Lavender is one of the most beautiful and useful plants in the garden. It is a beloved plant that offers a trifecta of fragrance, medicinal benefits, and beautiful blue-purple flowers. In short, many gardeners want to know how to grow lavender plants. A stunning addition to perennial borders and informal hedging, lavender has plenty of devoted fans and garden lovers. Lavender plants offer a large selection of bloom times, colors, flower forms, and sizes. Truly, you can find a lavender plant suited for just about any garden situation. Lavender is a compact shrub-like perennial that is evergreen and deer proof. No wonder it finds its way into so many gardens and landscape designs. Growing lavender plants every year is essential to my garden. Contrary to popular belief, lavender flowers come in not only lavender-purple hues, but also shades of pink, white, and even yellow. I find many uses for the fresh and dried flowers, from culinary to sachets, lavender wands, … [Read more...] about How to Grow Lavender Plants
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Hide Your AC Unit with Smart Design Hacks
Air conditioners (AC units) are essential for countless homes and families. But AC units are not known for being the most attractive devices. In fact, many homeowners get frustrated when seeing those big gray boxes in their yards. If you have an AC unit in your yard, you probably wish it would just disappear. Well, you can't exactly get rid of your AC unit or magically make it vanish. It’s also important to be able to access it if you need to call an air conditioning repair service for essential maintenance or repairs. However, there are still plenty of innovative and effective ways you can hide your AC unit from view—or at least make it less of an eyesore. Here are some smart design hacks that will help to hide AC units and beautify your property. Home, Garden and Homestead is a member of several affiliate programs, and we receive a commission from qualified sales generated by the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting this website! Easy AC Unit Fence or … [Read more...] about Hide Your AC Unit with Smart Design Hacks
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
5 Ways to Bring the Outdoors Indoors
How can you bring the outdoors indoors? How can you make nature a bigger part of your indoor decor? It’s not as difficult as you think. If you’re a big fan of nature, then you already know there’s something soothing about being outside. But being outdoors all the time just isn’t practical, such as when the weather is bad or you have a list of chores to do inside the house. That’s when being able to bring the outdoors indoors is wonderful. If you want to feel at one with nature without leaving your house, here’s how to get started. Tip 1 to Bring the Outdoors Indoors: Put Some Plants Inside the House Some people buy artificial plants for around the house but keep the real plants outside. But clearly, that’s old-school decorating. Houseplants are a booming trend. (Photos courtesy of Pexels) So, it’s time to bring some real plants inside. After all, plants are not only beautiful to look at, they can also purify the air, increase oxygen within the … [Read more...] about 5 Ways to Bring the Outdoors Indoors
Grow Your Best Garden Ever
Would you like to grow your best garden ever? Well, great gardens don’t just happen. They certainly do not magically appear in your yard. So, the sooner you plan and start your best garden ever, the sooner it will begin to manifest in your yard. A great garden is typically the result of careful planning. Most extraordinary gardens are created over a period of years using the garden plan. Add a few happy accidents that happen along the way, and you have the recipe for a special horticultural wonder that will be the envy of the neighborhood. Don’t Be Afraid of Small Failures Talk to experienced gardeners and garden experts, and most will freely admit to buying plants that did not survive in their gardens. Karen Park Jennings, the former president of Park Seed, once told me, “I’ve learned a lot by killing plants.” That’s part of being a gardener. Some gardeners will even admit that some of their favorite plants arrived as volunteers in their garden. One of the healthiest … [Read more...] about Grow Your Best Garden Ever
