Tim Birch's Articles

Easy Care Shrubs
Shrubs are essential to a successful garden. They provide fragrant flowers in the spring, lush green foliage during the summer and colorful foliage throughout the fall. Evergreens add...
Creating Japanese Gardens
Japanese gardens create landscapes which resembles nature through the careful placement of trees, shrubs, rocks, sand, artificial hills, ponds, and water. Zen and Shinto traditions have greatly...
Colorful Summer Gardens
In mid-summer the perennial border is at its peak with a wide variety of sun-loving flowers in bloom. There are even some long lasting, early blooming flowers still...
Colorful Spring Gardens
In the spring, while trees and shrubs are still showing their pale green new growth, the early border generally consists of colorful bulbs and a few early blooming perennials against a backdrop of...
Flower Gardening Tips
Flower gardens are simple to install and easy to care for. They do, however, require a basic understanding of the natural conditions of your garden as well as the specific needs of the individual flowers. Different flowers have different requirements. Annuals, for example...
A Guide To Planting Trees
Before planting new trees, determine both your needs and the existing conditions of your site. Like all plants, trees have specific light, soil and space requirements. Remember that many trees...
Marketing Your Website and Product With Articles
Writing and submitting articles is a free and easy way to drive traffic to your website. Article directories allow writers to submit, promote and make available articles to website or newsletter publishers in search of content. When an article is...
Using Your Website Content As Article Inspiration
Submitting articles to article directories is a great way to increase traffic to your website, promote your product and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Its also an easy and effect way to gain...
Creating A Container Garden
Container gardens are the perfect way to add texture, color and fragrance to a terrace, balcony or deck. They often provide the only way for people who live in apartments or urbanized areas to garden. Most plants, including...
An Introduction To Flower Gardens
Becoming familiar with the general planting and maintenance requirements perennials and annuals is essential to the long term success of your flower garden. Here are some guidelines which will...
Gardening 101
Successful garden designs create landscapes which are practical, beautiful and compatible with a site's natural conditions. Gardens should be designed to...
Lawn Alternatives and Natural Gardens
From coast to coast the lawn is one the most ubiquitous garden features in the landscape. Planting a natural garden can help restore the landscape, attract a variety of bird species and provide the garden with a wonderful mix of beautiful plants...
Writing & Submitting Effective Articles
Article publishing has become one of the most effective and important marketing tools of website owners. Smart and savvy website publishers often use articles as a way to increase traffic to their site and to promote...
Gardening With Groundcovers
There are always those spots in your garden where grass just doesn\'t seem to grow or that are either too rocky or rooty for shrubs. Groundcovers can solve all kinds of gardening problems and are often...
Successful Article Marketing
Writing and submitting articles is one of the easiest, most effective ways to market your website or product. For an article marketing campaign to be successful, however, your articles need to be well written, informative and...
Essential Tools For The Gardener
There's an appropriate tool for every garden project. Using the right tool will make your job much easier. When shopping for garden tools make sure they're comfortable. Tools which are too...
Planting An Herb Garden
Herbs of all kinds have been cultivated and used for thousands of years. They have been used for cooking, tea and medicinal purposes. Herb gardens easy to grow and require little maintenance. The following article covers...
Preparing A Vegetable Garden
The first step when planning a vegetable garden is to find the ideal spot. Most vegetables require lots of sun so choose a location with a southern exposure. Ideally the sunlight...
Transplanting Tree & Shrubs
There times when a plant out grows its spot or needs to be moved to make way for a new garden design. When transplanting a shrub or tree be aware of the weather. Though possible, transplanting shrubs during very hot weather is definitely not recommended, it can cause...
Designing An Entrance Garden
Foundation plantings have traditionally been intended to screen cement foundations of houses. This is a bit short sighted, however. Creating a welcoming entrance garden is a more appropriate way go about designing these spaces. Entrance gardens are...
Winter Gardening
By December, most gardeners have raked all their leaves, finished planting their spring bulbs and are preparing to patiently wait until spring to visit the garden again. If, however, you don't mind the snow or freezing temperatures you don't need to put all those tools away just yet. Winter can be
A Garden For All Seasons
All great gardens have one thing in common. That is, they offer something during each of the four seasons. Through spring and summer the colorful flowers of perennials, annuals and flowering trees and shrubs are the focal point in the garden. Once the summer flowers begin to fade...
Creating a Butterfly Garden
In order to attract butterflies to your garden you need to provide for them what they need. Generally, butterflies look for two things in a garden, food and host plants where they can lay their eggs. If these two things are present in your garden your chances of attracting butterflies greatly increases. Keep your garden design simple. Butterflies are attracted to...
Design an Edible Garden
When considering an edible garden the first thing most people will think of is the vegetable garden. Vegetable gardens are by far the most popular type of edible garden for the home gardener. There are, however, many garden trees, shrubs, perennials and groundcovers which are both edible and...
Write Articles & Promote Your Business
If you've been searching for a creative way to promote your online business, consider writing articles and submitting them to article directories. Writing articles that are relevant to your site or product is an inexpensive yet effective way to drive traffic to your site. Submission is usually free and signing up is simple. Begin with one, well written article and submit it to a free directory. Over time...
Garden Design & Preparation
All great gardens have one thing in common, they were thoughtfully planned before they were built. To plant a successful garden you must have a clear understanding of your site’s conditions. A thorough site analysis enables the gardener to make informed decisions regarding design and plant selection. Determined in this site analysis are the following factors...
Natural Gardens
Natural gardens utilize native species of plants which are often quite easy to grow. These plants have adapted to certain site conditions and are generally self sustaining. They'll need little, if any, fertilizer and no more water than is provided by rain. Natural gardens consist...
Spring Flowering Bulbs
Bulbs are the earliest blooming flowers in the garden blooming as early as February or early March. Bulbs can be used in the perennial garden where they can complement other early flowers. Planted in the lawn or beneath deciduous shade trees, bulbs can provide your property with spots of vibrant colors.
Low Maintenance Gardening
While no garden is maintenance free, it is possible to create a garden with relatively few demands. Careful planning, proper plant selection and thoughtful design are essential to creating...
Creating Woodland Gardens
Often times site conditions are such that it\'s best to work with the existing landscape rather than make extensive changes. These types of sites often become very successful gardens. A shady spot beneath a stand of trees, for example, is the ideal location for a woodland garden. Instead of trying to impose a garden through extensive pruning and soil conditioning, prepare the site for
Planting Cutting Gardens
Many perennials, annuals and even flowering shrubs not only make great garden plants but wonderful cut flowers as well. Shrubs such as hydrangea, lilac, viburnum, witchhazel and forsythia work well as cut flowers. Though, generally, they don't last as long as perennials or annuals. To make flowering shrubs last as long as possible as cut flowers...
Choosing The Appropriate Tree For Your Garden
Before planting new tree assess both your needs and the existing conditions of your site. Trees, like all garden plants, have specific light and soil requirements which can influence its health. Trees also have specific space requirements. Some trees spread wide and need a lot of space, such as the beech, while others...
Planting Your New Spring Shrubs
Thoughtful planning, careful plant selection and proper site preparation are the essential to the success of new plants in the garden. In spring, searching for new shrubs can be exciting yet overwhelming. With so much new stock at the nursery, it can be difficult to decide what to buy. To be sure your investment in new shrubs pays off...
Planting Hydrangeas in the Spring for Late Season Color
A common complaint among gardener is that late in the summer, before the fall foliage, there seems to be lull in garden color. There is, however, no shortage of shrubs which bloom in later in the season. Hydrangeas are one the most versatile. In fact, they are...
Wildflower Meadows as Sustainable Landscapes
Noted for their low maintenance and wide diversity of plants, wildflower meadows are full of vibrant colors and interesting textures. The meadow approach to the landscape requires a clear understanding of a site's natural conditions, more so than say a formal perennial garden bed. Wildflower meadows are a constantly changing landscape with some species surviving year after year while others may disappear and be replaced with something new. Along with these aesthetic benefits there are...
Creating a Wildlife Garden
Creating a wildlife garden allows you take part in your larger surrounding environment. Often gardens are completely shut out from the natural landscape around it and aren't welcoming to birds and other wildlife. Adding a few well placed and well chosen shrubs or trees can...
Deciduous Shrubs in the Garden
Deciduous shrubs are among the most versatile of all garden plants. Whether used to frame architecture, provides privacy or attract birds, deciduous shrubs are an indispensable part of the garden and are the starting point of great...
An Introduction to Annuals
Annuals provide gardeners with an inexpensive way to add variety and long lasting color to the landscape. Though they will bloom all season long, annuals sprout from seed, flower, set seed and die within one growing season and need...
Seaside Gardening
Gardening along the coast presents even the most skilled gardeners with challenges not encountered elsewhere. Natural conditions along the coast create a very hostile environment for garden plants. Wind, salt spray, dry sandy soils as well as actual sea water can make gardening along the coast difficult. All of these factors can cause problems for landscape plants and effect how they grow. In fact...
Gardening In The Shade
If you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to garden in the shade beneath the canopy of mature shade trees you will find many advantages not found in the full sun garden. Shade trees moderate temperatures during the hot summer months and provide gardens with structure, privacy and...
Perennial Garden Basics
Perennials are any plants which live for more than two seasons and produce stems which die back to the ground each fall. They’re at the heart of most flower gardens and offer wide ranging benefits to the landscape gardener. Perennials are treasured for their ability to flower, spread and...
Planning, Creating & Maintaining Rock Gardens
Often there are those areas of your garden that just aren\'t suitable for lawn or have exposed ledge and rocks making it impossible to plant shrubs. These areas can easily be transformed into beautiful rock gardens...
How to Create Wildflower Gardens & Meadows
Noted for their stability, low maintenance and wide diversity of plants, wildflower meadows are full of vibrant colors and interesting textures. Here are a few basics which will help you get started.

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Sustainability Quotes

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
- Derek Bok