Tag Archives: garden

Should You Landscape Your Garden?

Posted on by
Reply

If you have more than a small town garden, then landscaping your garden will probably be one of your considerations. If you have just bought the property, or you think that it is time for a garden make-over, there are methods of going about it. The easiest way of going about planning a garden, is to first take a good look at the landscape of your garden. This can be difficult if the garden is established and in full flower.

Therefore, it can be better to delay until autumn or winter, so that you can see the true lie of the land. You could make a plan of the garden on graph paper and take a lot of photos too. Identify the photos on the back of them and relate them to the grid on your graph paper. There may be bumps and hollows, potholes, rocky areas and even a marsh or a pond to deal with.

These are almost certainly natural features and if you want to change them, you will have to take on the underlying reason. The feature is only the symptom. Like freckles or spots! If you look at the state of affairs in this way, it makes planning easier.

For example, a rocky patch probably means that the Earth is pushing stones up slowly but surely and if you want to clean it up, you will be picking up stones for the remainder of your life. Similarly, if your wet area is the result of natural drainage from higher ground, you will have to drain it and put in permanent drainage, since it is not going to stop raining for you.

So, you can either work with nature or you will be working against it for the remainder of your life. Either that or paying someone else to do it for you. Another point is that the wildlife that uses your locale does so because of how it is. If you alter the landscape, your current range of flora and fauna might move on or just die. A lot depends on how much land we are talking about, but in general, I would say that the larger the area, the more you should leave it alone.

On the other hand, you can add features more easily than remove them. For instance, if you have an area with poor soil, you could improve it with compost or put a pond there. Shade and existing fences or sheds should also be noted on your graph paper, although being man-made, these are simpler to remove or alter.

Next you should decide what type of garden you want, within the constraints of the existing landscape, how much work you are prepared to put into it and how much money you want to pay out on it. Enhancing the natural elements of the land is the easiest way of landscaping your garden.

If you have a marshy area, why not put a low wall around it and turn it into a pond? If you have a rocky patch, why not collect up the stones and create a rockery? If you have a few trees, try growing wisteria, honeysuckle or vines through them.

If you are in the shade, buy flowers that prefer the shade and vice-versa. It is a struggle to go against nature and unless you have a good reason to do it, it is not really worthwhile. Then build a patio or deck and sit outside and enjoy all the landscaping that you have saved yourself in your garden.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with outdoor heat lamp. If you are interested in patio heaters too, please click through to Residential Patio Heaters.

Stopping Common Indoor Bugs

Posted on by
Reply

The common indoor bugs we see anywhere in the world are flies, spiders, fleas and beetles. No-one likes to have insects indoors, so most people go to just about any extremes to eradicate these common indoor bugs. Less common indoor bugs may be woodlice, earwigs, scorpions and millipedes or centipedes, although they are no less unwelcome.

No matter where you are in the world, it is very hard to keep these common indoor bugs outside, unless you go to the extremes of keeping all your windows and doors shut at all times, which is quite impossible. I now live in Thailand and I know for certain that this is not an option.

So, just what can you do about it? Well, let’s sort out all the flying insects first, because of all the common indoor bugs, I think they are the most unpleasant indoor bug. They are very irritating, buzzing around your head and mosquitoes and other flies can produce irritating sores and besides that, all flies carry disease. I cannot bear to see them walking on food, knowing that they have more than likely just come off some dog’s muck somewhere and now they are spitting on my food to taste it with their stinking feet!

My first line of defence is fine-mesh door and widow screens. They are not dear and can be fitted retrospectively to any window. My window meshes slide, so they can cover only one half of a window at a any one time, but I do not think that’s a problem. You can still create cross-winds, by opening two or more windows at opposite sides of a room. I love to see the flies on the mesh struggling to get in by day and the mosquitoes doing the same by night. At night, it is best to switch on as little light indoors as possible so as not to draw these common indoor bugs.

My second line of defence is natural predators – lizards, like Geckos (Jin Jok, in Thai). Some people don’t like them in the house much either and I can’t say that I’m all that keen on them indoors myself, but they are hard to keep outside and they do eat hundreds, if not thousands, of indoor bugs every day. I particularly like to see them lying in wait on the outside of the mesh, ready to jump on any bug trying to struggle its way through the wires.

My third line of defence is a handheld bug zapper. You know, the electric, handheld bug zapper that looks like a toy tennis racquet. The come in two forms: battery and rechargeable kinds. They are brilliant at catching and destroying any flying indoor bug. The bug literally explodes and vaporizes on contact with the fully-charged wires of the indoor bug zapper. If you haven’t tried using one, you really should. They are most gratifying. These three defences keep our house quite much free of flying insects.

The creeping common indoor bugs are less of a problem really. Door screens on self-closers will keep 95% of them out and the Geckos will help too. Spiders can get in fairly easily, but then, I don’t mind them too much as long as they keep out of my way, as they eat other insects too. They are on our side to be honest. However, for those who can not bear to trap them and throw them outside, the handheld indoor bug zapper works well on spiders too.

Fleas can sometimes be a problem, if you keep cats or dogs, but then if you wash or dust the animal once a month, you should be able to keep these common indoor bugs under control fairly easily. However, there are two final measures that we employ. Every week, before we go out for the day, we spray every room with fly killer and every six-months we spray any rugs or carpets with a bug killer containing permethrin, which will survive washing and vacuuming for that long without losing its ability to kill common indoor bugs on contact. If you stick with these methods, you will be able to keep your home or office quite free of the most common indoor bugs and the less common indoor bug as well.

Have you ever heard of an indoor bug zapper? If you haven’t, or if you want to get an indoor bug zapper, just click one of the links to our website or blog.

Electric Bug Zapper

Posted on by
Reply

If you aren’t already acquainted with the hand held bug killer, you are really going to like it and if you have had one before, I’m sure you’ll welcome it back like an old pal! The electric bug zapper does just what it says it does: it zaps bugs. But it does it really, very well.

Any insect that comes into contact with the hand held bug zapper is fried. Smaller bugs like gnats and mosquitoes are vaporized with a very satisfying flash and a crack. Larger bug, like house flies and wasps die, but don’t explode like the smaller ones.

Think about it, how many times have these flying insects taken the edge off an otherwise enjoyable evening in the garden? Or how many times have you not been able to get a decent night’s sleep, because you know there’s at least one mosquito in the bedroom. It has happened to me hundreds of times, I know! It is very gratifying to get your own back with the electric insect zapper.

I don’t relish killing anything without just reason – I’m married to a Buddhist- but mosquitoes? I’m sorry, they have to go. And the hand held insect killer does it without any more ado. No waiting and hoping they’ll fly into the ultraviolet light and then into the mesh. No, one swish of the handheld insect zapper and the mosie’s gone and you can hear whether you killed her or not. (I say her, because the sucking mosquitoes always are females – honest, I wasn’t being sexist).

There are two basic sorts of hand held bug killer. There’s the battery operated bug zapper and the rechargeable electric bug zapper. Both work on the same principle, but I prefer the rechargeable type, although I guess you could use rechargeable batteries too. (I bet they would be more expensive that the bug zapper in the first place). Anyway, I have been using a electronic insect zapper of the rechargeable sort for five years and I am ecstatic about them.

Now-a-days, I spend a great deal of time in northern Thailand with my wife, so you can bet your life that I give my electric bug killer a good work-out almost every evening. We usually eat in the garden in the evening and all socializing is done outside by tradition, especially in the rural areas, where we live, so it comes in very handy. I also use my electronic insect killer to ‘sweep’ the bedroom for bugs before we retire at night, just like a CIA agent.

The handheld bug killer just seems to improve every time I buy one, which makes it hard to give you definite specifications. The electric bug zappers I had four or five years ago, often failed after six to nine months of purchase, although their ability to store a charge reduced a lot after four or five months.

However, the new electric bug zapper will last 9-12 months and still be very pokey after nine months. My latest one even has a powerful light called a headlamp built into it. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be for, but if you feel that vengeance is sweet, you can attract mosquitoes with it and then kill them with your hand held bug zapper.

Have you ever used a handheld bug zapper? If you haven’t, or if you want to get a handheld bug zapper, just click one of the links to our web site or blog.

Landscape Lighting Exra-Ordinaire

Posted on by
Reply

While maintaining a great looking garden is important you should consider ways of allowing the beauty of your garden to show through in different sorts of weather situations. Some people also want to have the option of having their garden illuminated at night. For these people, looking at various landscape lighting options will permit you the chance of having your garden looking just the way you want it, no matter what the natural lighting conditions are.

In order to provide the right landscape lighting conditions, you will have the choice of a wide variety of lighting fittings. These fittings can be in the form of lamps, lanterns, spotlights, halogen lights and even solar-powered lights. The price of these lighting fixtures differs for every style of light.

When you are thinking of using landscape lighting you will need to choose where to place the lights to achieve the best lighting effects. You may also want to consider which lights will provide your garden with a bright lighting. You can look in gardening magazines to get an idea of the many different ways that these landscape lighting fittings can be utilized.

While it may possible to get ideas for installing landscape lighting in your garden from landscape and gardening magazines, there is another way as well. For this other method, you should look at your garden in the daytime and in the night time. In the morning you will need to look what spots in your garden could be improved by the use of landscape lighting. Then, when night falls, you look out at your garden again and see what areas would benefit from the use of lighting.

Then, the morning after this nocturnal inspection, you should go out into the garden and mark out roughly where you think there is a need for lighting. Once you have looked at this area properly, try imagining what sort of lights will be useful. You can then go to the garden store to look for these lights, once you have decided on the kind of landscape lighting.

After you have found your perfect lights and you have read the instructions on setting them up you will need to start fixing the landscape lighting in a manner that will make sure that your garden looks beautiful. Coloured lighting is worth considering too.

After you have finished your trials and installed the final version, you will see what a difference having the right landscape lighting can make to your garden. From now on, when night falls you will still be able to appreciate just how beautiful garden is.

If you thinking about using lighting for your home or garden, please click the previous link or for more landscaping ideas, please go to Stylish Home Decor

What’s In A Dog’s Name?

Posted on by
Reply

Dog owners will tell you that there is no proven formula for choosing a good name for a new dog. Whether they have to think of girl or boy dog names, usually they will choose something that sounds cool or a name they like rather than putting some thought into what the name really means. Popular boy dog names have a variety of meanings, but more often than not the meaning will not suit the dog it is given to. Below is a quick guide to the top five boy dog names and what they really mean.

Undoubtedly, one of the first things you do when you get a new dog or puppy is think up a dog name for him or her. For most dog owners, this actually takes little thought. They just choose a dog name out of thin air and that is the name by which the poor animal will be known forever. However, there are certain issues that ought to be taken into consideration when going through dog names in order to make sure that you choose a suitable one.

First of all, dogs can sense attitude and tone of voice better than we are able to. If you choose a dog name for comic effect or after someone you don’t like, your dog will know by your tone of voice that something is not right. As a result, their attitudes may change towards you or they may refuse to respond to your commands. Dogs’ names should mean something but should not be detrimental to their training, so you should really take the decision of the dog name carefully.

Although dogs are very intelligent creatures, they can’t process the same amount of information that we can. Therefore, dog names ought not be more than two syllables long. If they are more than that, most dogs will not respond. Max, Sam, Becky, Lady, Molly and the like are excellent dog names because they are short and the names are easily heard. They understand these dog names and that will help your chances of training them successfully.

However, dogs’ names should help them form a character of their own. Common names don’t really allow them to do that, so finding something simple but unusual can help their characters grow a great deal without reducing their ability to respond to a command.

Max: This is probably the most popular boy dog name and the meaning is probably why most people choose it for their hound. It literally means “the greatest”. After all, every dog owner thinks that their dog is the greatest.

Jake: Jake is short for Jacob, which means “conqueror”. This is a suitable boy dog name, if your puppy takes over the house within moments of setting foot inside it!

Buddy: Buddy is a familiarization of Budd, which means “messenger”. This boy dog name may be apt for a working dog or one you might train to bring in the newspaper of a morning. It is quite a popular boy dog name and can be very widely heard throughout the USA.

Bailey: The boy dog name Bailey is French and means “steward”. This is pretty suitable if your dog is responsible and sensible, so it is suitable for a Newfoundland or collie puppy.

Sam: Sam apparently means “an answer to prayers”. This is a good name for dogs that are obedient, easy to train and are very little work!

Not many people consider a name’s meaning when picking boy dog names, so instead of just going with your first thought, it would be worth taking the time to find a dog’s name that is actually suitable for your dog. After all, it doesn’t cost anything to spend some time thinking about your dog’s name.

Does your dog require training? If you require more information on dogs in general, then go over to our web site entitled Successful Dog Training