How To Make Leaf Mold. Leaf mold may sound like a gardener's nightmare - a horrible disease to run rampant through your beautiful garden, rotting everything in its path. In fact, however, it's one of a gardener's best friends! Leaf mold (sometimes spelled leaf mould) is simply fallen leaves that have been composted into a dark, crumbly soil amendment. Many homeowners discard their autumn leaves, unaware that leaf mold is one of the best soil amendments available to gardeners.
Unlike ordinary compost, leaf mold does not add many nutrients to the soil, but it is an outstanding soil conditioner that improves soil structure and provides food and habitat for earthworms and other beneficial soil life. Leaf mold also dramatically improves water retention, making it an especially important soil amendment for gardeners dealing with soils that drain too slowly or too quickly. Fortunately, this amazing stuff is not only free, it is also extremely easy to make!
Otherwise, making leaf mold requires no other effort at all.
North American Prairie. Landscaping for Energy Efficiency. In addition to beautifying your yard and increasing your home's value, thoughtful landscaping can save you money on heating and cooling bills! According to US Department of Energy calculations, proper placement of just three trees can save you an average of $100-250 every year on energy costs. Add a few more, and trees can save up to 25% of your household's evergy costs for heating and cooling. Here's how to do it: Plant deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves every winter) on the south, west, and east sides of your house.
Landscaping, especially with trees, can: Add beauty and value to your home. Learn more about the benefits of trees. Tips For a Beautiful Shade Garden. Although there are many beautiful flowering plants that thrive in shade, one of the great pleasures of shade is its ability to draw beauty from foliage, bark, berries, and other often-overlooked sources of beauty. Hosta is the most famous of the many lovely foliage plants that thrive in shade. Other lovely choices include Coralbells (also produces attractive flowers), Ajuga, ferns, and many variegated shrubs and groundcovers. Extraordinary bark is another great way to enliven shady spots.
Beeches, birches, poplars, sycamores, shagbark hickory, and red twig dogwood are among the world's most beautiful and unique barks. Berries are not only beautiful, many also attract birds, whose lovely colors and songs enliven the shade like nothing else. Growing Catnip Commercially: Cash Crops for Small Farms.
Planting Oak Trees For Wildlife and People. The difference between the two groups is most important for people interested in planting oak trees to attract wildlife. White and red oak species are important to wildlife for different reasons at different times of year. White oak acorns are preferred by wildlife because they are sweeter and tastier than red oak acorns. They are high in carbohydrates and help animals gain weight quickly in autumn to prepare for the winter. Red oak acorns, on the other hand, have high levels of a group of compounds called tannins, which have a very bitter taste. When white oak acorns are abundant in fall and early winter, animals avoid the unpleasant-tasting red oak acorns.
As winter progresses and white oak acorns become scarce, however, animals begin to eat more and more red oak acorns. Red oak acorns happen to be higher in fat and protein than white oak acorns - exactly the high energy nutrients necessary to help animals survive the lean months of late winter. Drought-Proofing Your Garden. A final thing to do in preparation for drought is to practice good watering habits. A common mistake made when watering is to water plants frequently, but shallowly. This encourages the development of shallow root systems, which are more susceptible to drought. Plants with deep root systems can burrow far into the soil to gather as much available moisture as possible during dry periods. Plants with shallow root systems are trapped in the topsoil, which dries out the fastest anyway, quickly leading to dried out roots and stressed plants.
Instead of frequent, shallow waterings, water your plants deeply but infrequently. Depending on where you live, that may mean watering once a week instead of every other day, or it may mean every other day instead of every day. If you can afford one, a drip irrigation system is a great way to ensure that your plants are watered deeply enough while simultaneously conserving water. Another consideration is where you get your water.
Midwest Natural Gardening: Adding Winter Interest To Your Garden With Berries. Bright berries can provide a beautiful splash of color to your garden during the long, cold Midwestern winter while providing an important winter food source for birds and other wildlife. Many shrubs that are native or naturalized to the Midwest region produce berries that linger until midwinter or even early spring. The classic winter shrub American Holly (Ilex opaca) is a native broadleaf evergreen with bright red berries that are popular with birds.
Holly is hardy from zones 5-9, but can sometimes be coaxed to survive in colder climates against a wall with warm southern exposure and protection from cold winds. To produce berries, you must have at least one male and one female plant.Holly’s hardier relative, Winterberry (Ilex verticilatta), lacks the distinctively shaped leaves of holly, but its bright red berries are just as ornamental and popular with birds. Native to the US and Canada, it is hardy from zones 4-7. Xeriscaping Basics For Midwestern Gardeners. Choosing drought tolerant plants and siting thirstier and more delicate plants close to water sources is an important first step towards a waterwise garden, but you can also employ a number of techniques to reduce watering requirements in other ways: Add organic matter to the soil.
Soil with a high percentage of organic matter reduces the need to water because organic matter acts kind of like a sponge, soaking up water quickly after rain and slowly releasing it to the surrounding soil as it begins to dry out. Compost is the best source of organic matter. Other sources include leaf mould, aged animal manures, spoiled hay or straw, and organic mulches such as wood chips. Mulch. Mulching conserves soil moisture and reduces the need to water by keeping the soil cool and moist. Organic mulches such as wood chips or straw are best because they also add organic matter to the soil. Water wisely. When you must water, make the most of it by watering early in the morning before the sun is intense. Adding Winter Interest to Your Garden. Choosing plants that look good means forgetting about flowers and (mostly) about foliage. In the winter garden, bark, berries, and form become much more important.
Evergreen trees add that all-important splash of color to the winter garden, and offer many other benefits as well. In snow, evergreens tend to turn into living Christmas postcards, and a small grove of them will have you quoting Robert Frost in no time. Evergreens are also an important source of winter food and shelter for birds, and if you plant them on the northern side of your house, they will reduce your energy bills by sheltering your home against cold northern winds.
Evergreen shrubs, such as American holly (Ilex opaca), Firethorn (Pyracantha), and many junipers, also keep their green foliage all year, and many provide bright, beautiful berries that add color and interest to your garden while providing an important food source for birds. Ornamental grasses offer interesting form and foliage in the winter months. Defensible Space Landscaping: How To Design a Fire Resistant Landscape. These tips can help you design a landscape that will reduce the risk of damage to your home from wildfires: Create open space. Wide areas of low growing plants or structures should surround your home for at least 30 feet in all directions. This will create a barrier that will be difficult for fires to cross. These open spaces do not need to be sterile or ugly. Good plant choices include fire resistant turf grasses such as buffalograss and beds of low growing groundcovers and perennials such as vinca, sedum, daylily, thyme, and snow-in-summer. Man-made patios, driveways, decks and other structures made of non-flammable materials such as stone, pavement, or gravel can also be sited to maximize protection against spreading wildfires.
Avoid mass plantings. Keep a tidy garden. In many regions, a little untidiness in the garden is a good thing, because it provides safe habitats for beneficial insects and other wildlife. Conserve water. Use walls and hedges wisely. Midwest Natural Gardening: Adding Winter Interest To Your Garden With Bark. Money-Saving Garden Tips. A beautiful garden doesn't have to be an expensive garden. Here are some tips to save money in the garden. Your choice of plants can mean the difference between a beautiful garden that is low maintenance and low cost, and a beautiful garden that is a constant drain on your time and money. Choose Perennials, Not Annuals Perennials might cost more to purchase, but they don't need to be re-purchased every year, so they save money in the long run. Avoid the Prima Donnas I love hybrid tea roses, but in my area, they are an absolute pain-in-the-you-know-what to grow, falling victim to a host of pests, diseases, and bad weather conditions.
There's nothing wrong with the occasional beautiful specimen plant, but if you have a garden of nothing BUT specimen plants, well, I hope you have money to spare. I choose hardy plants native to my area as often as possible, and well established, but non-invasive naturalized plants the rest of the time. Shrink Your Lawn Trade Plants with Friends and Neighbors.
Solve Drainage Problems With a Rain Garden. When you've chosen a spot, you can begin excavating the rain garden. You will need to dig a saucer or bowl shaped depression with a deeper depression in the middle. For most rain gardens, the deepest area should be about six inches. If you have extremely poor drainage, make the whole garden larger and shallower to prevent water getting trapped for too long and creating habitat for mosquitoes. You can also improve drainage in extremely poor soils by digging deeper and replacing some of the excavated soil with a mix of about 1/2 sand, 1/4 topsoil, and 1/4 compost. When the garden is excavated, you can begin planting. Native plants are the best choices for rain gardens, because they are best adapted to local conditions. Choose plants for the deepest area in the center that will tolerate wet conditions, and for the edges choose plants that will tolerate a mix of wet and dry conditions.
After planting, mulch the area with two to three inches of wood chips or other organic mulch. The Basics of Living Walls, Green Walls, and Vertical Gardens. How To Garden in the City: Creative Urban Gardening Ideas.