Learning the art of perennial gardening is much like learning to do anything else. A certain amount of knowledge and skill is required to make a perennial garden but only by doing research into the types of perennial plants and really making the attempt will this skill and knowledge grow blossom into that flower garden you always dreamed of. Learning the ins and outs of perennial gardening will take time but once you have the basics down your imagination is your only limit to making a gorgeous garden that blooms every year with a minimum amount of work.

The first thing to do before you even start to dig in the dirt is do some research on perennial plants and gardening practices. Go to your local library or gardening center to find books related to this subject. You can also find a wealth of information on the internet about this type of gardening.

When it comes time to start selecting the plants for your garden the thought is to take the vision that you have in you head and transfer that to an actual living garden. By doing your research up front and selecting the flowers and plants that fit your vision you will see that vision come to life much quicker and simpler. As such it is vital that you make a list of those plants that you find most desirable during your research. This will help you not only arrange your perennial garden in a design that is most pleasing to you but it will also make it simple to find and buy them at your local garden store.

Once you have done your research and have your design and the plants to go with it picked out it’s time to start moving some dirt. First make sure you have the proper tools to do the job. A shovel, rake, hoe, and a set of sharp garden shears will do the job. Lay out your garden using either a garden hose or you can outline the area using spray paint.

Be sure to remove any and all weeds in your planting area. This will allow your new perennials to grow and thrive without competing against weeds which will overtake any newly planted area. You will also want to have a water supply close at hand to thoroughly water in your new plants.

When choosing your perennials you can buy them in three main forms. As seeds, bulbs, or already started in pots. If you are patient and want to save some money then seeds or bulbs are the way to go. It will take longer to see the outcome of your work but it will be well worth it. If you are more of the instant gratification type then potted plants will let you see results much quicker, but at a slightly higher price. One of the nice things about potted plants is you can set them out and see how your design will look before planting, giving you the option of changing things before committing your plant to the soil.

When you start planting your new plants be sure to follow the recommended guidelines for proper plant spacing and depth of hole. If you overcrowd your perennials chances are they will not grow to their full brilliance and will make your garden look overgrown. Once they are planted give them a excellent watering and before long you will have a gorgeous garden of perennial plants and flowers.

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Well-known for its exquisite sceneries, Yu Garden in Shanghai has attracted billions of people there, including well-known and renowned persons, such as Queen Elizabeth II, the former US president Bill Clinton, the former Singapore President Lee Xianlong. Why does the garden has such charming power? Go there and find it out by yourself.

Brief Introduction

Yu Garden, located in the southern part of Shanghai, covers an area of over 20,000 square meters – a well-known garden with typical southern-China style. It is one of the vital national culture relics under protection. Yu Garden was constructed from 1559 to 1577 (during Jiajing Period of Ming Dynasty), so it has a history of over 400 years up to now.

Originally, Yu Garden was a private garden built by Pan Yunduan, a high-rank official in Sichuan. His father, Pan En, was a high-rank official, too. At that time, Pan’s family was one of the largest and noble families in Shanghai. He built the garden for his parents, to show his filial piety. Yu () means “satisfying, comfortable”. Pan meant to please his parents and let them delight in longevity. Hence, he named the garden “Yu Garden”. Really, during that time, the Japanese invaders caused fantastic troubles to the people along the east coastline of China. By 1553, people in Shanghai started to delight in a peaceful life. But, the noble families still worried about their safety. So, they built gardens with many hiding places. This is one of the features of Yu Garden.

It was really ruined by the British and French troops during the Opium War. After it was rebuilt in 1956, it started to open to the public as a garden again. Since 1961, it has become one of the well-known attractions in Shanghai. The pavilions, halls, rockeries, ponds and cloisters all bear unique features and characteristics. The following are the main scenic areas in Yu Garden.

The Fantastic Rockery After you step into the garden from the main gate, you will see a rockery, called the Fantastic Rockery which has a height of 14 meters (about 50 feet). The Fantastic Rockery is the largest and the oldest rockery in the southern region of China. On the top of the rockery, you can get a birdview of the garden.

Cuixiu Hall Cuixiu Hall sits at the foot of the Fantastic Rockery. It is a silent place surrounded by ancient trees and gorgeous flowers. The structure of the building is a typical Ming style garden building. It is relatively small. Nowadays, for commercial purpose, it is rented to some businessmen. But, they are only allowed

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In the past three years I have been questioned to deliver several seminars on constructing the wild or cottage garden. It has become a well loved landscaping endeavor for private areas of larger properties, as well as the logical option for the less involved gardener or one who has small time to tend a formal garden.

There are two styles of cottage gardens you can develop. I use the word develop because a right cottage garden will take years before it grows into the look that most gardeners are after. The olde English cottage garden was originally a mix of perennial plants and flowers, vines, flowering shrubs, but most importantly herbs and some vegetables for the household. Wealthier owners may have also planted fruiting trees and varieties of roses if they could afford such luxuries. The cottage gardens of ancient England were a cross between beauty and functionality.

Today the modern cottage garden takes on a different form. Gardeners seek out gorgeous plants from nurseries with small regard to local conditions. Most gardens of today are planted with a mix of perennial and annual plants which are native to a wide variety of locations and require special care to maintain their sole purpose, beauty. Gardens such as these are often tended endlessly and are only a weak copy of the right cottage garden. A real cottage garden can be planted once, allowed to grown on its own and trimmed and harvested at will or not at all. That is the kind of garden I will talk about today.

The first thing I recommend to people interested in cultivating a right cottage garden is to take stock of what they have. If you are starting from scratch there are a few things you have to know before you start planting.

- Once the location of the garden has been chosen you need to record how much light the area gets. Is it full sun or shade? Maybe you will be planting on more than one side of a house and you will have both conditions present. This is an vital factor when choosing plants that will thrive. Don’t forget to take note of trees and other buildings nearby that may cast shadows during some parts of the day.

- Soil types are very vital. It is hard work and expensive to amend your soil and you will need to keep up on it year after year. You are better off to deal with the soil you have and plant vegetation that will thrive with as small effort as possible from you.

- Drainage is as vital as soil type. They go hand in hand. A sandy soil will drain

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When working with a group of autistic adults on a farm in Victoria,Australia I found what we call a “no dig” garden a wonderful way of making gardening simple and productive for these young men. The best thing about it was that they were the landscapers and gardeners of their own residences and they grew not only flowers but also vegetables that could be used in their homes. The first huge advantage that I want to mention is this fact that for anyone not physically 100% fit this way of gardening is ideal.

A raised garden bed the way we made it took this form. Firstly mark the area out with treated pine poles. This can be over a patch of grass or weeds as the next step is to fill this area in with newspaper, thus blocking out the sun and effectively killing them. This is a satisfying exercise in itself as it’s a bit like filling in a jigsaw puzzle. The next step was to cover these newspapers with a covering of hay spread evenly over; a usually a couple of hay bales will suffice depending on the size of the area. Following this if you have a compost bin cover the hay with a layer of compost and a thin layer of loam or rich topsoil. Finally use two more hay bales and cover the top of the area. What will happen by adding in the compost is that any worms in the ground will be attracted upward and bring with them the soil from under the newspaper and start a rotation cycle thus enriching this quality brew even more!

The whole raised garden starts to look very clean and impressive and a excellent crop to continue the soil loosening is seed potatoes in fact they thrive in this sort of raised garden bed. From here you can plant such vegetables as pumpkins and zucchini and squash. As the planting area is raised it, is simple to add more compost in under plants as they are growing and also the air seems to have more of a chance of coming down into the soil which must be excellent for the vegetables. Watering is more efficient as it seems to be contained within the box like structure and being raised gets to the plant first rather than draining away. Not only this the plants are above the ground and this minimises crawling bug attack to some degree. The largest advantage of this type of raised garden bed is that it is simple to make; no more back breaking digging hence the name “no dig”.When you come to collect your potatoes it is only a matter of foraging under the straw to find them and not dig.

I have used this method of making gardens with blind and autistic folk and in nursing homes with the elderly and have found it a wonderful way of enabling them to delight in a garden. When you have ancient people in wheel chairs trying to dig and water the closer the raised garden is to them the better. In these cases the garden was at least a foot above the ground.

Here’s a ditty about raised garden beds:

Get your muscles working and grab them poles

no more digging in the hard ground those plant holes.

Lay the newspaper all around push it down with your feet

grab the hay bales and spread them out real clean.

Compost and soil next spread them even,

another spread of hay and then you’ll be leavin’.

Plant your potatoes and zucchinis and flowers

you’ll while away these pleased hours

in your raised garden bed above the ground.

But your “no dig” garden is really sound.

Do try one it’s most rewarding

and something well worth affording.

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The first thing to do is start small. Reckon about what type of garden you’d like to have, and what type of garden your family has room for. If you plot to grow food, what would be most useful? If there is limited space, make the best of it by plotting it out first. Also, don’t try to plant a huge garden the first year. A small backyard vegetable garden or some pretty flower beds are a fantastic start, and they will probably evolve year by year into something larger and more impressive.

If you are introducing a child to gardening, try simple, hardy plants and flowers that don’t need a lot of care. Tomato plants are honestly simple to grow, and children like getting to pick the tomatoes off later. Try growing sunflowers that will be fascinating with their height, or pumpkins that can be picked and carved for Halloween in the autumn. Have children make their own signposts to say what’s growing where, or paint small stones to decorate the garden space. Don’t forget to include them in the hard parts, too- the digging and weeding aspects, but make gardening fun as well. Give each family member their own tasks and chores associated with gardening, or give each child an area of their own to tend to. Allow them to participate in the entire process, from plotting what to grow and planting seeds to picking and enjoying the rewards of the end products.

Carry the garden into the home, also. Once vegetables are grown, have the child help pick and prepare them for meals. Allow a child to pick or cut fresh flowers and bring them inside in a vase. If your child likes bedtime tales- and I’ve yet to meet one that doesn’t, go to the library and find books about gardens and growing food. For springtime, the “Peter Cottontail” books come to mind.

Gardening is a wonderful family activity because not only can it be enjoyable and a excellent way to bond, but it also gets everyone outside, off the couch, and away from the television. Helping to make a garden or even just a gorgeous yard makes that yard a destination that everyone can delight in, and gardening also teaches children some responsibility. In fact, there are many lessons that can be linked to gardening, from learning about weather and the science of nature, to learning about food groups, taking care of the earth, recycling and eating well, and much more. For both recreation and health, gardening is a wonderful family activity that children will remember as they get older, and will probably incorporate into their own routine when they have families of their own. In the mean time, you will also have a gorgeous outdoor living space that everyone will like to spend time in.

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Gardeners like to share their gardens and knowledge, so a fantastic way to learn about gardening would be from an experienced one. In your neighborhood look around at the landscapes and for someone who works in their yard. Stop by sometime and question for some advice, and a chance to look at their handiwork. They will surely like the attention and reward you with tidbits, like which brand of seeds they use, which variety of tomato is the tastiest, and what plants not to place in your garden. As is usually the case, due to a gardener’s generosity, a few seeds, catalogs, and cuttings will be going home with you. Don’t take this lightly, you should return the favor later down the road. Bring your mentor a vegetable from your first crop, a vase filled with flowers from your new beds, or information that you have since gleaned since talking with them.

Joining a garden club is another way to get into gardening. Check your local paper or call up a nursery or County Extension for some organizations open to new members. There may be some small due to pay to belong, but the amount is worth it for what you will gain. Mentors and friends, plants and seeds, and a whole group of people with your interests. Garden clubs usually do volunteer services for communities, from taking care of memorial gardens to beautification projects, so be prepared to make a difference and feel better about yourself. It can be addicting.

Buying books on gardening or checking them out at the library is another option. Whether joining a garden club or finding a neighborhood guru, reading about gardening is going to be helpful. Find a book that is tailored to your area at first, so if you live in a Northern climate, a book on hardy plants and how to care for them would be a excellent choice.

Of course, one of the best ways to learn how to garden is to get your hands dirty. Containers are a fantastic way to start, filled with flowers, vegetables or herbs. Your local nursery can help you choose containers, plants, soil, and give you the heads up on their care. Choosing a small space in your yard is another fantastic thought. You may need advice from books or your local nursery staff on how to improve the soil, watering techniques, plants to buy, and their care after planting; but once you try, the simpler it becomes. Gardening isn’t without hard work, but it isn’t without enjoyment either. Be prepared for both and you’ll be on your way.

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