(Florists) Planning a Water Garden

September 21st, 2008 admin Posted in gardening |

By Jeff Jarred

You should spend time planning your water garden. Rushing your project could result in problems that may be time consuming or expensive to rectify.

Positioning your water Garden

Firstly you need to decide on the position of your feature. The following points should be considered:

1. Ponds and water displays are there to be observed and admired. Construction should be either in view from the house, or in an area where you spend lots of time

2. Keep features away from over hanging trees that drop their leaves in autumn, and also block out sunlight. Both may cause considerable problems

3. Access for the feature must be available at all times

4. Don’t forget to consider the services that may be required i.e. electric.

Water Garden Sizing

Deciding on what size to make your pond is usually determined by budget, fish type and size of garden. If the fish can grow large, you will obviously need a pool that is an adequate size for the fish to exercise and develop to their full potential. Consider depth as well as width, as this may be important if keeping larger fish. When considering size, a good idea is to lay a hosepipe on the ground as a template. This will give an idea as to how the finished pond size will look. Maintenance of your pond should also be considered prior to starting. A large pool will require much more time and effort than a small wildlife pond.

Which fish for your water garden?

If fish are to stocked in your pond, deciding on the varieties you wish to keep at the start will determine what size your pond needs to be and what equipment you will need for it to be efficient.

A budget for your water garden

Try to estimate how much the project is going to cost before you start to avoid any unexpected expenses. Download our checklist, which contains a list of areas you may need to consider.

Which plants for your water garden?

Plants are a critical part of pond building, and play a part in the water quality and balance of your feature. If used properly, they also add colour, texture and provide a shelter for livestock and wildlife. You may be required to pre-build shelves for your plants. Different plants suit different requirements. Remember that koi eat some plants, so they may need placing out of reach from the fish. If you want to keep water lilies, try to avoid placing them near too much water movement as this may damage the plants leaves.

Access for maintenance

Always leave space for access to maintain your pond. Your plants, pumps and filters will need attention, and easy access will make this much easier.

Shape and Styling

You can plan to build your pond in almost any shape, but unusual shapes may be difficult when using a pond liner. Ponds with broad curves are easier to construct, and will allow water to move around freely and avoid dead spaces. Try to keep the overall style of your feature in keeping with your garden. Browse our photo gallery for ideas of different styles.

Swelluk.com provides more information about Pond Pumps as well as Pond filters to help you create the perfect water garden, visit our website to learn more!

The life of soil
By sulamita berrezi

Soil primarily had its beginning from rock together with animal and vegetable decay, if you can imagine long stretches or periods of time when great rock masses were crumbling and breaking up. Heat, water action, and friction were largely responsible for this. By friction here is meant the rubbing and grinding of rock mass against rock mass. Think of the huge rocks, a perfect chaos of them, bumping, scraping, settling against one another. What would be the result? Well, I am sure you all could work that out. This is what happened: bits of rock were worn off, a great deal of heat was produced, pieces of rock were pressed together to form new rock masses, some portions becoming dissolved in water. Why, I myself, almost feel the stress and strain of it all. Can you?

Then, too, there were great changes in temperature. First everything was heated to a high temperature, then gradually became cool. Just think of the cracking, the crumbling, the upheavals, that such changes must have caused! You know some of the effects in winter of sudden freezes and thaws. But the little examples of bursting water pipes and broken pitchers are as nothing to what was happening in the world during those days. The water and the gases in the atmosphere helped along this crumbling work.

From all this action of rubbing, which action we call mechanical, it is easy enough to understand how sand was formed. This represents one of the great divisions of soil sandy soil. The sea shores are great masses of pure sand. If soil were nothing but broken rock masses then indeed it would be very poor and unproductive. But the early forms of animal and vegetable life decaying became a part of the rock mass and a better soil resulted. So the soils we speak of as sandy soils have mixed with the sand other matter, sometimes clay, sometimes vegetable matter or humus, and often animal waste.

Clay brings us right to another class of soils clayey soils. It happens that certain portions of rock masses became dissolved when water trickled over them and heat was plenty and abundant. This dissolution took place largely because there is in the air a certain gas called carbon dioxide or carbonic acid gas. This gas attacks and changes certain substances in rocks. Sometimes you see great rocks with portions sticking up looking as if they had been eaten away. Carbonic acid did this. It changed this eaten part into something else which we call clay. A change like this is not mechanical but chemical. The difference in the two kinds of change is just this: in the one case of sand, where a mechanical change went on, you still have just what you started with, save that the size of the mass is smaller. You started with a big rock, and ended with little particles of sand. But you had no different kind of rock in the end. Mechanical action might be illustrated with a piece of lump sugar. Let the sugar represent a big mass of rock. Break up the sugar, and even the smallest bit is sugar. It is just so with the rock mass; but in the case of a chemical change you start with one thing and end with another. You started with a big mass of rock which had in it a portion that became changed by the acid acting on it. It ended in being an entirely different thing which we call clay. So in the case of chemical change a certain something is started with and in the end we have an entirely different thing. The clay soils are often called mud soils because of the amount of water used in their formation.

The third sort of soil which we farm people have to deal with is lime soil. Remember we are thinking of soils from the farm point of view. This soil of course ordinarily was formed from limestone. Just as soon as one thing is mentioned about which we know nothing, another comes up of which we are just as ignorant. And so a whole chain of questions follows. Now you are probably saying within yourselves, how was limestone first formed?

At one time ages ago the lower animal and plant forms picked from the water particles of lime. With the lime they formed skeletons or houses about themselves as protection from larger animals. Coral is representative of this class of skeleton-forming animal.

As the animal died the skeleton remained. Great masses of this living matter pressed all together, after ages, formed limestone. Some limestones are still in such shape that the shelly formation is still visible. Marble, another limestone, is somewhat crystalline in character. Another well-known limestone is chalk. Perhaps you’d like to know a way of always being able to tell limestone. Drop a little of this acid on some lime. See how it bubbles and fizzles. Then drop some on this chalk and on the marble, too. The same bubbling takes place. So lime must be in these three structures. One does not have to buy a special acid for this work, for even the household acids like vinegar will cause the same result.

Then these are the three types of soil with which the farmer has to deal, and which we wish to understand. For one may learn to know his garden soil by studying it, just as one learns a lesson by study.

Sulamita is the developer of Sfondi Immagini, Sulamita also has a video nuoto federica pellegrini.

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How much are you aware of Gardening problems
By Jessica Thomson

Most people start Gardening as a hobby, but as time passes they become obsessed with it. Gardening is one of the best constructive use of time as well as a way of feeling the nature. The most common problems in gardening are frost, wind, wilting and pests.

Frost can bring havoc and prove fatal for tender plants. It can bring havoc to new growth on plants that are already established. It can be harmful to fruit trees especially when they are in bloom, leading to meager or no fruit yield. If the weather forecast mentions frost then let the danger pass and then only plant the immature plants or the young seedling. To ensure safety from frost one should cover or protect the tender plants by keeping them in greenhouse. It would be good to drape the established fruit trees with flees or netting. The damage done by frost is obvious by the leaves and the young stems turning black and shriveling.

The other common problem faced in gardening is wind. The worst problems are created by strong winds that damage shrubs , plants and trees. One can try to reduce the impact of strong winds by building wind shelters.

Wilting can be another common problem for any Garden Centre. The raised bed plants and the container plants are also affected by wilting. The scarcity or excess of water leads to wilting. The best thing in case of scarcity of water one should segregate the plants that have dried and died from the ones that can survive on watering again. In case of excess of water , don’t water the plants for some time, give them some time to dry out. Resume controlled watering when you see the normalcy being restored. There may be no recovery if a plant is subjected to flooding for a long time because the plant may have been submerged for a long time resulting into decay and rot of the plant’s root system.

Pests are a big problem for any garden centre because the pests lead to a great commercial losses. The most common pests are Aphids, Earwings, Mealybugs, Rabbits, Squirrels, Deer, Grasshoppers, Mites, Slugs And Snails, Thrips. The plant pests can be controlled through organic pesticides and inorganic pesticides. The organic pest control method is day by day becoming more and more popular. The organic pest control includes the use of friendly insects that fee on aphids and the like.