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Handcrafted Garden Bridges Builds Traditional Arched Span Bridges with Modern Flair
Handcrafted Garden Bridges, a California-based custom bridge making company, is currently receiving international recognition for producing custom designed and handcrafted redwood garden bridges for Japanese water gardens, Koi fish ponds and...
How to Modify Your Landscaping to Protect Your House from Burglars
Believe it or not, landscaping can be an important part of a good home security plan. A burglar who is "casing the joint" from the street will choose the house with tall shrubs and trees that provide hiding places. Homes with little or no...
Keeping Soil Healthy
Soil is a composition of weather-beaten rock, minerals, decayed
plant materials and other organic ingredients. All this takes a
long time to develop, but can be damaged by our action or
neglect in a single season.
Plants can obtain nutrients...
Kick Start Your Landscape With Winter Gardening Tips
Winter Gardening Tips
Winter can be a bleak hard time of the year for the grower of
nursery stock. The days are short and the nights are long. Yet
growing plants is a year round activity that does require the
grower to be performings tasks....
Planning Next Year's Garden
Seems like it's a little early to start thinking about next year's garden, doesn't it? But now is the time to survey your gardens and see what's going on. What needs to be changed? The first thing you want to look for is where does the sun ...
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A Compost Primer
Most gardeners and landscapers will agree almost unanimously that the single best thing you can do for your lawn is to add compost. Good, organic compost can remedy almost any problem you have with your soil. If you soil is too acidic, adding compost will help neutralize it and bring it back to a proper pH level. If your soil is too alkaline, ditto! Adding compost will help balance the alkalinity in the soil. If you live in an area with a lot of heavy clay, adding compost will help loosen and aerate the soil. If you live in a coastal or southern area with a lot of sand, adding compost will help bind it together. Soil lacking nutrients? Add compost to add new life to overworked soil.
So how do you make compost? It’s easier than you can imagine and cheaper than anything else you will do. How cheap? How about free! All composting is, is the natural decomposition of organic matter. Walk through a dense forest and take a deep handful of soil from under your feet. Notice how black and rich it is. It didn’t get that way from fertilizers or manure. It got that way from all the decomposing organic matter. A forest takes care of itself by recycling. It recycles every leaf, branch, berry, and bush. It does this quite simply. All the organic and living matter in the forest decomposes into compost which feeds the existing plants (and some animals!).
In the forest, when leaves fall from the trees, they all gather on the forest floor. In storms, branches may fall, as well as entire trees. This creates layers of organic matter on the forest floor. Eventually it rains
adding fuel to the mixture. The rain aids the microbes that begin to eat the organic matter, eventually turning it into the rich, thick carpet you see on the forest floor. This compost feeds the living trees and other plants providing nutrients that rival the best fertilizers.
You can emulate the forest by creating your own compost. Avoid store bought compost, especially those made from manure. There’s nothing natural about spreading rotted and decomposed cow feces on your lawn or garden. It’s actually pretty gross! Especially considering the number of chemicals and steroids that are given to cattle and cows in the United States. If you must purchase or acquire compost from somewhere else, call your local municipal office. Many municipalities have their own composting facilities and they give away the compost to their residents for free! In our township, for example, all the leaves that are gathered in the fall from the local streets, are mulched up and composted in a huge field. In a year or two, once the leaves have thoroughly composted, we are permitted to haul away as much compost as we like! The only catch is that we must load it ourselves, but this is a small price to pay for free, organic mulch.
About the Author
Dean Novosat is an avid gardener and landscaper. He has transformed many boring yards into beautiful landscapes. He has several websites including http://www.the-garden-doctor.com and http://www.dr-landscape.com.
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| Landscaping Ideas | Landscape Design | Landscaping Pictures |
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| Landscaping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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| EERE Consumer's Guide: Landscaping |
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| Planning the Home Landscape |
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| Great Lakes Environment: Greenacres-Green Landscaping |
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| Landscaping - Outdoors - homesite.com.au |
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| H2ouse.org : Tour : Landscaping |
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| Landscaping for Energy Efficiency |
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| Edible Landscaping Online |
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| Free Landscaping Ideas, Landscapes, Front Yard, Garden Landscaping |
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