Is your home in need of a bit more garden landscaping? Possibly, and that’s a great thing. Actually you should be highly excited about it because nothing is more fun than landscaping, not only will you have a blast as you plant and rearrange your plants and flowers, but your imagination will be in overdrive.

To reach a new level of beauty in your landscaping project, start by layering your garden beds. Your garden makes the first impression on any visitor to your house, so giving a tour that showcases your awesome garden is a wonderful idea. Once you have the garden you’ve dreamed of, and it just makes your yard pop the whole neighborhood will be talking.

Layering the landscape of your garden is uncomplicated. Before planting, make sure you know what plants you are going to use. The layout of your garden landscaping will be affected by many things including your choice of flowers and other plants.

An example is not to place any taller plants in front of shorter plants. Although this may be obvious to you, you should still make a rough sketch of the layout for your garden landscaping prior to beginning. This will help you to keep things as simple as possible. By proceeding in this manner, your garden landscaping will be completed more expeditiously and with less snags.

If you want to grow your own vegetable and flower plants, prepare your hotbed this month. It should be located in a sheltered position, well drained, with a southern exposure. The size varies with the need but it should be constructed to handle the standard size sash, which is three feet by six feet.

Cypress or redwood boards two by ten inches make a good frame for the hotbed, which consists of a pit 2-1/2 feet deep with four inches of cinders or crushed stone in the bottom, covered with 20 inches of fresh horse manure and mixed with straw. The frame should be six inches above the soil in front and 15 inches above the soil in the back or north side, five feet nine inches wide and as long as needed.

The manure should be hauled in about two weeks before it is to be used. Before it is put into the pit it should be piled in a compact heap and as soon as fermentation and heating begin, it should be forked over and replied until the entire heap seems to be uniformly heated.

Home Greenhouse in January

This month the daylight is theoretically on the increase, but it is surely slow. Stormy weather obscures the sun so that the actual total of light is still low. However, snow and January thaws produce some beautiful days under the greenhouse roof. The standard roof slope of one in two is such that it sheds freely.

The quiet blanketed feeling of a sunny morning with 6 or 12 inches of snow on the roof is likely to be interrupted by a “whoosh” as the snow unloads in a junior avalanche. Afterwards the bright sunshine and reflected light from the outside snow make a fine spring-like world indoors, and a beautiful sight altogether.

The dumped load of snow from a sizable roof should be considered in planting close to the foundation outside. Brittle shrubs should not be used here unless they are carefully protected.

In full bloom now or beginning to bud are most of the late-sown annual seeds. Many of these are cool loving plants, which do well in a 50-degree greenhouse. Among these are alyssum, lobelia, calendula, wax begonia, impatiens, pansy and the greenhouse strains of snapdragon, stock, didiscus and carnation. From sowings the previous spring, flowers will be appearing on cyclamen, streptocarpus and Primula.

February in the North is an exceedingly trying month for “the home gardener” The days are growing longer and winter seems to be on the wane, but there is so little that can be done and there is a great desire to be doing something. Some gardeners just cant wait to get started and they do things that should not be done.

For example, there are those who make the mistake of starting flower seeds in the house expecting to get a head start on the coming season. In the North, February is much too soon for this. The germination of the seeds is not the problem; they sprout very readily, but seedling plants do not have good enough growing conditions in the house at this time of year.

When they have grown a few inches tall, they start to lean toward the light and soon grow pale, thin and spindly. What was started with high hopes soon becomes a great disappointment and usually discourages the eager gardener from trying this interesting and profitable adventure when it should be done, under more favorable circumstances and at a time when there is a very good chance for success.

Because bamboo naturally grows in the tropics, they are used to warm weather and regular rainfall. When you bring them indoors to enjoy their beauty and simplicity, you should know how to care for them correctly to help them thrive. Growing bamboo indoors is not as difficult as you might think, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

Always remember that your bamboo plant is used to warmth and humidity. Once you bring your bamboo plant home, try placing it outside first, in a sheltered area with plenty of light and some shade. That way, it will begin to get used to the levels of light in your region. You should not fertilize your plant immediately, since most nurseries and plant stores will already have put some fertilizer in already.

How much to water your new bamboo plant will depend on the climate in your area. If your bamboo plant is located indoors and the soil typically dries out fast, water it deeply, saturating the soil to keep it from drying out. You may not need to water your bamboo plant every day; keep an eye on the soil to determine when the plant needs water. If the leaves begin to curl up, your bamboo plant needs to be watered more frequently. If the leaves are drooping, you have added too much water to the soil and should not water your bamboo plant as much.

Its funny how you convince yourself by watching others do things on TV that you can do it too. Thats the way Ive been the past few years until my wife told me I was either going to do something with the yard or she would hire someone to do it. I decided I better get cracking!

Luckily I knew someone from a local organization that was an experienced landscape designer and my wife agreed to use part of the money we had saved to hire him. Since we wanted to do most of the work ourselves, he helped us by creating a design that we could pull off with some help from friends and family.

After taking the time to listening to us he came back with a very simple plan where we were able to accomplish almost 90% of the work ourselves without a hitch. Laying the patio blocks and getting them even and right was the most difficult thing we had to do and thankfully, we had some much needed help that day.

Many people are becoming aware of the fact that there are contaminants in our drinking water that we ought not be drinking. If this is you and you’ve been spending some time researching water purification you might have come across charcoal water filters or activated carbon water filters or carbon water filters. But what are they?

A charcoal water filter is a water filter that uses charcoal for the filter process to remove the impurities. Charcoal is carbon that has been created by heating organic material in the absence of oxygen. The good ones are derived from coconut husks.

Charcoal is quite porous and absorbs many compounds in it’s pores and it is this quality that is relied on for successfully filtering the water. That’s why charcoal is used in gas masks, it absorbs things quite easily, both from gases and liquids. The pores are tiny holes made in the charcoal, or carbon, and the contaminants are absorbed into the charcoal. This is achieved by means of chemical attraction, because a wide range of organic compounds are attracted to carbon.

Planning your garden in advance helps produce maximum crops in minimum space. The less space you use, the less work you have to do. Also, you can improve the soil in a small plot much more rapidly than in a large area and at less expense. This sets up, within limitations, a chain reaction. The better the soil, the smaller the area required to produce a given quantity of peas or beans or corn, and, the smaller the area, the faster its soil may be improved.

The best time to plan your vegetable garden is right now in midwinter. Unless you are a draftsman, you will probably find it easiest to draw the plan on cross-section paper, which you can get at any office supply store. Use sheets which provide plenty of space for both the simple plan of our vegetable garden, and for additional notes to be made on the margins during the season to help plan a better layout for next year. You will also need a pencil and a ruler.

Poisonous plants and flowers are everywhere and they are often difficult to recognize. This can be bad for our kids who are the usual victims of plant poisoning.

To help readers in this matter, the third part of my series contains a small list of poisonous plants and flowers that you should be wary of. If you have any of these plants at home or in your garden, fence them off or get rid of them fast. Teach children not to eat plants or flowers. These simple measures could save your child’s life.

The name Parietaria judaica may not sound familiar to you but it’s time you know what it does. This plant causes asthma and skin allergies. The plant has pink or red hairy stems, green leaves and small white or pink flowers.

This weed is often found in the coastal areas of Australia, the United Kingdom and North America. It’s common on roadsides and in cracks of buildings. Because of its bad effects, the plant is called sticky weed or asthma weed.

Even though bonsai trees look so simple and effortless, they actually take a great deal of looking after. Bonsai gardening is an art form that was developed many hundreds of years ago. It originated in Asia and made its way around the world.

Beginners in the art of bonsai gardening need to learn a lot about bonsai tree care before they can produce a successful bonsai tree. It requires a considerable amount of time, effort and patience in order to create a bonsai tree.

The first, and probably the most important thing of all, is to ensure that you have fertile soil and the correct pots in which to successfully grow a bonsai tree. Making the right species selection is something else that you need to be fully aware of before you head out to purchase your bonsai. There are many kinds of bonsai trees, and some of them are more suitable for a beginner. Your best move is to select a tree that is hardy and requires the least amount of maintenance.