Are you looking for a way to create a screened in patio in your back yard, but don’t want to deal with a lot of heavy wood and maintenance that wooden gazebos need? The perfect solution is a canvas gazebo. With a canvas gazebo, you cannot only easily construct your back yard getaway quickly, but it doesn’t take a lot of parts to get your area built.

Most models of a canvas gazebo are very similar, with a rather lightweight aluminum frame similar to a camping tent, and with flexible screen material that forms windows and doors. Choose to unzip the screened in windows during the day to let more sun in, or zip them up at night to keep mosquitoes and other bugs out.

If you have a concrete slab or patio pavers area, this is an ideal place to put a canvas gazebo. Otherwise, you might consider purchasing some sort of Astroturf to put on the ground where you plan to place your gazebos, to keep a lot of mud from being tracked in to it. When the windy months come, simply break down your cover and store it until the spring arrives!

If you are looking for a more permanent solution, there is no better way to add charm to your back yard than installing a gazebo kit. With so many styles and sizes of gazebos to choose from, you can find the perfect match to the style and look of your home and yard. Perhaps you are looking for an oriental curved rafter model, or traditional, rustic looking gazebos. There are great gazebo plans that you can purchase if you decide to build your own backyard outdoor shelter.

It is amazing how much something as simple as an arbor, trellis, or gazebos can alter the look and atmosphere of your garden. Most of the gazebos that you will find for sale online are hand crafted and may come unassembled for easy assembly at home. If you are looking to create your own unique style, perhaps a gazebo kit is perfect for you. You can save money and build your own gazebo with cedar or other specialty woods. Most gazebo plans are fairly easy to follow if you have a bit of the do-it-yourself spirit and talent.

The great thing about gazebos is that you can place them almost anywhere in your yard or garden. Put a quaint bench nearby, or plant creeping vines on your backyard arbor. You can also use gazebo plans to build a spa gazebo or even a screened in patio model. Remember to find out what kind of materials or wood are used to build the models that you are interested in, and what sort of additional accessories or care products you will need to keep your cabanas, playhouses, and palapas looking great!

For more information on teak furniture and complete patio resources, visit our site at www.best-patio-furniture-online.com.

J.J. Nielson is a successful graphic artist and published internet author.

There is a growing recognition, that the expanding suburban landscape is having a negative environmental impact. Suburban development often includes vast energy dependant monocultures (perfect, grass lawns). They consume a significant amount of natural resources, (water to keep them green and gasoline to keep them trimmed), and they reduce the amount of habitat available for native wildlife. Over use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides can leach into water supplies and be harmful to children and pets. Trends toward ecological landscaping and organic lawn care are lessening the detrimental effects of these designs. Many landscape designers are recommending native plant species, and even golf course managers are moving toward organic methods.

In practical terms our goal should be to move away from designs that depend on an extensive use of energy, without asking people to give up their lawns entirely. There are a number of options:

* Buffer zones and open space requirements in subdivisions allow for wildlife corridors and bird habitats.

* Leaving a portion of each lot in a natural state will invite birds and beneficial insects into the yard, while reducing the amount of grass to water and mow.

* The use of native plants in the design will greatly reduce the amount of care needed for the plants to thrive.

We should stop worrying about whether our lawns looks like the eighteenth fairway of the local country club. Many of the “weeds” that appear in our lawns are considered to be medicinal, by herbalists, and others attract beneficial insects.

We should stop over watering our lawns. Don’t worry about your grass dying. Grass will turn green when it rains. Trust me.

If you must have an all grass lawn, there are organic methods that claim to do as well as chemicals will. It’s probably a good idea to test any remedy before applying it to your entire yard. Spot treating problem areas will often be all that is needed.

Ecological Landscaping Considerations

The first and most important thing to consider in an ecological landscape design is an environmental assessment of the site. Is it more like a sunny meadow or shady woodland? Is it wet and marshy or dry and well drained?

Secondly, find out which native plants thrive in your particular environment. This can be easily done by taking a closer look at what is growing in undeveloped areas around you. Look at areas that most closely resemble your site. Species that are flourishing in the wild in similar ecosystems nearby are more likely to do well, with little or no care, than species growing in different ecosystems, not to mention different regions of the country or world.

Some purists would argue that only native species be considered, but I personally feel that non-invasive species from other parts of the world are acceptable if used in the proper environmental setting. Whenever possible choose species that are propagated locally and select varieties that are disease, pest and drought resistant. This will preclude the need for intensive care and excessive watering.

Many native plants are often found growing as part of a larger community of plants. For reasons we don’t thoroughly understand, plants appear to form symbiotic relationships with each other. This may be for shade, nutrient contribution or protection from pests to name a few. When studying the local landscape, pay attention to plant relationships. In the wild, vegetation occurs in layers from groundcovers to taller plants and shrubs and often to a tree canopy above. These layers provide a diverse habitat for a variety of wildlife. Recreating these conditions in even a small part of your site will help to enhance the overall health of the environment around you.

In many instances homeowners will wish to deter certain wildlife species, while attracting others. While it may be possible to discern which plants attract different species in the wild, it may not be as easy to determine which plants will deter them. Local landscapers and plant nurseries will often be able to advise you about this.

Wherever you live and whatever your landscape consists of, a little thought about working with the natural environment and a commitment to organic lawn care practices, will save on maintenance cost and benefit the larger community landscape.

Chip Phelan, a contributing editor for Organic Gardening Review, is an organic gardener living in Rhode Island. He has been gardening organically for 30 years while working as a sculptor and photo imager. He has recently created a research garden to experiment with organic and small scale sustainable gardening techniques.

Organic Gardening Review is a resource center for organic gardening enthusiasts and features his efforts and interests in all aspects of organic gardening. Find us on the web: http://www.organicgardening-review.com

Looking for a place to share organic gardening info? Visit our Organic Gardening Discussion Forum at: Organic Gardening Forum

If you have been following the prices of edible flowers in your local supermarket this past winter, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover that growing your own is very simple and much less expensive. There are several varieties that should be in every adventurous cook’s garden:

The nasturtium is the flower you’ll most often see in restaurants or fancy-food refrigerators. Easily grown, this orange, yellow, or scarlet bloom brightens up a green salad, both with its colour and tangy taste. Nasturtium are slightly fragrant with a sweet fragrance and indeed the initial taste is one of sweetness as the nectar touches your tongue. Immediately after this, there is a peppery taste that will wake your taste buds. I’m told you can make an excellent vinegar by adding flowers to a good white vinegar. Let it sit in the dark for several weeks (light will fade the colour) and then strain the flowers and pour the vinegar into a clean glass bottle. Use this easily-made vinegar to make salad dressings. Do the same thing with vodka and I’m told its peppery taste makes an excellent martini.

Pansies are another common edible flower. The entire flower, including the sepals (the little bud part behind the flower) is edible. Fragrance in pansies is elusive with the blues and yellows having the most chance of having a recognizable scent. It is a mild fragrance and adds to the mild wintergreen flavour of the blossom. A simple recipe that even I have used is to spread cream cheese on a cracker and put a whole pansy blossom on top of the cheese. If you have a special event coming up, a party or wedding celebration, you can even grow pansies in the appropriate colours to complement the party colouring.

Doug Green is an award winning garden author who answers gardening questions in his free newsletter at http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com.

It’s not difficult to create a garden that will attract hummingbirds, but if you’d like to build a habitat in which they will happily nest and live throughout the northern summer, you need to provide them with more than a sugar-water feeder and a plant or two. An active hummingbird garden doesn’t need to be large, but it will have all of the following key ingredients to attract and keep the attention of "nature’s fairies".

Choose plants that attract Hummingbirds Flowers are, of course, the key ingredient in attracting hummingbirds to your garden. The tiny birds feed on nectar that is produced by flowers, and they seem particularly attracted to plants with trumpet or tubular bright red and orange flowers. Favorites include rhododendrons, azaleas and rose of Sharon bushes. For northern gardens that attract the ruby-throated hummingbird, choose plants that flower at different times during the blooming season to provide food for them throughout the spring, summer and fall.

Spring Bloomers - Azaleas, rhododendrons and rose of Sharon bushes make a great ‘background’ for hummingbird gardens. They bloom early in the spring and continue blooming through the early summer. Pink and bright red varieties are favored, but hummingbirds love all Rose of Sharon varieties.

Summer Bloomers - Bleeding hearts and red mountain columbine bloom in the early summer, as do petunias, morning glories, trumpet vines, trumpet honeysuckle, and impatiens, all of which attract hummingbirds.

Autumn Bloomers - Butterfly bush, day lilies, garden phlox, bee-balm and impatiens all will keep hummingbirds returning through the autumn. These blooms will also attract late migrators too.

Provide a source of water in the hummingbird garden Unlike larger birds, hummingbirds will seldom take advantage of a bird bath or bowl of water. Instead, they relish cool mists. A garden hose with a misting attachment or a small fountain that can be adjusted to a fine mist will keep them happy.

Create perching and nesting space in your garden Hummingbirds need shelter from predators, plus small branches for perching and resting (yes, they do perch sometimes!). By choosing a few taller bushes or trees, you can provide both.

Several strategically placed hummingbird feeders There are dozens of commercial hummingbird feeders designed to be attractive to the little wanderers. Choose feeders with bright red accents, and a capacity for about 8 ounces of sugar water. Instead of using one large feeder, place 2-4 of them around your garden, out of sight of each other if possible. Hummingbirds are notoriously territorial. By providing several ‘private’ feeding stations, you’ll increase the number of hummingbirds that you attract.

Related information and resources from this article can be found at: http://www.garden-source.com/archives/2005/06/28/a-garden-to-attract-hummingbirds/

© 2005, Kathy Burns-Millyard. This article is provided courtesy of The Wild Bird Shop section of The Garden Source Network. You may publish it at no cost, as long as the links are left intact, made live, and this notice stays in place.

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!

Tuned Windchimes Stephen Betzen is a loving husband/supporter/and friend to his wife Rachel Betzen. Rachel and Stephen are dedicated to socially and ethically responsible business practices. Lovers of gardening and simple living. They own and operate an online windchime store.

Push Reel Mowers are making a "comeback" of sorts, though, in reality they’ve never really left; they’ve just gotten better. There are a number of reasons why purchasing a reel mower would make sense such as: better for the environment; more exercise; lighter; and, better for the grass, to name a few. However, a push reel mower is not for everyone nor for every lawn situation.

Below I list 5 areas where a reel mower is not the best solution for everyone

1. Yard Size. Most push reel mowers can cover up to 2500 square feet without too much trouble. If your yard is much larger than that, you may want to consider a powered mower, and perhaps even one that’s self-propelled or a riding mower.
2. How often You Mow. If you mow less than once every 2 weeks, then your lawn will be taller than what’s manageable with a reel mower; especially in the late-Spring and early-Summer time. Most reel mowers can handle up to 2" fairly well; some can even handle as high as 3" or more. If you routinely wait until your grass is higher than 2" you could be making more work for yourself with a push reel mower.
3. Yard layout. If your yard is on a hilly terrain then it’s even more work to go back up the hill on each pass. One way to mitigate this layout would be to cut horizontally instead of vertically, so you don’t have to go up the hill each time, just across it.
4. Trees. If you have trees in your yard whose branches cover most of the yard, you may have quite a few fallen twigs, sticks and branches to contend with. That would mean adding the extra work of picking up as many sticks as possible before you begin cutting. Whereas powered mowers can cut through most twigs and small sticks easily; those items will quickly stop a reel mower in it’s tracks. Which would add to the total cutting time because you would have to clean the debris from the blades each time they got stuck.
5. Weather conditions. If your grass is wet, it will make cutting a bit more difficult. Depending on just how wet the lawn is, the wheels could simply slide across the grass which would not allow the blades to rotate properly.

These are just a few things to consider before purchasing a push reel mower. There are a number of good reasons to purchase a reel mower; however, you should decide whether any or all of the 5 items listed above would be "show-stoppers" for you in your decision to purchase a push reel mower.

Jeff Boyd is the Owner of http://www.reelpushmowers.com, a supplier of Push Reel Mowers and accessories for the environmentally-conscious and health-conscious consumer.

It is desirable to use a host plant such as Trichocereus candicans for grafting purposes to accelerate growth patterns for cactus such as Lophophora williamsii. Trichocereus candicans is preferred as a host plant over San Pedro or others for the following reasons:

1. Candicans is a smaller plant with a smaller root system and more button grafts may be accomplished in a far smaller space.

2. Candicans plants do well in medium sized pots for many years and the entire collection can be lightweight and portable.

3. The respective diameters of the two plants are more closely matched for easier grafting.

Once a single button of Lophophora williamsii is grafted to a limb of Trichocereus candicans, it will undergo phenomenal growth. New Lophophora williamsii heads will grow out of the side areoles of the primary grafted head. Once these side growing “pups” reach the size needed to match the limb diameter of a Trichocereus candicans, these may be cut off and grafted to a new limb. Since the growth energy of the host plant is blocked and terminated with a button head, the formation of a new limb from the base of the plant usually happens quickly. As soon as this new limb reaches sufficient height and diameter, one of the pups may be cut off and grafted onto the end of this limb. The goal is to constantly keep blocking any vertical growth of the Trichocereus candicans limbs. This accomplishes two things:

1. Faster forced growth of the button grafts and the formation of three or more side pups at the areole points are achieved.

2. Rapid formation of new limbs for new grafts using these pups is also created.

The Trichocereus candicans attempts to bypass the energy blocking grafts by forming new limbs. After the formation of a new limb, three inches or more may be cut off the top of it. This limb is now ready to receive a graft.

Once a graft has “taken” and button growth is evident, any Trichocereus candicans limb with a button previously grafted to it may be severed several inches or more below the button and set aside in a warm shady spot for two weeks so that the wound may have time to callous up. Then this same limb may be placed in a pot. The Trichocereus candicans will develop new roots and the whole process begins over again. From a single button head grafted onto a single Trichocereus candicans limb, the growth system will take off at an exponential rate. Starting with only a few buttons of Lophophora williamsii, within a few years these could turn into a hundred.

GRAFTING TECHINQUES

Cut a button off as straight and flat as possible with a brand new carton knife blade (available at hardware stores) and do the same to a Trichocereus candicans limb. Position the cut on each plant so that the diameters of the cuts are equal or that the button cut is slightly smaller in diameter. Put them together and weight the top of the button with a small piece of rock slate. If this is not enough weight to firmly press the button down, add another rock to the top of the slate. Experimentation and practice will eventually get it right. Let them stay like this for at least 7 days, after which the rocks may be removed. The graft may not actually “take” (where you can see signs of growth) for another 2 -3 weeks.

Even poorly done grafts with only one half or less of the surfaces attached have been seen to work. These take longer to become established, but once the connection is made, they will take off as well as the others.

Once a person gets the hang of it, it is very easy. A single graft can be done in under 5 minutes. Buttons grown in this manner can be expected to increase in diameter at the approximate rate of one inch per year, not to mention the multiple side pups which are also growing at the same phenomenal rate!

All plants should be shaded. A white bed sheet stapled to a lightweight wood frame works well. This allows them to get plenty of light for growth without burning them. They love intense heat (80° to 100°F). It is at this time that growth is most spectacular.

River’s Source Botanicals

http://www.riverssourcebotanicals.com

Established in 1993 (formerly Wildflowers Of Heaven), River’s Source Botanicals distributes rare, sometimes endangered, botanicals worldwide. Seeds, plants, dried herbs, and extracts.

If you’re not familiar with push reel mowers or if you haven’t used one since "back in the day", there are a few points you should be aware of before using a push reel mower:

So, in order to get the best use from your push reel mower, make sure you do the following:

Jeff Boyd is the Owner of http://www.reelpushmowers.com, a supplier of Push Reel Mowers and accessories for the environmentally-conscious and health-conscious consumer.

Lawn Mower Tires – The Essential Difference

The essential difference in replacing a car tire and flat tire of a lawn mower is,

* You do not carry a spare tire with you all the time when you move along with your lawn mower.

* Your equipments for replacing the tire like jack, spanners etc. are not with you, they are in your basement workshop.

* Your house is nearby so you can summon help from your family members.

* You may not be in a hurry to change the tire and you are not putting anyone to difficulty by leaving a vehicle with a flat tire on your premises, as you would if you leave your vehicle on a public road.

* You can change the tire at a more convenient time.

* Depending upon the size of tire, you may require some external help.

Changing the tire

A lawn mower works on an undulating surface too. Therefore if your tire has gone flat where not all the tires are on a level surface, do not try to change a flat tire at that place. Depending upon where the tire has gone flat, you can change the following procedure slightly, but ensure that the spirit of safety precautions is not violated.

If you have a portable air compressor with you, (even a foot operated one will do), try to inflate the tires and then shift your lawn tractor to a flat and level surface, it will be best for the tractor. If you do not have an air compressor and the flat area is nearby, take your tractor in, as is condition, to the flat surface. The lawn mower tires are a rugged lot. The tire will take this punishment without a murmur.

The procedure for changing the tire is as follows.

* You have already brought the tractor on a flat and level surface. Park it there. Shut off the engine. Pull the hand brake and remove the tractor keys in order to prevent accidental re-starting.

* Clean the tire to be replaced and the area around the tire with water. This will take away any dirt from the nuts holding the tires and reduce the work load on you while taking out the tire.

* Loosen the nuts holding the tire slightly. Make it a point to ensure that all the nuts are loosened slightly. Any one remaining to be loosened might give you a problem later on. Do not back off completely. Just loosen them and that is all. If you are not in a position to back off even a single nut, do not proceed further. Retighten the loosened nuts and ask for professional help.

* Fix up other wheels with a wheel lock or slip a wooden plank or a stone so that the wheel may not move. Do this to two wheels at least.

* Next slip a hydraulic jack or a crew jack at a convenient place on the chassis, (This place is usually indicated in the maintenance manual) and raise the wheel to be replaced).

* Back off all the nuts holding the wheel and take out the wheel. You may require some help in this as the lawn wheels are slightly larger than car wheels.

* After taking out the wheel, clean the brake drum (if you have one) and wash off all the dirt that has collected, remove anything lodged in there.

* Put a new wheel and get the other one repaired.

Safety Precautions

* Wear hand gloves all the time. This will prevent injuries to your hand.

* When loosening the nuts, give particular attention to slippage of spanners. They can cause serious injuries to hand or head as you will not be able to control your movement when spanner slips.

* NEVER EVER change a tire on an undulating surface. There are many cases when the jacks have slipped from their position due to this and deaths have resulted from persons being crushed beneath lawn mower.

Andrew Caxton contributes adding reviews and special articles regularly to http://www.lawn-mowers-and-garden-tractors.com A gardening website that carries interesting readings on lawn equipment and lawn mower parts, including lawn mower tires

"Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade." -Rudyard Kipling

Sweat and toil along with gentle showers guarantee – pleasant flowers and pleasing fruits and consoling shade. As Rudyard Kipling says, "Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade." It involves getting into the dust without hesitation. Long gone were the days when human beings consumed just what the earth produced. Now we have learnt to produce what we like to consume. It must have been an interesting episode for human beings to make the first association of plants and trees with water and rain. It must have been a tough lesson to grasp for our forerunners that there are seasons for everything, to sow and to reap. It must have been an even tougher lesson to calculate about season and off season. Along with these realizations, came the need for gardening tools. Because, when they consumed just what the earth produced, they did not have to do much other than gathering, but when they started producing what they wanted, they had to take control of the natural processes. In this newly learnt venture of gardening and cultivation they started utilizing simple tools to dig, to weed and to reap. The world of horticulture has now evolved a whole new generation of horticultural tools.

Though it is not the ideal way to classify gardening tools, I classify them under two categories - useful and nice but not necessary!!! Some of the useful traditional tools are, Garden shovel, Spade, Spading Fork, Hoe, Rake, Trowel, Digger, Pruning Shears, Lopping Shears, and Hedge shears. These are the basic tools of gardening. You can see gardening stores and gardening catalogs crammed with a huge number of other so called sophisticated, fancy, power tools that are ‘Dollar Driers’. These equipments keep you busy in maintaining them rather than helping you maintain the garden you are tending!!! However, carefully selected garden tools though basic they are, will certainly make life easy.

Another factor that enhances your garden and gardening is Liquid fertilizers. Not many who realize that rain water in itself is one of the effective liquid fertilizers. Besides this natural liquid fertilizer, there are a variety of artificial liquid fertilizers that give your plants a quick nutrient boost because plants assimilate liquid fertilizers through their roots and as well as their foliage pores. Liquid fertilizers in the form of foliar sprays are found to be most effective during the flowering and fruiting stage of plants. However, one has to be extra cautious in following the instructions carefully especially in conforming to the dilution formula and to the application method, lest you may spoil your crop. Liquid fertilizers sprayed in the early hours of the mornings and in the early evening hours prove to be safe as they will be absorbed most quickly saving the plant from foliage burn.

A good gardener always knows it is just not tools and fertilizers that make a successful garden but patience and consistent care are the essentials of effective gardening. Effectively used gardening tools and moderately used liquid fertilizers blended with tender care will make you a happy gardener.

For some great resources on gardening tools and liquid fertilizers please visit the following website seramishydroponics.com. This article was coauthored by CC. The author does freelancing for some the best websites in the world.

You are granted permission to reprint if you keep all links intact without changes in content and no additional links within the article content itself.