Tag: garden

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Lawn & Garden

6 Garden Herbs With Great Heath Benefits

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Caring for your own little garden can be a very rewarding experience. It’s fun, it’s relaxing and you can literally see the fruits of your labor grow before your eyes. What’s even better, if you choose the right plants, you can make this hobby useful as well. Some people choose to grow culinary herbs to save money and gain flavor in the kitchen. But you can also grow herbs with health benefits to keep yourself and your family in top shape in a completely natural way.

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1. Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is known for its many benefits relating to skin care. It is great to treat sunburns, cold sores and even psoriasis. All you need to do is cut open one of its fleshy leaves and topically apply the gel inside it as a soothing balm. Besides, Aloe Vera is a very easy to care plant that can be really resilient, so it’s ideal if you live in a hot and dry area.

2. Basil

Fresh basil is an easy way to instantly kick your dishes up a notch. But this herb is not only delicious, it can help you cure your stomach as well. Basil leaves can be eaten to treat stomach pain, loss of appetite and even gas. Simply add the leaves to a salad and you are good to go. You can also apply the leaves directly on top of insect bites to reduce inflammation and help them heal.

3. Coneflower

Echinacea or coneflowers are pretty little purple flowers that are closely related to daisies. But they do much more than look pretty and add color to your garden. They are believed to have anti-inflammatory properties that can soothe symptoms related to the flu, cold and other respiratory ailments. You can take advantage of its health properties by making coneflower tea.

4. Lavender

Another popular herb, lavender is known for its distinctive smell and bright purple color. Lavender looks great in any garden (and you can even grow it in a pot inside, to naturally add a touch of color to your living room. This pretty flower has relaxing properties that will help you reduce stress and anxiety and even sleep better. You can make tea out of its dried flowers or simmer them in a hot pot of water to inundate the room with its powerful and calming scent.

5. Calendula

These bright orange flowers look very similar to marigolds, but they have a bunch of health properties that make them a perfect addition to your medicinal garden. A tea made from its flowers will soothe stomach ailments and a Calendula salve applied to the skin with reduce irritation and even make hemorrhoids hurt less. Besides, this flower can even slow-down bleeding when applied topically, so it’s a good plant to have around in case of an accident.

6. Mint

No herb garden would be complete without some mint. It smells great, it can freshen your breath and it’s easy to grow. What more could you want? You can use its leaves to make tea and drink it to treat nausea. Mint leaf tea will also soothe tension headaches. Besides this herb’s powerful smell can clear your sinuses and even make it easier for you to focus or keep yourself awake.

 

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Lawn & Garden

These Are The Coolest Backyard Projects To Do With The Kids

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One of the best things about summer is to be able to spend time outside. Warm air, sunshine and longer days are perfect to start outdoorsy projects that will keep your children entertained and make them love the outdoors as much as you do. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart to make something beautiful, you just need to be creative and think outside of the box. So roll up your sleeves and take note of these cool backyard projects to do with the kids.

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Make a butterfly feeder

Who doesn’t love butterflies? They are pretty and colorful and bring life to any garden. Attract them to your backyard with this easy project that even the youngest children can do. The easiest “butterfly food” to make is overripe fruit. Moths and butterflies love it and all you have to do is wait a bit for those bananas and strawberries at home to turn a bit mushy and soft. Get a ceramic or glass plate or a terra cotta plant saucer, any dish with a sloping rim will do. Ask your kids to decorate it however they want with paint or gluing pieces of ceramics in it to create colorful designs. The brighter the better and if they feel like gluing silk flowers to the rim, that’s great too. Now suspend it using flower pot hangers or a macrame holder, hanging it from a tree to keep it under the shade. It’s better if you can easily see it from your house or your patio chairs and it will work best if you hang it a little bit higher than your tallest flowers. Place the slices of overripe fruit on it and wait. If it’s dry out, sprinkle them with water or fruit juice. Replace the fruit when it’s too dry or it becomes moldy.

Build a fairy house or garden

Bring some magic right to your garden by building a house (or a tiny village!) for fairies. The best part about this project is that you can be as creative as you want to use the space around your garden. If you have a big tree with flowers around it, for example, you can add a tiny wooden door to the base and put up tiny windows or decorations of any sort. You can turn rocks into fairy houses and even create a tiny village from scratch on a patch of your garden. Tree stumps are fantastic fairy buildings and old bird feeders can be filled with soil, small plants and colorful rocks to make a fairy garden as well. You can make it as detailed as you want and you enlist the help of your older children to make a surprise for the younger ones. It is really difficult to stop believing in magic when confronted with a whimsical miniature village right outside of your home.

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Lawn & Garden Recycling

Recycle Your Furniture For Your Dream Garden

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Looking for a way to revitalize your garden? Try furniture. And I don’t mean your typical patio chairs and plastic table. Oh no! Instead of throwing away old furniture (or sell it for 89 cents at your next garage sale which is hardly a deal), recycle it and give it new life in your garden!

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Recycling

How To Reuse Your Coffee Grounds And Tea Leaves

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How To Reuse Your Coffee Grounds And Tea Leaves

If you are anything like most Americans, chances are your day doesn’t start until you’ve had your first cup of coffee. And you’ll have a couple more cups throughout the day. And maybe a cup of tea or two as well. That’s a lot of coffee grounds and tea leaves you shouldn’t be throwing away. But did you know you could have been reusing them in your home and garden all this time? Neither did we! (Keep reading.)

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Lawn & Garden

Green Pest Control For Your Garden

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We all know that traditional pesticides are incredibly harmful for the environment and best avoided by everyone. However, when your beautiful garden is being ravaged by insects and other pests, those horrible chemicals almost start to look appealing again. Don’t worry, here are some tips for ultra-green pest control.

Ants

Nothing worse than ants chewing away at your precious plants. Find some cedar oil and spray it around the problem area, as it is a non-toxic insect repellent that can get rid of ants as well as mosquitoes, fleas and even cockroaches. Another way to get rid of ants is to use bitter cucumber peels, ground coffee or garlic cloves. Spread them around among your plants as many ants have aversion to those items. You can also plant mint in your garden and most ant species will leave the rest of your plants alone. Finally, diatomaceous earth (a soft siliceous type of soil) will repel ants and most other insects.

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Slugs and snails

Slimy, slow, disgusting and incredibly destructive, snails and slugs can completely ruin your plants in one night. Place a couple of shallow dishes with beer among the plants that you want to protect. Slugs really love beer so they will go straight to the plate, fall down and drown. Crushed eggshells sprinkled among the plants are another great way to dissuade these slimy pests. Snails and slugs try not to cross a hard sharp barrier that will damage their soft bodies.

Other bugs

One of the best (and greenest) ways to get rid of bugs is to introduce their natural predators, as long as you do your research. Find out the best beneficial insects that will eat the pests without damaging your plants and buy them on eBay. You can also attract birds to your garden as they will not only fill your house with music, but they will also eat bugs. Get a bird bath and keep it filled with fresh water, hang bird feeders and houses, try to keep a quiet environment and don’t disturb the birds. They will do the dirty work for you.

Mammals and other animals

There are solar powered pest control products that collect energy from the sunlight and shake periodically. These products work by producing vibrations that disturb small animals and scare them away. If you want to avoid racoons and skunks, make sure your garbage cans are tightly closed with a well-fitting lid. If you are really having a problem with animals, you can try no-kill traps to deal with them in a humane way. Do your research and safely release the animals back into the wild, far away from your garden. If you are using glue traps for snakes, vegetable oil is a safe way to loosen the glue without hurting the animal.

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Eco Tips Lawn & Garden

You Should Be Growing Your Own Aromatic Herbs And Here’s Why

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Have some extra space in your garden? Some empty pots you want to put to good use? Start growing aromatic herbs if you are not doing it already. And if you are, keep doing it. And maybe grow some more. There are a million reasons why having your own little herb garden, but I will list only a few of them. You will find your own reasons to love your herb garden, I can promise you that.

1. Taking care of plants if therapeutic

It’s been scientifically proven that gardening is very relaxing. Taking time out of your day to pause and care for your plants can help you reduce stress and anxiety. Using your hands and clearing your head for a few minutes a day will make you feel renewed and energized, and it will improve your mood for the rest of the day.

2. Growing plants that you can use is rewarding

There is no feeling as satisfying as knowing your hobbies are both fun and useful. Sure, all plants look nice, but when your plants look nice and are a great addition to your cooking, it’s clear who the real winner is. An aromatic herb garden can give you a sense of accomplishment every time you cook, knowing you are using something you grew with your own hands.

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3. Fresh herbs taste a lot better than the dried stuff

It doesn’t matter if you are a fantastic chef or if the kitchen is a new and mysterious land for you. Any dish can be improved with fresh herbs. Basil, parsley, thyme, mint, bay and oregano can add a lot of flavor, and take your meals from “okay” to “amazing”. You can even experiment with different flavors to see which addition works best with every dish.

4. They just smell good

 Aromatic herbs are, well, aromatic. They smell fantastic without being overwhelming. A lot of flowers smell nice, of course, but they can be overly sweet for some people. And flowers bloom only for a while. Herbs, on the other hand, always smell fresh, and they keep their smell all year round. Basil, mint and lavender are especially good for this, especially if you are growing them indoors. They mask unpleasant smells and keep the room smelling fresh and clean.

 5. You can save money

 If you normally use herbs and spices in your cooking, they can add up in your budget, especially if you choose to use fresh leaves as opposed to dried ones. With your own little herb garden, you can scratch that item off your grocery list indefinitely.

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Lawn & Garden

8 Eco-Friendly Plants to Garden

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Whenever someone is decorating their home they always forget about natural air purifiers. Those natural air purifiers are known as plants. Eco-friendly plants are great to garden. They not only make the world a healthier place to live; they also make your home a refreshing place to be in. Then great thing is that a lot of them are indoor plants that can help get rid of air pollutants. They will bring a pop of color to any room along with fresh air. You can even add moisture to your room during the winter months just by adding a plant.

Here are some eco-friendly plants that you should garden.

  1. Tulips remove ammonium from the air.
  2. Peace Lily plants are so beautiful when they are peaceful cleaning the air. The white blooming plant is known to help filter toxic pollutant smells like nail polish, paint, and anything with benzene fumes.
  3. The Feston Rose Plant is not only beautiful but it also smells great. The flowers that bloom are vibrant and the plant can withstand high temperatures. Plus do not be guilty for not watering it much. It can survive. Treat it well thought because it helps tremendously with getting rid of air pollutants.
  4. Gerbera can easily remove toxic vapors from your environment.
  5. The Garlic Vine is the garlic/onion smelling flower of plants, hence where it gets its name from. Beautiful lavender flowers are what make this such a delightful indoor plant to have. The petals can be used for ailments and the vine is a great purifier.
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  1. The Devil’s Ivy is a devil of a plant because it somehow continues to grow and grow with little care. Hang it high because it grows rapidly. The plant is great as a natural anti-pollutant against carbon monoxide.
  2. Phalaenopsis plants are hard to pronounce but are pretty to look at. The purify areas in your house that are not close to natural sunlight. Why? Since they cannot take a lot of sun light you can put them in areas with little light.
  3. Mini Palm Trees are great to keep indoors. Trees take in the carbon dioxide in the air and in return release oxygen for us to breathe. I think that is very kind of them. Plus it will give your room a nice tropical feel.

Next time you plan out your new eco-friendly project do not forget about our green friends. No not the aliens. These eco-friendly plants can make your room or garden so beautiful. My favorite is the Yellow Goddess. She is small, yet loudly intoxicating with natural purifiers. Freshen up the air and area at the same time. Learn how to take care of them and they will take care of you.

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Lawn & Garden

Eco-Friendly Winter Lawn Care

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Winter is coming. No, that does not mean that another season of Game of Thrones is on its way. It means that you need to find out how to take care of your lawn the eco-friendly way. Do not let the cold weather ruin all of your hard work. The green color on your lawn will fade away slowly during the winter, but there are ways to get that color back in the spring.

Here are some basic things you can do to keep your lawn safe in the winter.

Mulch: If your lawn has some patchy areas then spread mulch in those areas. It will keep weeds from growing up in it and also keep the grass around it from being damaged too.

Local Plants: Incorporate some local plants because they have adapted to survive in the weather that hits the area. They will live on through the winter season. Plus they are already accustomed to the local diseases.

Plant Seasonally: Rose bushes, azaleas, and hibiscus are all options of plants that bloom well in the winter.

Mow: Go back to the basics. Forget about the electric lawnmower and the gas powered lawnmower. Use a push mower. You help the world and help yourself in the process. Keep the grass cut short during the winter. By doing this you keep rodents out from ruining the grass.  Also only mow every four weeks.

Rake: The leaves can kill and de-green your lawn. It keeps the grass from getting sunlight and air. Rake them up regularly. Do not get rid of the fallen leaves. Crumble them up to reuse in the spring as mulch. Use a bamboo rake to keep it as eco0friendly as you can.

Weeds Be Gone: Pull the weeds out by hand but be careful to not let any of the seeds hit the soil again.

Grass Seeds: In any area that there is few grass or none at all, plant new grass seeds now. Cover them up with mulch or compost to help them grow faster. In the spring time your grass will be even, just trim it.

Soil: Frequently keep your lawn feed with a good mix of fertilizer. It needs aeration to keep the flow of water and air to hit every spot of the lawn.

Drench It: Before it gets real cold, water your lawn real good. Drench it up so it can have one last good gulp of water before the spring.

Lazy Makes Lawn Unhappy: Do not let your lawn suffer because you are lazy. Be active and protect your lawn in the winter.

Hopefully with the simple tasks you can keep your lawn looking great throughout all the seasons. Taking care of it in the winter will always produce a beautiful green lawn. Rake, mow, water, and plant knowledgeably. Keep up with new eco-friendly lawn care maintenance at your local garden center.