Small Gardens you can manage easily!

Small Gardens

I know that a lot of you do not have large yards and want to do something to make them distinctive and easy to maintain.

A cactus garden is easy, especially to maintain, and pretty. All it takes is a small patch of land or a planter box, a few cacti you like. I get mine at Home Depot as they always have a great variety. You will want a few decorative garden stones and maybe a few you have dug up in your yard.

Always stay well hydrated when you are outdoors. I like to mix 7/8 water and 1/8 Ocean Spray Light /50 Cran-Raspberry Juice to make it more interesting. I find that this helps me drink more and outdoors it is really important. Of course you do not have to use a Baccarat Harmony glass … but I like to treat myself!

I put in my cactus garden last year and it is mostly something you change every year, as they do not always survive the winter in certain zone regions. In Atlanta we are in zone 8 and that is pretty good but the cactus mostly did not enjoy the five minutes of winter that we get here.

The photos you are seeing are the clearing of last year’s ‘crop’ and preparing the space for a new exciting one.

I had to first remove all of the stones I used last year and I will wash them off before replacing them in the new garden.

Pull out any leaf debris that gathered over the winter and put it in a mulch pile to use another time.

Use potting soil for flowers and plants to mix in with your yard soil. I like Miracle Grow at Home Depot. It has all of the nutrients your plants will need and save you the guesswork. Soften your soil with water if it is very difficult to dig in. Remove about 1/2 of that soil and put it somewhere. You will replace it with plants and potting soil.

Next you need to plan the garden. You will want a few tall things and some short and a few fluffy ones to make the garden interesting.

Place your new plants in their containers to see how it looks. At this point you can keep moving them until you discover a pattern you like.

Next dig the holes of the biggest plants you will use. It is so much easier to place the smaller ones later.

If you do not like the placement it is OK to unseat them and put them on another order.

I like to use a pretty potted cactus variety that Home Depot has plenty of. You might like to have it in the house for the winter and use it another way next season. I dig a hole almost as deep as the planter and burry it. I will pull it out in the fall and wash the container off and use it in my house.

Place the stones so that they overlap and fill in leaving no holes.

Now look and admire your work. As you see I have found some larger stones in my yard and I am using them as a border between the cacti and the rest of the garden to delineate it as a special little oasis.

Ah Ha! Finished! Pretty, right? And you can do this easily yourself.

If you have enough yard or perhaps even a large yard you can fill in around your cactus garden to expand the exoticness you have begun.

In my case I used some tropical looking plants like elephant ears in several colors plus a few Peonies.

I saw a great empty space from something that did not survive last winter and knew just what to do.

I added a banana tree because I placed one last year in my zone 8 temperature and it came back. So now I will have two.

Another good idea is a ’Table Garden’. You may have an outdoor table that you do not need or use or maybe one that is old. You can always buy something inexpensive. I have a glass top on a wicker box that was meant to use as an outdoor coffee table that I do not need. I change it up every year for fun and variety.

My last season table with empty pots. I will buy a few more for fun to mix it all up.