Lawn and garden care is something even the most inexperienced gardener can do. This article has some simple tips to follow for lawn and garden care. Simple steps provided below for virtually guaranteed success with your lawn and garden.

Plan Your Lawn First

The planning stage of lawn and garden care is actually easier said than done. Choose a layout for your lawn, one that allows you to mow without stopping or backing up.

Choose The Right Type of Grass

The type of grass is another important step in lawn and garden care. As much as possible, you want your lawn grass to be compatible with the soil in your region. After years of rendering lawn and garden care, we have found out that some grasses, such as Kentucky bluegrass, fescue, and ryegrass, prefer cool northern weather.

Test The Soil Before Planting

A soil test is the next most important aspect of lawn and garden care. Often, organic matter is recommended to increase the nutrient levels in soil. However, when it comes to achieving acid balance, lawn and garden care specialists recommend lime or sulfur to adjust the soil’s acidity.

While grass does not need constant watering, water remains an essential component in its growth. Therefore, another significant aspect in lawn and garden care is a sprinkler system.

One of the vital aspects of lawn and garden care is soil. There are different soil types and each type has a different watering need. Use the following lawn and garden tips to help you water your soil properly:

Loosen the soil around plants so it can quickly absorb water and nutrients.

Mulching as well as cultivating the soil helps reduce evaporation and soil erosion.

If your lawn has clay soil, follow this lawn and garden care hint. Add organic material such as compost or peat moss. Till or spade to help loosen the soil. Since clay soil absorbs water very slowly, water only as fast as the soil absorbs the water.

Lawn and garden care is a little different for sandy soil. Loam soil is the perfect soil for lawn and garden care.

Ideal growing conditions are vital for lawn and garden care.

Effective Watering Tips

For excellent lawn and garden care, it is better to deep water your lawn than watering it several times lightly. Lawns need about 1 inch of water each week. However, if it’s sunny outside, apply the same amount of water every three days. If you want healthier root development for your lawn, watering it to a depth of 4 to 6 inches is an excellent lawn and garden care tip. Not only will grass really thrive, it also allows longer periods between watering.

You can try this lawn and garden care trick for measuring the water.

First, put an empty tuna or cat food can on the lawn while watering.

Start watering the lawn.

Stop watering when the can is full or if you notice water running off the lawn.

These simple tips are very effective for having a great lawn and garden.

 

 

 

The common Garden or Black Ant (Lasius niger) can be a persistent nuisance for many, especially through the summer months. This species of ant does not bite or sting and is not associated with spreading pathogens. Therefore, having Garden Ants in your home will not present a risk to your health.

Garden Ants live in colonies or "nests". Each nest will have a Queen and several hundred workers. Large nests may have workers numbering into the thousands. The Queen is approximately 15mm in length and her sole purpose is to lay eggs. The workers are typically 4-5mm in length and their tasks are building/maintaining the nest and gathering food. It is their desire for sweet/sugary foods that bring these ants into contact with humans.

Worker ants will leave the nest each day to forage for food. When they find a suitable food source, the worker will return to the nest leaving a scent (pheromone) trail by tapping its abdomen on whatever surface it is travelling upon. Other workers will pick up on this scent trail and before long, you will have a constant stream of ants travelling between the nest and the food source.

Garden Ants like to build their nests in well-drained soil, typically with a high sand content. This explains why paved gardens are prone to Garden Ant activity. They can be quite intuitive and take advantage of other nesting places such as rotten timber, brickwork (tunnelling into mortar) and even in large plant pots. Keep an open mind when searching for the nest!

Flying Ants

During mid to late summer, newly hatched queen and drone (male) ants will leave the nest en-mass. These ants are winged and are commonly called "Flying Ants". Theses ants will mate whilst flying - show offs! And shortly afterwards the males will die, the queens will return to earth, shed their wings and look for a suitable place to start a new nest.

Eradicating ants from your garden can be a thankless task and, if they are not entering your home and causing a nuisance, are best left alone. If they are causing a nuisance, your first plan of action should be to try and locate the nests. It is quite common to have more than one nest in the average garden. Look for sandy deposits in cracks and gaps amongst any paving. Nest entrances look like mini volcanoes of sand with a small hole in the centre. There are likely to be several entrance holes for one nest. Check under plant pots, around the base of your walls and beneath any long-standing garden junk (old pieces of timber, planks, bags of waste/cuttings, etc). If you have a stream of ants marching to and from your kitchen, try and follow them (keep in step) to reveal where their nest is.

Treating With Insecticide

If you find the nest the best way of destroying it is to flood it with a water-based insecticide. Insecticide availability will vary from country to country. Your local Garden Centre or DIY retailer should be able to advise you which products are suitable.

Using a low-pressure sprayer, like those used for applying weed killer, place the sprayer nozzle directly into the nest entrance hole and apply the spray. Be careful not to over-pressurize your sprayer. You just need a gentle flow of liquid and gravity will ensure the insecticide reaches the bottom of the nest. Too much pressure and you risk "blast-back" as the spray rebounds off the ground to drench your face. Make sure you are wearing the correct protective equipment indicated on the product label, usually a mask, goggles and gloves. You should see that the nest has been flooded when the insecticide starts to bubble out of the other entrance holes. Bare in mind that the nest can have many chambers and tunnels underground so wait for a few seconds and apply the spray again to make sure that as much of the nest as possible is flooded by the insecticide. Surface spraying in the garden is not advised as the insecticide is not discriminating in its action and will kill any insect that comes into contact with it. The insecticide will also be broken down at the molecular level by sunlight UV and rainwater and so will have no long lasting effect.

If you cannot locate any nest, the only option available to you is to create a barrier along your building perimeter to deter the ants from entering. You can use the same water-based insecticide for this, or you can use an insecticide powder. The powders have a much longer life than the sprays but are unsightly and rather messy. Both the insecticide spray and powder will kill any ants that come into contact with them but the powders also create a physical barrier and most ants will detect the powder and choose not to cross it. To create your barrier, look for any possible entry points in your home, these could be under doors, around pipes, cracks in window frames/skirting and through ventilation bricks. Apply your insecticide (powder or spray) on the inside and outside at each point. Be aware that the external barrier will need to be replenished after any rain. If you are using a powder, try not to go over the top and just use a light dusting, as there will come a time when you will want to remove it.

Ant control can be an ongoing problem principally because they nest outdoors and any treatment is liable to be neutralized by adverse weather. With this in mind, be sure to check your local weather forecast before you start your treatment.

 

If you’ve ever wanted a really nice pool for your house what you’re gonna see today might be a design that you’ll love. This is a creation of Taiwanese sculptor/artist Ju Ming and is called the “Zipper Pond“. This creative lotus pond is now one of the feature attractions of the Juming Museum, located in Taiwan, and I’m pretty sure that a lot of pictures were made in this place. Finally if you were looking for a really cool pool design and you couldn’t found one to impress you, then I hope that this one at least inspired you.