Shade gardening is a type of gardening many new gardeners don't think of, because most seem to think that in order to have a beautiful blooming garden, you need to put plants in areas that get some sunlight. In fact though, there are some shade loving plants that are quite beautiful, and most of them create blooms of some kind or other as well. Many shade loving plants also tend to have beautiful colors and textures on their leaves and stalks as well, which helps bring beauty and interest to a previously drab, dark or boring area of your yard.

Shade gardening is not difficult at all, but it can seem a little tricky at first. And this is because there are varying levels of shade at any given time of the day. Some areas of your yard for instance, may have filtered sunlight throughout most of the day instead of full shade. Other areas may seem to never see sun at all, and still others may have deep shade for most of the day, with bright direct sunlight for a small part of the day too. And these variations in the amount of sun or shade a given part of your yard has will determine the success or failure of your shade garden.

There are some shade loving plants which cannot tolerate any direct sun for instance, but they'll do just fine with a bit of filtered sunlight each day. Other shade loving plants though, prefer to grow in full, deep, dark shade all the time.

The best plants to put into a shady area of your yard and garden though, are called Hostas. These plants come in a wide variety of textures, colors, and sizes. Most of them create beautiful blooms too, but possibly one of the most interesting things about them is how they create such a wonderful display of color even when they don't have any flowers in bloom.

Hostas are perennial plants, which means they live for many years. In fact, these plants actually get more beautiful as they age too, because they tend to create gorgeous clumps of color that keep expanding and growing each year. Many types of hostas also show even more color as they get older too.

Hosta plants range from very small to very large, and though most will do just fine in full, deep, dark shade, they tend to thrive best when they have at least a little morning sun, or some filtered sunlight throughout the day. Hostas will also grow quite well in containers too, so feel free to plant some for sprucing up the inside of your home, or the patio and porch areas too.

Tags: Shade Gardening

When you decide to try your hand at organic gardening, one of the most frustrating parts of the entire process is trying to control pests, disesases, and other miscellaneous problems that come up with any form of gardening. Thankfully though, there are natural techniques which can be used to solve many of these common gardening problems, and one of those techniques is known as companion planting.

Companion planting is the process of planting specific flowers, herbs, and vegetables together in a way that either enhances the taste of the vegetables, and/or serves to help naturally control common pest and bug related problems in the garden.

Companion planting is important and useful for natural garden pest control, but it's also very important in vegetable gardening too. When you decide to plant two or more vegetable plants close together in your garden, you could end up with either a very bad tasting vegetable, or an extremely good one. And how your vegetables taste is dependant upon which companion plants you chose to plant together.

If for instance, you plant basil close to your tomatoes, or put them together into the same container garden, you can enhance the flavor of the tomatoes - particularly when using them to make home made sauces such as spaghetti sauce.

Chives is another excellent companion plant for tomatoes as well as carrots. Not only will the flavor improve, the growth of these plants will too. Chives also helps to keep aphids away from tomatoes, and they're thought to help keep carrot rust flys away too.

Chives can even help prevent black spot on roses. They need to be planted near the roses for two or three years before they begin to help prevent this common disease though.

Planting cabbage with celery, dill, onions or potatoes will benefit all these plants, but trying to plant cabbage too close to tomatoes or strawberries may cause problems with both growth and production.

Marigolds, also known as Calendula, are a very common flower to use for repelling pests around your home and garden. These little flowers have been used for this very purpose for centuries. You can scatter them throughout your yard and garden to help repel a variety of common bugs and pests. You need to plant marigolds which have a scent though, or else they won't work to repel the bugs. Some people don't like the scent of marigold flowers either though, so if you've never smelled them yourself, you may want to before planting too many.

Tags: Marigolds, Companion Plants, Organic Gardening

When you're ready to start planting a garden of any kind, the first thing you'll need to do is actually plan where things will be planted in your yard. By planning your garden first, you'll be able to create a beautiful landscape out of your yard, while making sure all plants and flowers compliment each other in color, height, texture and more.

You'll also be able to make sure you're not creating problems in your garden, that may make things difficult later in the growing season. If you're planting wildflowers which grow as tall as two feet for instance, you won't want to plant those right in front of a tulip garden which has flowers that will only grow to about ten inches in height.

One of the first steps needed in garden planning is to choose which flowers, bushes, shrubs, or plants you'd like to have in your garden. Choices are made for a variety of reasons too. Some people choose their flowers and plants based on color, while others may choose what to put in their garden based on how easy the plant or flower is to grow. Still others will plan gardens based on various needs their yard areas have.

If you have an area of your yard which isn't easily accessible for watering for instance, you might want to consider creating a small cactus garden, or planting flowers which require very little supplemental watering throughout the year. Likewise if there is an area of your yard which seems to be the first to flood when rains come, you'll want to plan a garden area for that space which includes plants and flowers who thrive with lots of water.

Once you've chosen the kinds of plants and flowers you want to have in your garden, the next step is to make sure you know what the sunlight, soil, and water requirements are for those plants. Plants which have similar needs for sun, soil and water should be planted in similar locations. If you try to plant a shade loving plant right next to a sun loving plant, one or the other of those plants is likely to die soon. And sometimes both with die, if the location you choose for them isn't quite appropriate for either one.

Now that you have your plants and their garden locations chosen, the next planning step involves how to arrange multiple plants into one garden area. And this part is fairly simple. If all of the plants you've chosen for one area of the garden will be about the same height once they're fully grown, then you can choose any layout design you'd like for them. You can plant like colored plants together for instance, or stagger the colors for a variagated look.

Usually there are some plants which will grow taller than others in your garden though, and when this is the case you'll need to make sure you plant the tallest growing plants towards the back, and the smaller ones in the front. This way the tallest plants and flowers won't hide the smaller ones once they're fully grown.

Tags: Flower Garden, Garden Planning, Cactus Garden