Beautiful gardens are the perfect addition to your yard. Rob Proctor shares advice on avoiding common mistakes when gardening.
COLORADO, USA — Gardening is a series of adventures. Some turn out well; others go horribly wrong. Here’s some advice to avoid making mistakes.
Let’s start with a simple one. Hang your baskets at eye level. Use chain or wire to lower them. Otherwise you’re staring at the bottom of the pot rather than the plants growing in it.
Don’t limb up evergreens. It looks terrible and it also makes them top-heavy and more susceptible to toppling in high winds.
Crushed eggshells don’t deter slugs. If the shells don’t cut your fingers, they’re not going to bother slugs. Use slug bait or the old beer-in-a-saucer trick. Don’t bother to compost eggshells. It takes a very, very long time for them to break down to the point where the calcium is available to plant roots. And in our calcium-rich soils, we don’t even need it.
Bark mulch is a mistake. Have you ever seen a successful bark mulch project? It all looks neat and tidy at first. Dust and weed seeds blow in and you end up with more weeds than you’re originally trying to suppress. Mulching is fine…
