It is important to keep your lawn and any other greenery looking good throughout the year. During the spring and summer months, keeping your grass and bushes trimmed makes your house or any other type of property you own look presentable. If you own a business or maintain a college campus, a properly landscaped lawn can make a great first impression on potential clients and students.
Yard Maintenance Is Needed Year-Round
Properly caring for your yard is a year-long process. In the spring, you want to make sure that you are caring for the lawn and pruning any branches or flowers that may have died in the past year to prepare for new growth. During the summer and fall, it is a good idea to mow the grass and take care of weeds to ensure that they don’t take over your entire yard. During the winter months, it is always a good idea to check for branches that could snap under the weight of too much snow or ice.
Proper Maintenance Makes Neighbors Happy
A lawn that is not cared for can look sloppy and unsightly. This can create a situation where buyers of surrounding properties decide to look elsewhere or don’t offer as much for a property in the neighborhood. Property values may fall because buyers don’t think others in the neighborhood put time or effort into maintaining their properties in general. On the other hand, keeping the grass cut and keeping flowers or trees on the property well maintained can add value to your own home or commercial property.
You Don’t Have to Do the Work Yourself
The good news is that you don’t have to do the work yourself. You can hire a Reno landscaping service such as Action Lawn & Landscape to take care of all of your outdoor needs. Whether you need a branch cut down, a bush trimmed or the lawn mowed once a week, there will always be someone to make sure it gets done in a timely manner.
Whether you have a large lawn or just a few bushes, it is important to keep your residential or commercial property well taken care of. Doing so makes the property look better, keep its value and ensure that it meets your high standards of care.
Gardening
How To Start a Compost Pile
My daughters have to have something to do ALL the time, so I knew I was going to have to find plenty of activities for them while they are home every day for the summer. One idea I came up with was starting a compost pile for our garden. It’s something we can basically add to every day, and it’s a way they can learn to help naturally fertilize our soil. Win-Win.
When preparing for a compost pile, you want to decide if you want to build an open spot on the ground for your compost or a closed area for your compost pile. I wanted to have our compost pile in our garden area, so it would be convenient when it was time to spread the compost on the garden. Another factor that I considered is that I didn’t want to attract animals into the garden by having an open compost pile, so I chose to purchase a really big black trash can with a lid. We drilled holes down the sides of the trash can so air could circulate through it since we chose a closed system.
You want a nice mixture of dead and “live” plants to start a nice base for your compost (something dry and something to provide a little moisture). You can also add things like soil. We managed to find a decent sized pile of dead leaves from a tree we had cut for firewood, so we layered that on the bottom of the trash can. On top of that we layered some long, leafy green plants that we had as a result of thinning out our flower bed, so that is what we added to the pile. We then put the lid on and rolled the trash can to help mix the dead leaves with the green plants.
Almost every day we add to our pile. When we were canning strawberry preserves, we added the capped part of the strawberries that we don’t use for the preserves. Other things we add are: banana peels, carrot peels, apple cores, etc. You never want to add any type of cooked food. Also remember to add dead, dry plants every so often. It’s important for it not to be too wet or too dry, so you have to find a good balance. We have found that rolling the trash can every 2-3 days is sufficient for us for the amount of scraps we put in it.
We are really enjoying seeing how it breaks down (slowly), and how we are beginning to use it on our garden. My girls are very proud of themselves and look forward to adding to it daily!
What fun summer activities are on your to-do list?
What’s that house plant?
If you have a burning question about house plants, you might consider submitting it to Houseplant411.com. This site has a section called “Ask Judy” where you can ask the houseplant expert, Judy, whatever you want that is related to plants. You may just get your question answered by Judy.
You can also learn how to identify a house plant at Houseplant411.com. The site has a section filled with detailed illustrations of the most popular house plants. If you have a house plant that you can’t identify, this section of the site will be quite valuable to you. In addition to the illustration, you can also read more to learn about the specific plant as well as how to care for it properly.
Are you always forgetting to water your plants? You’re not alone. It can be a hard thing for many people to remember to do. Fortunately Houseplant411.com has a handy watering reminder tool you can use. Just select what times of the day you need watering reminders and you will automatically get an email letting you know when it is time to water your plants. And if you’re not sure how much they need watering, the site can tell you that, too. It’s important to keep from watering too much or too little.
Natural Herbs For Pregnancy
Whenever anyone in my family (myself included) is sick or in need of medical care, I always reach for natural solutions first. I feel so much better when we put natural, usually plant-based medicinals into our bodies rather than those that were concocted in a science lab. While I’m not opposed to using modern medicine in certain circumstances, I think that most of the mainstream drugs on the market should be reserved for very specific circumstances. I also think our bodies are already pretty amazing at healing themselves for the most part!
I am especially keen on choosing natural solutions while I am pregnant. I want to limit my children’s exposure to toxins and keep their eco-footprint low – especially before they are even born! I have had two pretty breezy pregnancies. Here are a few of the herbs I used during each that were particularly helpful!
Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
Red Raspberry Leaf tea is recommended almost universally by doulas and midwives for strengthening the uterus and promoting a strong milk supply postpartum. I did not drink red raspberry leaf tea during my first pregnancy and I wish I had because I ended up delivering my son via vacuum assistance. He is fine, but of course an unassisted delivery would have been great!
During my second pregnancy, I drank at least a cup of the tea throughout my third trimester – often 2-3 cups throughout the day. My labor and delivery with my second son was a complete breeze – I cannot think of anything that could have gone better (except maybe not being in labor at my sister-in-law’s wedding, but that’s another story!). My active labor was quite short, only 6-7 hours and I literally pushed 3 or 4 times before he was born.
Evening Primrose Oil
Another reason I believe my second son’s delivery went so quickly is because I began using evening primrose oil at 37 weeks orally. Evening primrose oil is helpful for softening the cervix to prepare for labor. You can also insert it vaginally as well to help soften the cervix, too.
Ginger
Ginger tea is effective for alleviating nausea making it wonderful during the morning sickness months – you can enjoy it hot or cold depending on the weather. There were a few weeks during my pregnancies where I would live on ginger tea and banana chips!
Peppermint
Peppermint is also helpful for treating morning sickness. I just kept a bottle of peppermint oil in my bag and inhaled the scent when I was feeling nauseous but in hindsight that was probably a little overkill. The fresh herb in a sachet would probably be just as effective without being so powerful. This method has also been helpful for me when I’ve had a headache, too!
Chamomile
Pregnancy is so weird – at times you can be so dead tired for weeks and weeks on end, while other weeks you’re bursting with energy and can hardly sit still. When I was having trouble calming my thoughts and nerves, chamomile tea would help me relax. If you are in an uncomfortable stage of your pregnancy where it’s hard to sleep, chamomile tea can be helpful as well!
I would like to add that both of my pregnancies were completely low risk and straightforward, so I encourage any mom to do plenty of research when it comes to her and her baby’s health, especially if there are complications or anything present.
That said, I also think that most of our health issues can be solved in natural ways. Herbs can be wonderfully effective! What natural remedies have you found helpful?
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