How Does Your Garden Grow?

By DoItYourself.com Staff

Is your garden a wilderness? Does everything you plant give up and die? Is your lawn brown and patchy? Then read on and find out how you can make your garden grow.

If your garden is a wilderness, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the weeds. If you don't have the time to do this, pay a teenager to do it for you. Once the garden is cleared, you need to add some compost and rake it over.

The best method I have found for establishing a green lawn that does not look patchy, is to lay some turf. You can buy turf quite cheaply nowadays. We laid enough turf for a 16 x 20 lawn and it cost us around $60; it is worth saving for. So long as your ground is well prepared and you keep the dog and the children off of the lawn for the first couple of weeks, it should be fine. Make sure that it is well watered and once in a while give it some lawn feed. Regular mowing also helps to keep the turf fresh.

If you want rose bushes, it is advisable to buy them as pre-grown plants. Most other flowers grow well when planted either as bulbs or seedlings. Start them off in pots and either keep them in a shed or buy some strong polythene to cover them and protect them from the birds. Don’t forget that they will still need water.

Regularly pull up straggly weeds before they have a chance to take over your garden. Dead head your roses regularly and make sure that the lawn and the plants are well watered. If you have problems with slugs then put some slug pellets down. It may seem silly but one of the most important elements in making your garden grow is to make sure that you go out and appreciate it, talk to the plants occasionally and spend some time out there. It has a most positive effect on their growth.

Finally, to make your garden grow, it is a good idea to invest in a composter. For about $55 you can buy a readymade composter. Put all your vegetable peelings, etc., in there. After a time the vegetable matter is automatically fed back into the soil and you will see it begin to look richer. Spend some time doing these things and soon people will be asking you "how does your garden grow?"

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