soothing aura of peace and tranquility.

The charm of a butterfly garden created to capture the color and activity of gossamer wings is further enhanced by the use of a wind chime. Stagger groups of wild and cultivated plants that are especially appealing to butterflies. But like wind chimes, all butterflies are not the same.

Butterflies have different nectar and flower color preferences. For instance, while the elegant Viceroy prefers milkweed and aster, the stately Monarch prefers goldenrod and thistle. Other favored flora varieties include butterfly weed, pink azalea, purple coneflower, marigold, and rosemary.

For longer garden life and increased butterfly activity, mix flower varieties that bloom at different times of the year. Groups of flowers are more appealing and easier for butterflies to locate than single specimens.

A bird bath for water, surfaces for basking in the sun on cooler days, shady areas for resting on hot days, and a trellis with nectar-filled honeysuckle or jasmine will help round out and bring balance to the butterfly garden yard décor.

Your completed butterfly garden will not only delight you and flutter its way into your heart. It will help conserve the butterfly population that has been harmed by chemicals, and their habitats diminished by house and road development.

Connect your walk through garden to the home by including a wind chime as part of your home decorating. The quaint charm of a country home décor, especially, will be enhanced.

A low-maintenance type of walkthrough garden is a natural one. Natural gardens frequently exploit the benefits and tranquility of a lava rock waterfall, fountain, or garden pond. This creates a more humid environment for flora and will entice wildlife, drawn to an environment that meets their needs.

The addition of tranquil sounds made by wind chimes, pitched at a higher tone to compliment the sounds of gurgling water will increase feng shui.

Delightful, relaxing sounds made by visiting bees and birds will add to the melodic duet of the water and wind chime, to create an environment as audibly soothing as it is visually stimulating.

Purchase zone-appropriate plants that are native to the area – perennial and wildflower varieties. These will be hardy, require little care, and will prove the most prolific. Do not overcrowd plants as they will be more susceptible to disease.

A well situated sun dial, a garden bench under a tree, and birdfeeders complete the garden’s landscape design.

Wind chimes…a great way to add beauty to your walkthrough garden yard décor and put a song in your heart!

Vegetable Gardens

Advantages Of Planting Vegetable Gardens

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Is there a patch of land in your backyard that’s been left useless all this time? If you’re still undecided to what to make out of it, maybe it’s high time you consider planting vegetables in it. Read on to learn some of the advantages of planting vegetable gardens.


Yummier veggie treats


Many people attest that vegetables grown in their own backyard tastes much better than those bought at grocery stores. They remark how much flavorful their harvests are, whether used as ingredients in a fresh veggie salad or cooked dishes. Be it because of the extra amount of love and care these home-grown vegetables got or the person taking pride in growing crops in his or her backyard, it doesn’t rally matter. What matters is what you serve on the table is fresh right off your vegetable garden and more scrumptious for every member of the family to enjoy. You are also assured that what you put on the table is fresh and free from harmful chemicals like preservatives.


Guaranteed no harmful chemicals


Chances are you might not fully know whether the vegetables you buy at the supermarket are free of pesticides. Some vendors claim that their vegetables are free from harmful chemicals. What about if the soil where those crops grew was exposed to pesticides before or they were planted next to crops sprayed with pesticides? Prolonged dietary exposure to pesticides is linked to various adverse reproductive and developmental effects, although there is little data to support this. Your children are at higher risk to the dangers of such chemicals on the vegetables they consume. Their bodies are not yet fully developed to properly metabolize or excrete such substances.


A great way to workout


If you got little or no time to go to the gym or health spa to workout, then let gardening provide your daily dose of exercise. Tending your vegetable garden for at least 30 minutes a day is a great way to burn those excess calories and lose weight. You are able to work several major muscle groups in the body, like the legs, arms, back, buttocks and many others. Gardening is also improves your flexibility each time you stretch to reach for weeds or bend to plant a seedling.


By the time your crops are ready for harvest, you will notice a change in your body, especially if you look after your garden on a regular basis. Picking the car key that fell on the floor or reaching for a book at the top of a tall shelf will be a lot easier for you to do. Unlike jogging, playing basketball and others, gardening has less impact on your joints. Gardening is best were vigorous exercises is not applicable, such as for people with high blood pressure, heart diseases, bone joint disorders and many others.


Help save the environment


If commercially grown vegetables receive little demand from consumers, then commercial farmers will find no reason to expand their plantations. So there’s no need to cut down rain forests and devastate habitats of wild animals. Also, if demand is lowered farmers will use less pesticide and other harmful chemicals that pollute our rivers and the rest of the environment. You might feel that you as a concerned citizen cannot contribute that much positive impact on the environment by planting vegetable gardens. But imagine the difference made if a lot of people started to plant their vegetables in their own backyard.