• Navigation

  • Home
    • Links
    • Contact Us

Gardening

Gardening is the practice of growing plants for their attractive flowers or foliage, and vegetables or fruits for consumption. Gardening is a human activity used to produce edible foods and use plants to beautify their local environmental conditions. Its scale ranges: from fruit orchards, to long boulevards plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants, to residential yards including lawns and foundation plantings, to large or small containers grown inside or outside. Gardening may often be very specific, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a large number of different plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants and tends to be labor intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.

Types of gardening

Residential gardening takes place near the home, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a windowbox, or on a patio or vivarium. Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement and theme parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and garden hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens. Impact Gardening is a way of using small space to great effect, keeping plants close together, which blocks weeds and requires very little upkeep once started. Indoor gardening is concerned with the growing of houseplants within a residence or building, in a conservatory, or in a greenhouse. Indoor gardens are sometimes incorporated as part of air conditioning or heating systems. Water gardening is concerned with growing plants adapted to pools and ponds. Bog gardens are also considered a type of water garden. These all require special conditions and considerations. A simple water garden may consist solely of a tub containing the water and plant(s). Container gardening is concerned with growing plants in any type of container either indoors or outdoors. Common containers are pots, hanging baskets, and planters. Container gardening is usually used in atriums and on balconies, patios, and roof tops. Community gardening is a social activity in which an area of land is gardened by a group of people, providing access to fresh produce and plants as well as access to satisfying labor, neighborhood improvement, sense of community and connection to the environment.Community gardens are typically owned in trust by local governments or nonprofits.

Gardens as art

Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means garden maintenance. In Japan, Samurai and Zen monks were often required to build decorative gardens or practice related skills like flower arrangement known as ikebana. In 18th century Europe, country estates were refashioned by landscape gardeners into formal gardens or landscaped park lands, such as at Versailles, France or Stowe, England. Today, landscape architects and garden designers continue to produce artistically creative designs for private garden spaces.

Garden pests

* A garden pest is what one considers a pest. The beautiful Tropaeolum speciosum can be considered a pest if it seeds and starts to grow where it is not wanted. As the root is well below ground, pulling it up does not remove it: it simply grows again and becomes what may be considered a pest.

* In lawns, moss can become dominant and be impossible to eradicate. In some lawns, lichens, especially very damp lawn lichens such as Peltigera lactucfolia and P. membranacea, can become difficult and be considered pests.

* Other garden pests include insects. There are several ways to remove unwanted pests from a garden.

Restrictions

Governments of most countries are restricting imports of plant material. In the past, someone could send such things as lily seeds and bulbs to friends in any country. Today, most of those avenues are closed, due to the threat of invasive species.

information provided by