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Not Everything in a Garden is a Plant - Page 2© Deborah Turton Flea markets can be a cheap way of decorating your garden. People have used everything from cars to toilets in their gardens. Just check out the tacky garden art contest on suite101 this spring to get some ideas. Finally, stepping stones are a great and inexpensive way to have your favorite children help in the garden. We made stones last year for my parents an they were a big hit. Our gardening club has started a butterfly garden at out local library and a day care is making stepping stones for it. You can incorporate pebbles, metal pieces, shells, etc. into the design. You can use cement colors, different shapes, and have the kids draw pictures in the wet concrete. Check out Linda Mazar's home page (she's our Kids Garden editor) for more details.
Don't Forget the Vegetable Garden Even your vegetable garden can be interesting. My first garden was just an open, flat area. My big compost ball was more visually interesting than my garden. Consequently, people commented more on my compost ball than on the garden. My current garden is on a hill. I terraced the hillside using rocks ranging in size from a fist to a large pizza. The rocks give my garden vertical differences, textural differences, and movement. One can imagine plants and water flowing down over the rocks, and late in the summer, you don't have to imagine the plants. I have grass growing in between the beds for easy maintenance and contrast. All of these features make the garden visually pleasing, and I have received many complements on how the garden looks. If you have a hill on your property, don't be shy about creating terraces to garden. I find it a lot easier to maintain a garden rather than to mow the steep hill. Even if you're not vegetable gardening on a hill, you can still incorporate height or contrasts into your vegetable garden.. Build raised beds at different heights. Use different materials to define your garden beds. If you have the time and money, you can even create your own hill facing south (or north if you're in the southern hemisphere) to maximize your southern (or northern) exposure. Don't make your beds square. Honestly, vegetables will grow just as well in round, oval, or octagonal beds. One of my beds curves around an old stump. The plants do just fine. Make your vegetable beds fit the shape of the land just as you would do with flower beds. As long as you have easy access to all areas of the beds, you can grow plants in beds of any shape. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Not Everything in a Garden is a Plant - Page 2 in Organic Gardening is owned by Jill Florio. Permission to republish Not Everything in a Garden is a Plant - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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