Look for plant recommendations for shade growing trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, and bulbs. You’ll be amazing at the selection of plants that thrive in the shade.

Having chosen the best shade growing plants for your garden, next give some thought as to where the plants are going to live. Few plants can survive in complete shade. Plants need a certain amount of light, combined with good soil, good drainage, and sufficient water to thrive.

Now let’s talk about the soil that your shade growing plants will live in. For best results, make sure there a good mixture of organic compost and mulch in the soil. To check to see how the soil drains, dig a hole and fill it with water then come back in a couple of hours to see if the water has drained. If not, you will need to mix sand into the soil to help with drainage.

In addition to the soil, the shade and roots of any surrounding trees will need to be looked at. Your plants will be competing for food and water with the trees, so regular feeding and watering is required so the plants aren’t too depleted for nutrients.

Speaking of trees, if the trees doing the shading are evergreen conifers, the soil tends to be acidic (low ph). So have the soil tested and adjust the soil ph accordingly for what you plan to grow (adding dolomite lime will raise the ph).

Are you wondering where all that shade is coming from? Buildings and walls can create just as much shade as big trees. If you choose the right shade growing plants, shade from a building or wall will actually be a help to your plants. Think about how buildings and walls affect your garden: if your garden is in the front of a north-facing wall it will be in shade most of the day, plus the garden will be exposed to the elements like the prevailing winds and frost come fall and winter.

What you need to do is look at where your house is placed on your property, and how that affects where the sun is at various times of the year. For instance, where the sun is in the morning isn’t going to the same in the evening, especially the later in the season it is.

The critical things to remember in growing a shade garden are plant selection, the degree of shade you are dealing with (light, medium or dense), good soil, drainage and water. I encourage you to try a shade garden. You’ll love it!

Want to know more about Shade Growing? Visit Barbara Bakker’s site to get recommendations on the best shade plants for your shade garden. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.

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If you’ve disregarded the lawn care (people have jobs, kids – it can be hard to find the time), the grass quality will no doubt suffer. When this has occurred, it’s time to start the lawn restoration.

Unless the lawn is completely ruined, with some intensive lawn care, you should be able to fix most problems. It just may take a little time.

If the lawn is completely ruined, you may have to start again. You can achieve this by digging up the whole lawn to turn the soil. Then scatter new grass seeds and spread more soil over the top.

After this, over the next few weeks and months, give the lawn some TLC – regularly water it, fertilise it and when the grass does start coming back in start to use a good lawn care routine!

OK, so if you’ve not reached the stage where you need to completely regrow the lawn, the most regular lawn-care complaint is that people have let the grass grow for too long. When this occurred, moss and fungus can spread quickly.

Here’s a quick warning: At this stage, if you simply grab your lawnmower and start to cut, you’ll rip up the grass and cause more damage!

Instead of this, always begin by simply cutting a couple of inches off by using a strimmer (an electric or petrol strimmer should work fine). Then, let the grass start to “heal”. Come back to it in a few days and cut a couple more inches off. And simply keep doing this until the grass is back to its normal height.

You should really be fertilising at least a couple of times a year. If you haven’t done this, you may start to see the grass turning a different shade. Most commonly it will turn a yellowy-green due to a nitrogen deficiency.

If this occurs, go straight down to the garden center and buy an intensive step fertilisation system. These are fool proof and provide just the right nutrients at just the right times of year.

Just a quick point – if you see any weeds in the lawn (whether it’s already in disrepair or not), always remove them at the root as quickly as possible. This stops them from spreading and taking nutrients away from the grass.

Dead patches of grass (where it’s turned dry and brown) can be a pain to deal with. The best way to repair the area is to simply start again. Rotate the soil and grass slightly, fertilise the patch and spread new seed.

It’s really important to then keep the patch well watered whilst the seeds grow into grass. If you don’t do this, especially if it’s summer, the grass will have a much harder time taking root.

If you go through all of this work to get your lawn into great condition, make sure you don’t have to do it again! Use your lawnmower and use your grass trimmer often to always keep the grass in fantastic shape.

If you’d like to learn more about the petrol grass strimmer and petrol hedge strimmers, visit petrolstrimmerguide.com

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