Gardeners Belfast

Flower Pot Gardeners Belfast is an established award winning firm which achieved the Judges Supreme Award at Hillsborough in 2007. Our aim is to widen your options to make the most of your budget, and provide Belfast gardeners services to Belfast and the surrounding areas with individually tailored landscape design solutions that suit your lifestyle.

Flower Pot Gardeners Belfast will also provide you with high quality professional gardening services, including garden maintenance. We offer our clients fair and reasonable prices and won’t break the bank!

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• Gardening with Mo Gilmer: The MoZone » Blog Archive » Mini Potted … - For cash strapped apartment dwellers, a new form of miniature garden combines Japanese bonsai and Chinese penjing into a new American art. Two Green Thumbs Garden Center creates this fun and charming way to capture larger gardens at …
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• Moseley in Bloom » Blog Archive » Moseley Open Gardens 14th and … - May 25th, 2008 Posted in Open Gardens, Uncategorized. Moseley opens its gardens again in three weeks’ time - the weekend of 14th and 15th June to be precise. Last year we held the first Moseley in Bloom Open Gardens Weekend and it was a …
• Gardening with Mo Gilmer: The MoZone » Blog Archive » Prepare to … - As the snows melt away and the forest floor comes to life, it’s the mosses that make everything look so green. Moss is a truly global plant, its microscopic spores rising high into the atmosphere to travel around the world before they …

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Brians Tip to Control Pests Safely

photo credit: modean987

When considering pest control in the garden, this must be done with the safety of yourself, animals, and your plants in mind. This applies in particular when dealing with vegetables and organic gardens.

The whole concept of growing vegetables organically fails if they become tainted with pest control chemicals.

Here are some tips I find useful for long term maintenance which will make your pest control effort more environmentally friendly and less damaging.

1. Use physical pest control processes.
I’m talking about creating barriers and traps for pests, plugging holes, and where you can, by picking grubs off by hand. Snails like to hide in damp places, especially under rocks and towards the base of plants that have strap like foliage.

2. Use biological pest control methods.
Try to encourage predatory insects such as dragonflies and green lacewings to feed on pests such as aphids which attack your plants. You do this by placing a shallow bowl of water near the plants in your garden to which you want to attract the insects. Dragonflies like hovering around water. If you have a caterpillar problem, you could use a bacterial insecticide such as B. thuringiensis.

3. Here are some safer pest control substitutes you might wish to consider.
Many of the ingredients used in these methods can be found at home in your kitchen cupboard. Recipes for alternative pest control include the following:

Against Green Aphids and Mites - Mix 1 tablespoon of liquid soap and a cup of vegetable oil. Dilute a teaspoon of this solution in a cup of water and spray on aphids and mites.

Against Cockroaches - Dusts of boric acid can be applied to cracks or entry points of these insects. Bay leaves on pantry shelves could also help in warding off cockroaches.

Make sure that the chemicals you use are made specifically for the insects you are targeting.

4. Chemical pest control should only be used as a last resort.
Many organic pest control methods are a very successful. If you must use a chemical spray try and find the least toxic. These sprays include dehydrating dusts, insecticidal soaps, and horticultural oils.

Technorati Tags: Agriculture, Bacillus thuringiensis, Environmentally friendly, Home and Garden, Insecticide, Mite, Pest control, Shopping

Brians Tips for Basic Gardening Tools

photo credit: Unhindered by Talent

Most people do their best to keep their garden presentable and sometimes this leads them to start gardening as a hobby. Like any hobbies, gardening can quickly become an expensive undertaking. You are bombarded with advertising constantly for the latest wiz gadget, and it can be very tempting to think I may need that, and buy it.

Basic gardening however doesn’t have to be expensive. I mean, did your grandfather need a fully automated rotary tiller for example? Probably not. If you do need one for example if you are creating a new lawn, there is little point in buying one. It’s much more sensible to rent one, or have a gardener do it for you. May I suggest a good firm (big grin)?

To get started all you need is some simple sound tools, and they don’t have to be expensive. It’s quite possible to pick up some good gardening tools at a local car boot sale. There are always people disposing of surplus garden tools.

You don’t need to buy them new. It does not matter if they’re a little rusty. Rust will not interfere with the growing process and can always be removed with a scouring pad.

Here is a basic list of tools that you will need.

* Shovel. A shovel should have a good sturdy handle that is easy to grab. Avoid thinner handles that may break and also because thinner handles are more likely to blister your hands.
* Spade. A lot of people tend to think that a shovel and a spade are much the same. A spade is primary used to break up the ground, not for lifting. Again a thick handle and a comfortable grip are important. You should acquire two spades, one being a smaller hand held spade to accommodate for work in smaller spaces.
* Rakes. You need two types of rakes. A lawn rake to gather up leaves, fallen twigs, moss, and lawn cuttings, and a ground rake which you used to smooth the ground and flower beds.
* A hoe. There are many cool designs on the market, but in the interests of simplicity a standard square hoe will suffice for most garden tasks to begin with.
* Wheelbarrow. A Wheelbarrow is essential if you’re doing any type of gardening or yard work. A broad wheeled barrow should be chosen to spread the weight when using it on a lawn. It should be lightweight easily wheeled about, and again, care and attention should be paid to the handles to prevent your hands becoming blistered during use.

Really these tips are nothing more than a commonsense approach to basic gardening, and with a little thought and some work, gardening doesn’t have to be an expensive proposition.

Technorati Tags: Car boot sale, Garden, Home, Home and Garden, Shopping, Shovel, Spade, Wheelbarrow

Feeders Bird Baths

photo credit: tristanf

The sight of migratory birds feeding and bathing in your garden or yard is sheer beauty. To bird lovers the sound of chirping birds is music, a vibrant symbol of life. There are quite a large variety of feeders bird baths available on the market to cater to the birding hobby of many. Decorative bird feeders and bird baths are good. But they should not compromise on the needs of the birds. Argos has a nice example for sale just now.

The bird bath is an artificial puddle of water created for the birds to have bath and drink water. A shallow basin is put on a pedestal and a depth of two inches is sufficient for the wild birds, as they do not submerge their entire body in the water. They just dip their wings and splash water all over the body. You can heat up the water in bird bath with solar bird baths. The wild and migratory birds can get warm water to bathe in during the winter from your backyard. You can even add a suet bird feeder during the winter months.

The feeders bird baths should be cleaned regularly to maintain proper hygiene and to prevent the spread of any diseases. Different species of birds carry different harmful viruses and bacteria, which could affect the health of other birds. It is amazing how fast the feeders bird baths can get dirty. The bird bath can be scrubbed clean; however, a tablet containing naturally occurring bacteria and enzymes can be used to break down organic waste and keep the bird bath clean with less scrubbing, which will leave more time for bird watching.

The positioning of the feeders bird baths should be such that they provide shelter to the wild birds when there is a possibility of attack from birds of prey or other predators. Usually, a big tree or a big bush in your garden or yard can provide shelter. Bushes bearing berries can act both as shelter as well as a food source to the birds. When there is a sign of an attack, the birds can fly immediately and save themselves. With all the flying involved, migratory birds will love the warmth and safety of your feeders bird bath.

Technorati Tags: Bird, Bird feeder, Bird migration, Bird of prey, Birdwatching, Predation, Recreation, Shopping

Brians Tip for Free Compost

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By late November, usually following stormy weather, most of the trees in and around your garden will have dumped their leaves over your lawn and flower beds.

Rather than just gather them up and throw them into your brown bin for collection, here’s a handy tip to make use of those leaves next year.

Recycling your autumn leaves is one of the best ways to get free compost.


Here’s all you have to do.

* Take a good sized black bin liner and put a few holes in the side and bottom.
* Gather up leaves and stuff them into the bin liner.
* When almost full, sprinkle with water, shake and tie.
* Store in a shady spot, (most people have some spare room behind a garden
shed or in a corner somewhere), and by next autumn the leaves will have
rotted down into a rich, crumbly mixture that you can use as a mulch around
the base of your plants.
* If you want to use the leaves to add to the soil as growing compost, then
leave them alone for a second year.

More on composting -

• “Let it Rot!” Stu Campbell - Pros: Fantastic comprehensive guide to composting Cons: None Rating: 5 out of 5. (more…)

• Friends School Plant Sale - Mother’s Day weekend at the Minnesota … - The Green Guardian met with and later knighted a group of Friends School middle schoolers who implemented a recycling and composting program at the school. …

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Gardening And The Environment

photo credit: tomsaint11

People generally don’t realise that gardening has an effect on the environment. What I mean by that is carbon dioxide is released through tilling the soil, so there is a small effect on global warming. The soil contains good types of fungi and when you cultivate the soil and compact it, it destroys these fungi. Also fertilisers like nitrogen and manure may leach out of the soil and enter the water table.

In untilled soil, there are beneficial fungi known as the vesicular-arbuscular-mycorrhizae or VAM for short. VAM actually forms a symbiotic relationship with plants. Their filaments increase root hairs and provide nutrients to the plant. They give out zinc, copper, potassium and phosphorus. Plants provide carbohydrates for the fungi in return. It is possible to have a garden without tilling the soil at all just by mulching heavily until the soil is soft and easily crumbled.

Many gardeners through ignorance waste manures and nitrogen by using too much. Always follow the instructions on the packaging because not only is this a waste of money, but it means extra nitrogen may leach into the water table.

The best gardening advice that can be given to those concerned is to do all things with moderation. Keep in mind that too little and too much of something does not usually give the best results. This is probably one of the key secrets to successful gardening.

It’s a little known fact that soil on the Earth’s surface gives out carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at approximately 10 times that of all human activity creates. The carbon dioxide comes from living organisms in the soil, microbes, fungi, worms, and bugs when they breathe; digest food, and when they die. Of course we all know about photosynthesis and how a plant cleans the air, but as we cut trees and extend arable land around the world over, all this ability is diminished.

This can be minimised by mulching or sheet composting where possible.

Technorati Tags: Arable land, Carbon dioxide, Earth, Gardens, Global warming, Manure, Plant, Soil