Tree trimming is a regular part of maintaining a yard and garden. In this guide, we offer tree trimming tips that help keep trees healthy while giving your yard a professional look. Many people don’t realize that tree trimming is also a way to avoid hazards. That’s because overgrown trees can fall in high winds or even provide an obstacle for traffic. Editor’s Note: Trimming trees and pruning trees are two slightly different things. Pruning typically refers to removing dead or infected branches. Trimming is usually cutting back overgrown trees and plants. In this story, we cover primarily tree trimming. The Importance of Tree Trimming Doing a good job of trimming your trees is vital to the health of the trees. Overgrown trees can grow through electrical wires or other essential cables. Trees can fall during high winds, and this can cause damage to houses, cars and even injure people. Avoiding property damage and personal injury are reason enough to properly trim your … [Read more...] about Tree Trimming Tips
Garden
Best Flowering Vines for Vertical Gardening
Flowering vines are a gardener’s secret weapon—especially when you run out of horizonal gardening space. If you have a small garden space and you still crave more plants, the answer is as simple as vertical gardening with flowering vines. Even if you still have horizontal growing space, vines reaching heavenward add another dimension to your landscape. There’s something magical about a clear blue sky behind masses of white blooms on classic morning glory vine. Or, fluffy white clouds floating behind cascades of lavender-blue flowers on a blooming wisteria. Even misty rain filling the tubular orange flowers on trumpet vine can make you smile and feel good. Flowering vines give a garden an appealing romantic look. They tease you to come hither and entangle your thoughts and emotions with them. They curl and wind their way around trellises and arbors and across the tops of fences. Some flowering vines even tantalize you with their sweet smells. Most vines are heavy and … [Read more...] about Best Flowering Vines for Vertical Gardening
Plants for Pollinators
Why should you grow plants for pollinators? For starters, bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are colorful and interesting visitors to any garden. And without these pollinators and the plants that support them, there literally wouldn’t be gardens. Unfortunately, many of these winged jewels are in trouble. The populations of many species of butterflies, hummingbirds and bees are being threatened by shrinking natural habitats that provide them food and shelter. According to Kylee Baumle, author of The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, gardeners have a crucial role to play in pollinator health. Growing pollinator plants and creating pollinator gardens is vitally important in maintaining populations of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. What Does a Pollinator Garden Look Like? At first glance, a pollinator garden might look like a typical flower garden. It’s dominated by perennial plants that flower in a rainbow of colors. But a pollinator garden contains a … [Read more...] about Plants for Pollinators
Best Cordless Electric Tillers
Cordless electric tillers and cultivators combine impressive digging power with eco-friendly benefits. The electric motor of a cordless electric tiller is quiet, energy efficient, and it starts immediately. Plus, an electric tiller or cultivator will never run out of gas. Garden tillers and cultivators make it easier to prepare a garden plot for planting. Because let’s face it, turning soil over with a shovel can be back-breaking work. Most people DO NOT say tilling the soil by hand is one of their favorite gardening chores. That’s why the power tiller was invented. A motorized power tool that breaks up the dirt prior to planting is a terrific labor-saving device. It’s no surprise the power tiller has become one of the most popular garden tools. Gasoline-powered tillers have been around for decades. They became even more popular in the 1980s with the introduction of the Mantis mini-tiller. But it wasn’t until the 21st century that electric tillers and cultivators became … [Read more...] about Best Cordless Electric Tillers
How to Harvest and Store Seeds
One of the easiest ways for gardeners to save money is to harvest and store seeds from their gardens. It’s easy. It’s fun. And harvesting and storing seeds is a tradition that goes back for many centuries. Fall and early winter is when you harvest and store seeds. For many gardeners, it’s the final activity of the garden season. Harvesting and storing seeds is a bittersweet way to say goodbye to one gardening season and look forward to the next one. You’ll be in good company when you start planting your stored seeds at the dawning of a new spring! How to Properly Harvest Seeds Harvesting your seeds is easy. You can get it done in these three steps: 1. Let the Plants Go to Seed Simply let a plant’s flowers go to seed. Think of a flower as a seed factory—because that’s exactly what it is. Leave the spent flowers on the plant so it can set seeds. Then, let the seeds dry on the plants. Don’t pluck them off before they are completely dry. And resist the temptation to … [Read more...] about How to Harvest and Store Seeds
