Find Peace And Happiness Through Gardening

Gardening is a wonderful and relaxing hobby enjoyed by many all over the world. People who enjoy gardening often feel a deep-rooted sense of calm and tranquility, and they also forge a stronger connection with nature.

There are many types and forms of gardening. Organic gardening is a unique method of gardening and allows the gardener to really bond with Mother Nature. Organic gardening really gets down to the basics of growing fruits and vegetables, using only what Mother Nature provides. Container gardening is another way of gardening and allows many people who do not have their own garden to still enjoy gardening using pots and containers.

Container gardening is a great way to decorate and accentuate your house and your outdoor area. Plant containers such as clay urns, metal pans, terra cotta pots, wine tubs, wood boxes, bath tubs, glass bowls, wire baskets, sisal rope planters, cement hollows etc. all work well. You want to be sure to have an assortment of beautiful flowers and plants of varying heights as well as shapes and textures when planning your garden.

Organic gardening requires much more attention and involvement in the whole process. When you grow the plants organically, you do not add any artificial or chemical substances to the soil to avoid their negative health consequences. In organic gardening natural compost is needed to fertilize the soil. Natural compost is derived from plant, fruit or kitchen waste and contains no harmful chemical pesticides in it.

Whether you go for container gardening or organic gardening, the preparation and gardening methods are pretty similar. After you decide on what type of gardening you want to do, prepare your spot and soil for planting. You must remove all weeds, grass, stones, etc using various gardening supplies or herbicides. When this is completed, you can plow the planting area and add nutrients such as manure, compost, peat or sand to the soil. If your soil is too sandy, you will need to add compost to give it the necessary nutrients it needs.

Gardening supplies are essential for good gardening. They make gardening easy, and there are certain gardening supplies that gardeners find indispensable, including gloves, spade, scissors, pruners, levelers etc. Make sure to buy good quality gardening supplies for ease of use, such as gardening gloves made of high quality leather, and gardening spades or pruners made of stainless steel.

Easy Annual Flowers to Grow From Seed By Sharon Sweeny

Planting annual flowers from seed is an easy and inexpensive way to garden. You can try many varieties for very little cost. Because they only live for one growing season, annual flowers are a good way to experiment. You can easily find out which ones grow best in your garden and which ones you like best.

Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and their large seeds are easy to plant. Sow them outdoors where they are to grow when the soil has warmed up in late spring. They come in dozens of varieties, ranging in height from 12 inches to 10 feet. Sunflowers are yellow, orange, rust, white or multi-colored. They will bloom beginning about 45 days after sowing.

Marigold seeds are long and thin, but easy to plant. They germinate and grow very fast and bloom about 45 to 50 days after planting. Marigolds come in shades of yellow, orange and rust. They grow 8 to 36 inches high, depending on the variety. Marigolds will keep blooming in fall long after other summer annuals have faded, until they are killed by a hard frost.

Zinnias grow rapidly from seed. The seeds are medium-long and thin and germinate quickly. Zinnias are a hot-weather-loving annual that should be planted in late spring. Zinnias come in shades of red, pink, orange, coral, cream and white in single or double flowers. They grow from 12 inches to about 30 inches high. Zinnias are subject to powdery mildew, a white powder which coats the leaves but doesn't affect the flowers.

Cosmos are a prolific-growing annual flower that not only grows easily from seed, but it readily self-seeds in your garden. The seeds are long and thin, with a high germination rate. Although there are several new varieties of cosmos, two stand out as the most-planted. Cosmos bipinnatus are the familiar pink, deep rose, and white cosmos, commonly sold together in a mixture. They have fine, lacy foliage and grow up to 4 feet high in ideal conditions. The other kind, C. sulphureus, have flowers in orange, rust, crimson, and gold. They are shorter, only about 24 to 36 inches high, and their leaves are not as finely cut.

It takes a little longer to see bloom when starting annuals from seed, but you'll be able to grow many more of many different varieties for the same cost as a few small transplants.

An added benefit is that these easy-to-grow-from-seed annuals also produce a lot of seeds, plus they're are easy to collect. If you initially buy non-hybrid varieties, you only need buy them once. After that, collect some every fall for next year's garden.

Copyright Sharon Sweeny, 2011



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