Floral Displays To Make Your Neighbours Green With Envy

One of the most worthwhile things about planting flowers is the amazing burst of color they give a garden. You can keep your garden as neat and tidy as you like, but if it is just a lawn and some ornaments it will not look anything like as good as it can. Putting in the effort to plant some flowers can turn something that looks well-kept and respectable into something that causes jaws to drop. Think of your well kept lawn as a stage, and the ornaments as scenery. What you want to do now is introduce a cast of characters and your garden will be the ultimate drama to entertain your audience – you may even be able to set up a box office if you get good enough.

As with bringing together a dramatic cast, the vital element in creating a fantastic garden is variety. You don’t want everybody in your epic to look the same, or have similar lines. It is essential that you have interaction, light and shade (although this is gardening, so a bit more light than shade would be preferable). The colors need to contrast. A little bit of white here, a splash of red there – these are the actors who have done their time in the theater, have seen it all and done it all, and are essential to putting on a first rate show. They will bring everything together and stop it from getting too busy and chaotic.

Then you want your exciting young ingenues – splashes of color that might be a little bit risky but are essential to the energy of the piece. Vibrant yellows are particularly good – they bring a real boost in the vitality of any garden and really brighten it up. If you want to even out the contrast, then a deeper shade like purple can make a real impact. Orchids are good for the latter, while anything from daffodils to roses – even a sunflower or two if you are feeling brave. It all adds up, and the way you the director put it together is the difference between a Broadway hit and a complete stinker.

Don’t Let a Relaxing Habit Become a Painful Nuisance

Speak to anyone who does a lot of gardening and they will all tell you the same thing – they took it up for relaxation and they now are completely hooked on getting things to grow bigger, brighter, tastier and better overall. It is utterly undeniable that people enjoy the serenity of a little light gardening – indeed it is with good reason that some organisations refer to an employee who is seeing out the remainder of their contract at home as being on “gardening leave”. Having the time and the inclination to do some gardening will allow you to put things in place that will look great and do you good for years to come. But it can come at a price.

Whenever you are in the garden it is important to make sure that you are not putting an excess of strain on the body parts that are most used in gardening. While the process inevitably involves a lot of crouching and bending, it is utterly essential that you follow the old maxim “bend with the knees and not with the back”. It would be bitterly ironic if you took up gardening to have a little bit of rest and relaxation, only to throw out your back early on. Yet this is something that happens to a lot of us, because an inexperienced gardener will not be as aware of the pitfalls as a green-fingered old hand.

Your garden is for relaxing in, more than anything else. So when you are out doing a bit of work, make sure that you do not forget to take a rest every once in a while. Putting strain on your back or your knees for a prolonged period will not strengthen them – it could lead to quite a nasty injury if you are not careful. Having a cold drink every so often will refresh you and give you the energy to take on the longer jobs – and will take the strain of the parts that need resting. After all, you don’t want someone to ask how you got your injury and you have to tell them “gardening injury”.