5 Cool Gardening Tips That Will Let You Do More With Less

We love setting up and tending to our gardens, but we only have so much free time to do so. Usually, this involves getting busy on the weekend with some weeding and planting and watering where necessary, to help flowers grow successfully. Given the lack of time busy working people have to devote to their beloved gardens, here are five cool gardening tips to help out.

Enhanced Greenhouses

Using light deprivation greenhouses is an interesting way to encourage and control flower development whether you’re working the garden or in the office. A blackout fabric covers the greenhouse and runs on an automatic timing system to completely block out light at appropriate times and to let it in at other times. The process encourages each plant to reach for its best flowing option. Indeed, when there’s increasing darkness being artificially created by the darkened effect, flowers that have yet to blossom tend to accelerate their process to complete their cycle before autumn comes. To get every flower to bloom and get the most from your greenhouse plants, a light depriving cover is a useful approach to take.

Composting is Your Friend

Overworked soil loses its natural nutrients and produces a poor food crop or lackluster flowers that are starved of what they need to grow strong, big, and tall. Getting started with composting doesn’t require a huge compost kit to begin with; just something large enough to be useful. You’d be surprised what goes into a compost heap. It can include everything from apple cores to coffee grinds and everything in between. Any food waste also makes for excellent compost too, instead of you throwing it away. Also, be careful with drainage. Elevate the compost container using paving stones or bricks to get it off the ground. Ensure there are enough holes in the bottom of the compost container to allow sufficient runoff and a place for the water to drain.

Don’t Overwater to Make Up for Skipped Watering Days

It’s easy to be tempted to add copious amounts of water to your plants to make up for the weekdays when you didn’t find the time or just didn’t feel like bothering after a long day behind a desk. However, be careful to not add too much water because it can damage the plant and it could die off. When watering, the trick is to get the watering spout down to below the leaves and close to the top layer of soil. This way, the tips of the plant receive some moisture, but most of the water sinks into the earth to feed the roots. A plan to stick to is a one-inch layer of H2O added each week. Be careful with some plants that need more, or less moisture, and adjust accordingly when watering them. Whatever you do, do not water the leaves carelessly as they could go moldy.

Prune and Trim Down

It’s a good idea to trim down plants that are becoming overgrown with leaves sprouting everywhere. These are not needed for the successful long-term growth of most plants. Growing them requires sufficient air flow and when they’ve been allowed to get overgrown, it hurts their ability to stay healthy. For gardeners who are struggling to keep water away from the leaves, trimming the plants down regularly ensures there are fewer leaves to get wet, even accidentally.

Make Plant Pots Lighter

It’s tempting to fill a big plant pot full of soil believing this is best for the plant. In actuality, most plants don’t need a particularly deep layer of earth to grow happily. When wishing to move planters around from time to time, you’ll be glad that you took the extra step to fill one third to a half with foam at the bottom and the soil above it. With soil, peat moss also helps lighten the pot. Make them light enough to lift more easily for easy repositioning and give your back some relief when you do!

Tending to the garden provides a great deal of pleasure. It’s excellent exercise with stretching and squatting and crouching down. You barely even need a gym when you garden regularly as it helps you to work up a sweat in the same way that yoga does. Being able to sit out on the weekend or weekday evenings and admire your handiwork is part of the pleasure of having a garden. It doesn’t take much with a few subtle improvements. And you’ll be glad you did because it gives years of pleasure and is something to show off to visiting friends too.

Feature image: Skitterphoto.