Gardening Tips

Indoor gardening tips

Even if you’re not an avid gardener or flower lover, the sight of a well-maintained indoor garden is impressive. However, if you’ve tried your hand at indoor gardening, it’s not as easy as bringing the plants indoors. Here are some tips to start you off on the right foot.

The first crucial decision has to do with lighting. Ask yourself, exactly how light should I give the plants? Your house may not have enough light for your plants to exist, so this is a prime consideration. Are you prepared to supply your plant with light through artificial means? It could be expensive. If possible, try to select plants that require minimal lighting such as Philodendrons and Boston ferns.

If there are not that many indoor plants, you may consider bringing them out into the sun during the day before bringing them back inside. Think of your plants as batteries. If you expose them to enough sunlight outdoors, they can store this as a reserve source of energy indoors. This is especially effective during summer.

It’s also important that you know how to spot the signs that will tell you whether your plants are getting the right amount of light. One sign is in the leaves. If the plant has small leaves and thin stems, it needs more light. The same is true if the color of the plant turns paler than usual.

You may even have to condition your plants, which is a way of making them used to the lights in your house gradually, especially if they came from a place that has brighter lights than your home. You start by exposing the plants to the brightest possible light in your house. Move them around daily while lessening the amount of light they get, until they reach that point where they are exposed to their regular amounts of light.

When it comes to watering, the rules are fairly simple. Make sure to water the soil thoroughly and to have the water drained at the bottom of the pot. The quantity of water depends on the plant. The biggest mistakes here are not watering them enough or watering them too much, so avoid both. Also, use water that has the same room temperature.

Try to keep the room temperature at an even level, ideally in the 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit range.

Other items such as fertilizers and humidity levels depend a great deal on the type of plants you choose.

Source: http://www.organizationalgardener.com/tips-gardening/indoor-gardening-tips-258/

Making terraced gardens for slopes

If your property has an incline or slope, it can be turned into a lovely garden oasis. Where weeds once grew, a lovely flower garden could preside. A vegetable garden would be a great option also. It can turn a liability into an asset by turning a rugged slope into a lovely planted area.

Turn The Slope Into Terraces

Making terraces on a slope can produce some breathtaking results. It also broadens what can be grown in that area by providing a level area for planting. A level area is just so much easier to walk on and work there. However, making terraces is undeniably a lot of work, and can be expensive depending on the materials used.

Railroad ties were once considered a good source of material for making retaining walls for terraces. They’ve fallen out of favor these days, and especially aren’t recommended for organic gardens. Creosote is used to preserve the wood, and that creates problems. Since creosote is a toxic substance, contact with it can irritate the skin. The respiratory tract can be irritated by creostoe fumes.

Creosote is toxic stuff. Besides direct contact, it can leach into the soil and water. When it’s in the soil, it’s available for the plants to absorb, and if you’re growing vegetable plants, you’re going to eat whatever chemicals are in the plants. So creosote treated lumber for your terracing isn’t a good idea.

Safe Materials For Walls

If it’s a small project with just a little bit of a slope, the new landscaping boards such as those found at Gardens Alive! which are made out of recycled plastics are an option. Use bricks, concrete blocks, modular retaining wall blocks or stone for steeper slopes. The different masonry options require varying levels of expertise, so be sure you know how to build walls with the materials you opt to use.

The steepness of the slope will dictate the height of the walls since the idea to provide level beds. The higher walls, the better they should be anchored. They obviously should also be much sturdier. It’s especially important large terraces are anchored well into the slope at each end. They also need proper drainage.

The terrace walls must bear a lot weight from the soil behind them, and there will be even more weight after a rain. If walls aren’t well built, they could possibly bow outwards or even outright collapse.

If building terraces seems like too big a task to do yourself, there are landscaping contractors that can do the work for you. This is a more expensive option, of course, since you’ll not only have to pay for the materials, but the labor expenses as well.

Prepare The Soil For Plants.

A slope often has poor soil due to erosion, so it’s a good idea to enrich the soil before planting. Some compost, rich loam, well-rotted cow manure, peat or other soil amendments can be worked into the soil to enrich it so plants will grow better. If you wish to grow plant that thrive in poor soil, however, you won’t want to enrich the soil very much, if any.

Once the soil is ready, choose your plants, whether flowers or vegetables (DirectGardening.com - Offers quality plants at great prices). Plants that vine work well along the top edges of the walls so they can trail over the sides.

Terraces Are Long Term Investments.

Creating terraces on a slope is a lot of work. Sometimes it’s also a lot of expense. However,it’s a great way to eradicate an eyesore, improve your land, and provide another place for an organic garden full of flowers or vegetables.

There’s never too much space for planting.

Source: http://containergardeningthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/10/making-terraced-gardens-for-slopes.html

Green urban space project in Kankaria

There will be a green urban space project in the  lush green triangular space porposed by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). This area lies between Khokhra bridge and Kamla Nehru Zoo as part of project of Kankaria Lakefront Development. This project will have a statue of BJP leader Pandit Dindayal Uppadhyay statue.

The proposed triangle will be one of the costliest stretches in Ahmedabad with the civic body proposing to spend Rs 77 lakh on its construction . Currently, this is only a traffic island.

A senior AMC official said, “The proposed central island will have a step garden on one side of the statue and a bed of exotic flowers on the other side. We are still deciding on the kind of flowers to be planted there seeing the surroundings.”

“The island will be accessible to all with proper parking arrangements for visitors and walkway around it.” added the official. The proposal is expected to be discussed at the standing committee on Thursday. According to work order, the project is expected to be completed within 75 days.

KLFD envisions a comprehensive lakefront, set in the middle of Ahmedabad. “The development of an alternate vehicular ring around the KLFD is almost complete.

The ring road will allow us to have dedicated pedestrian path without any interference from heavy traffic and also other slew of facilities for visitors like an informal market and a designated parking section for incoming vehicles,” said the official.

The entire KLFD project will cost up to Rs 30 crore and will have walkways, cycle tracks, linear gardens, informal sector market and food courts. A mini train imported from UK will be a major draw.