Free Gardening Tips

Anyone can grow plants, but to grow plants well takes a combination of knowledge, skill and the right location. A greenhouse creates the perfect atmosphere for plants to flourish; so many people are building greenhouses on their properties, and stocking them with the right greenhouse supplies.

Many factors are required to create a productive greenhouse. The greenhouse supplies will determine these factors. In other words, to have a really successful greenhouse, it is important to have the proper accessories and supplies to maintain it. Read on to learn which greenhouse supplies are vital to creating a nourishing environment for your plants:

A greenhouse serves as a nourishing home for young and tender plants, particularly those grown out of their normal season. Greenhouses are designed to create a proper environment for the plant to grow and be successfully cultivated. All kinds of plants will grow well in a greenhouse. Cacti, citrus trees and orchids do especially well in the greenhouse environment. Greenhouses are also ideal venues for scientists to conduct plant research.

A typical greenhouse is constructed with walls and a sloping roof, all built from glass or plastic panes. This structure provides the light, temperature and moisture needed for plants to grow in balanced conditions. Ideally, natural sunlight sufficiently supplies the requirements of plants, especially in temperate regions. When winter comes, however, it is necessary to provide added light and heat sources to encourage growth in your plants. The heat source generally is created by a steam or hot-air circulating system.

During the summer, the greenhouse panes are covered to reduce the intensity of the light. The structure of the greenhouse allows heat to be easily reduced. Whitewashing the panes and opening the ventilators are two ways to reduce greenhouse heat.

Most plants grow well with a certain amount of humidity in the air, which is maintained by the water supplied in the soils. The floors are sprayed with water to create more humidity when required. Orchids and other potted plants are set on racks with moistened residues.

Installing the right type of flooring is beneficial to the greenhouse owner in a number of ways. Flooring can offer an aesthetic quality to enhance the ambience and polish the image of the greenhouse. To be functional, and safe on watering days, the flooring should be made of non-skid material. Choose flooring that is easy to clean, and make sure the material will endure the high moisture in the greenhouse atmosphere.

Keep these essential elements in mind when planning your backyard greenhouse. It can mean the difference between simply growing plants, and helping your plants to flourish to be their most beautiful best.

Fall is a wonderful season with the beautiful foliage, clear skies, and cooler temperatures. It's a great time to be outdoors. While, you might be looking for outdoor activities this time of year, bugs are looking for the indoors. During the fall months, insects begin looking for warmer places to spend the night and where they can spend the winter. The place they find may be your home.

Ladybugs, spiders, crickets, roaches, box elder bugs, millipedes, and many more insects begin their search in the fall for a warm place to make their home. Before you are overrun with these tiny little creatures, you might want to try some prevention techniques.

Home maintenance professionals recommend a maintenance plan for your home to help you save energy during the cold months of winter. But, many of the same techniques the maintenance professionals recommend also help in keeping out insects, mice, birds, and bats.

Many insects enter your home by crawling or flying in through cracks in the doors. If you use a screen door during the cooler, fall months, make sure the door fits well and that you don't have holes in the screen. A door, screen or solid, that has cracks along the sides, bottom, or at the top, not only will let air in, but it also lets in tiny insects. Check along the edges of your doors to make sure the weather stripping is in good shape. If it is old and doesn't seal your door any longer replace it with new weather stripping. You can buy weather stripping at nearly any hardware or home maintenance store.

Did you know that mice can squeeze into an area the size of a dime? They can, and with that in mind, you should take a close look around the outside of your house. Keep a dime in your pocket so you will remember just how small the holes can be. Often, you will find holes around outside water facets, next to windows, doors, and where electrical and cable enters your home. You should seal these areas with foam insulation, caulking, wood putty, or a small patch of concrete, depending on where the holes are found. Check the areas around the foundation of your home especially, because at the foundation is where weather could have caused some damage over the past year or so, and it is a good place for pests to enter. When sealing the holes, keep in mind that you may not be keeping out just a mouse. You may be keeping out carpenter ants, beetles, spiders, and a whole list of other insects, so you probably want to seal these areas even if they are smaller than a dime.

Check around your windows for cracks in the caulking and where the window fits into the frame. If the caulking is old and weathered and it is no longer keeping the air from coming into the home, you should scrape out the old caulk and put in a fresh new coat. Any number of insects can scale your home, even to the second story, to get in through a crack in the window.

Check the gable vents in your home. Bats, birds, and flying insects love warm attics during the fall and winter months. The air vent screens should be of a small mesh and should not have any holes. Remember, the mouse and the dime here too. Mice are known to scale walls, and they could enter your attic very easily if the screen is old and worn enough that they can chew through.

Fall is a wonderful season, and it's a great time to prepare for the winter months ahead. If you do a little home maintenance this fall, be sure to keep in mind that not only do you want to keep the cold air out, but you also want to keep pests from moving in as well.

For information on how to get rid of these insects, visit www.pestproductsonline.com.

Dennise Brogdon is the managing editor of the Hughston Health Alert, a quarterly, patient-information newsletter, and she is an editorial assistant for the National Athletic Trainers' Association's scientific journal, the Journal of Athletic Training. Dennise is a Web site copywriter and editor. She has experience writing and editing SEO copy and META tags, brochures, advertorials, video scripts, and other technical and promotional material, as well. Dennise earned a BA in English with professional writing as an emphasis at Columbus State University. She is a member of the American Medical Writers Association and the Georgia Writers Association.

Many ways can be used to accentuate the beauty of your house, and make your backyard more attractive. In your yard design, having a nice patio, a pool or even toys for the kids is great. But having a tree is often overlooked. We will develop ten uses for a tree in your backyard.

Create a shade spot in your backyard Create a wind barrier on your property Use tree as an edge fence Hang your self an hamac under your shade spot Have fresh fruit at reach in your backyard Create a scent with a fragrant fruit tree Use a small tree as bonsai and patio tree Add colors to an existing flower arrangement Have a tree house or a swing rope for the kids Hang a bird feeder and attract beautiful bird species

As you see, this is a small list of utilities for a tree in your backyard. Other then those, planting a tree helps the environment by cleaning the air. It will also embelishing your neighborhood and give the surrounding properties, including your home, an increase in value.

There are many ways of acquiring a tree. You can sow a seed, either collected yourself or bougth. Many online website specialize in seeds, especially tree seeds. You could also buy a juvenile tree from a garden center or take a cutting of a tree you like, given it is an appropriate time of the year. You can always hope a neighbors tree will drop a seed in fall and next spring a tree will arise like magic.