Tag Archives: Gardening

Some Great Gifts For Your Gardening Friends

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The rewards of gardening are plentiful. But sometimes it is nice to receive a gift to make the work of gardening a bit more comfortable or easier. Even though for most, gardening is a chore of love, having the right tool for the specific task is not only a time saver but gets the job done correctly and more efficiently.

A lot of time in the garden is spent on your knees close to the earth. A gift of cushioned kneepads is a thoughtful one. They are good for working in the soil, and also can be useful when working on harder surfaces such as wood, asphalt, and even concrete. Surprisingly, they can be so comfortable that a gardener can forget he or she is even wearing them.

Hauling mulch around an area can be time consuming. Give a large garden cart to your gardening friend you know has a lot of this heavy hauling to do. This cart will take fewer trips holding about five times the amount the common wheelbarrow can hold. It will also come in handy when planting larger shrubs being much sturdier and stable than a wheelbarrow.

A potting table is a wonderful gift. A special place at just the right height to change around plants to bigger pots or different ones is always so useful for any gardener. A soil tray is a good thing and one with a sink is even better.

All-in-one efficiency tools are always a good gift. A multi-purpose garden knife that can dig holes and cut roots makes the transplanting task easy; and this can be found all in just one tool. With this tool, days in the garden become less about work and more about enjoying yourself in the garden.

Many gardeners appreciate items of garden art received as gifts which often hold memories of times spent with vacationing friends and neighbors. These little treasures can be placed throughout the garden creating a personal touch.

A living gift keeps on giving and giving. Instead of buying cut roses that would eventually just die, consider giving a rose bush. This rose bush will keep on multiplying more beautiful roses on its branches, and also give cut roses for years to come.

Sometimes gardeners have injuries or develop medical conditions that prevent them from gardening the way they used to garden. A lightweight little power tiller can really help in this case bringing joy back into the act.

Support apparatus for vine-type plantings or a sturdy arbor for a wandering wisteria could be just the perfect gift. Whatever is chosen to grow on the support will be displayed much more vividly and will happily show its gratitude continually.

Probably the most thoughtful garden gifts are tools given down from one gardener to the next gardener in the family. If a gardener keeps his or her tools in good condition, they will keep performing for many years to come.
A wooden handle might have to be replaced, but knowing that same tool had been in use for over half a century or more is a real treasure.

A gardening journal makes a great gift to keep records of annual plantings. It can be a resource for memories and it can remind you that gardening is a process and a constant learning experience. The best journals have places for daily notes as well as a plant inventory list and a place where harvests can be documented.

Garden Light Trends

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When homeowners first began utilizing a garden light in their landscape, it was nothing more than a simple light along a path. Now it has been cultivated and grown into a mesh of exterior entry lighting for safety and for aesthetic qualities. With an exterior garden light you can indicate to yourself, your family, and your friends where the entry is. You can use them for businesses as well as homes. They can also light up the building numbers. It has become a growing trend to emphasis aesthetically pleasing entry lights. In terms of quantity, there is some debate between whether a single garden light or a string of garden lights is more aesthetically pleasing.

When you combine the aesthetics of a garden with the usefulness of an entry way light, you must also combine decorating principles. It is good to create an inviting system which offers uniformed levels of lights. Instead of using a single bright garden light, try integrating many lower-light fixtures near ground level. This offers the same safety of a single, bright entryway light, with the appeal of a creative garden. Generally using a single garden fixture will be too bright and therefore, all areas leading to the single light are dimmer. They are generally, in fact, too dim to provide any safety. With multiple garden fixtures, you can create lighting in areas which have key interest to you such as next to signs, doorways, or stairs. This also helps to evenly distribute the light around your garden. With a mixture of task lighting and accent lighting, you can use exterior garden lights to highlight the exterior features of your home while providing you with security and safety. You can integrate up-lights or post lights to accomplish the aforementioned lighting goals.

In terms of a garden light, a glare is caused by two things. The first is too much contrast and the second is a direct view of a light source which is unshielded. If there is too much contrast the rest of your exterior garden will remain in the dark. A desirable contrast ratio is less than five to one. You want to softly accent your garden, walkway, doorway, or stairs without creating a glare. The importance of a garden light cannot be underestimated, as it is responsible for creating the first impression of your home. It will take the eye a much longer time to adapt to excessively lit buildings or homes as well as darker outside walkways. Both of these make it difficult to see.

While causing visual difficulties, having excessive brightness can cause other problems as well. The additional light will reflect off of any surrounding surfaces such as wall and walkways. This reflection bounces into the sky which creates what is referred to as “light pollution”. This light trespass will invade any adjacent homes or buildings. The “light pollution” then reduces the ability to view things in the sky such as the moon and the stars. This compromises the quality of view and life for everyone. Overall, with continued “light pollution” entire neighborhoods and cities will experience brighter nights because of newer, efficient sources which use higher light levels with lower power consumption.