Gardening

How Your Landscape Affects Your Safety

By Esmeralda T  |  2012/02/18 13:40 Posted in Gardening  |  Comments Off

If you think about improving home safety, your thoughts will most likely go to security gadgets. But are you aware that you can actually create a more secure home with your landscape? There are certain things that you should do and some items that you can use in order to make your landscape more beautiful and at the same time make your space more secure. Below are some tips and you can utilize these methods to improve the safety provided by your security alarm systems.

Taking Care of Trees
Trees are definitely great additions to any landscape. But when planting trees, make sure that these aren’t too close together or else they will grow with closer branches and trunks that will create dense foliage. This won’t be good as such areas will be used by burglars or prowlers to hide in. Furthermore, trees shouldn’t cover doors and windows because trees that cover access points will hide burglars or thieves when they are trying to gain access into your home. In addition to this, prune tree branches regularly. Don’t allow branches to get near second floor doors or windows. Cut these off so that burglars won’t have things to climb onto.

Caring for Shrubs and Hedges
Shrubs and hedges can be used to outline your property line. But have these short, specifically not more than 3 or 4 feet. If you allow shrubs and hedges to grow taller, then you provide thieves with hiding spaces. You should also consider using thorny plants as hedges. Many varieties of spiky plants look good and because they have spikes or thorns, robbers would certainly think twice about hiding in such areas. Here are some suggestions: Washington hawthorn, pyracantha, roses, cacti, and the Oregon grape holly. These plants have needle-sharp long thorns, particularly the hawthorn and grape holly. There are also varieties of rose bushes that aren’t only prickly, but itchy as well.

Having Light Installations
It’s also essential that your landscape is well-illuminated. When areas are lighted well, burglars will think twice about targeting such places. They won’t risk getting caught or seen. So, ask your security company about which lighting systems to install. Keep in mind that there are lights powered by electricity, and many varieties are also solar powered. Furthermore, several models exist. There are regular lights that you can use to illuminate entry points, specifically doors and windows, as well as pathways. There are also floodlights that automatically turn on when its sensors are tripped. These will produce blinding light that will startle and scare off prowlers and burglars.

How to Make your Garden Mosquito Proof

By Ericka S  |  2011/10/05 09:06 Posted in Gardening  |  Comments Off

It’s now been a couple of years since I moved into my new house in Chiang Mai int the north of Thailand.  I’d been planning and planning the move in immense detail for many years – sorting out visas, finding work, researching areas to live – and when it came time to finally make the move I couldn’t have been happier.  The house isn’t that great – Thai homes are small, and this one is just a couple of small bedrooms and one extremely poky bathroom.  The garden, though, is very special – its absolutely enormous, at least three times the square footage of the house, and beautiful to boot.

I imagined relaxing on the lawn over long, lazy weekends; inviting the local kids over to play football with my own; throwing barbecues with the neighbours.   When I moved in, though, I discovered that my garden was mosquito central.  You really just can’t imagine the number of mosquitoes flying around above the grass and below the bushes.  The garden was home to a pond and a couple of bird baths, and the water just invited mosquitoes to breed.  Come on in, guys, the water’s fine!

Within days of moving in I started to transform the garden into a no-mosquito zone.  The pond was quickly drained and the bird baths were thrown out, and then I planted lots and lots of mosquito repellent plants such as catnip, mint and citronella.  The plants repel mosquitoes with their aroma, so my garden smells fantastic to me but horrible to mosquitoes.

Citronella is a great natural mosquito repellent.  Every time I head into the garden to relax I crush a couple of leaves, tear them up and rub the oil on my skin.  Just a couple of leaves are enough to keep the mosquitoes away for two hours or so.

So, this mosquito season I won’t need to know how to treat mosquito bites.  

Growing Vegetables in Planter Bags

By Julianne  |  2011/08/23 09:16 Posted in Gardening  |  Comments Off

In the past I always used to grow vegetables in containers in my backyard, and I honestly believed using containers was really practical as an alternative to growing in the ground, especially as I didn’t have any land to grow on of my own. For several years I successfully grew everything from carrots to beans and lettuces to radishes, in a number of plastic tubs, plant pots etc. My only problem was storing the empty containers over the winter months as I didn’t have a very large shed, and it wouldn’t hold all the rigid tubs and containers even when I stacked them up carefully. Thankfully I found a website on the Internet that had an excellent alternative suggestion in one of the articles, and that was to grow vegetables in planter bags instead of containers. Planter bags are reuseable, very tough, and better than containers for a number of reasons, not least because they can be emptied and folded up at the end of the growing season, therefore far easier to store until the following spring. I am a complete convert now, and virtually all of my backyard vegetables are grown in planter bags, which all comfortably fit in my tiny shed at the end of the season.