from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

If you’re a keen gardener when spring arrives, you’re probably aware just how easy it is to spend a lot on new plants, possibly way more than what you’d bargained for. Yet, if you do a lot of the work yourself, getting ready for a spring garden can be a wonderful weekly activity from planting to blooming, and is a pleasant way to welcome in the new season without having to spend a fortune.

Steps

1. Start with a budget. If you know what your budget allowance for the garden is from the very beginning, you will have something to stick to and if there is anything left over, you can reward yourself with something extra. If you don’t have a budget, you will probably overspend, so don’t skip this essential step.
2. Use your own seed. Keep seeds back from the previous season from flowers and vegetables that grew in your garden. Allow the seeds to dry (to prevent mildew over winter) and place in separate bags, well labeled. Store somewhere that is warm and dry over winter. As spring gets closer, plant the seeds in seedling trays and keep indoors near a window that gets a lot of sunshine. Water and tend to them regularly and you will get a head start on the new season’s plantings.
   • If you haven’t managed to do this from last season, ask your neighbors or family members who garden for spare seeds that they saved from their gardens.
   • Look for discount days at your local garden center or hardware store to get seeds at a very good price.
3. Strike cuttings. If you fancy the plants that are growing in someone else’s garden, ask if you can take cuttings from them to strike your own. Many gardeners are very pleased to be asked this and will let you collect a few cuttings.
   • Botanical gardens often have mid-winter to early spring pruning clear outs in rose gardens, etc. Phone up to ask when this happening and to see whether members of the public can get cuttings from these tidy-ups (just avoid picking out anything that is diseased or rotten).
   • Read How to grow cuttings from established plants for more details.
4. Wait until frost season has cleared. Once the likelihood of frost has cleared, take the seedlings outdoors and continue watering them in their trays. Do this for a week or two, to help them transition from the indoor environment to the outdoor one.
   • The budget-conscious gardener won’t rush this step, otherwise you’ll have to find more seedlings to replace the ones you’ve lost.
   • Read How to grow seedlings, How to thin out seedlings and How to keep birds off your seedlings for more ideas.
5. Create a garden plan on paper. In the same way that a shopping list helps you to curtail overspending in the store, a garden plan helps you to avoid over-purchasing of whims when you go to the garden center. Draw in the flowers, the vegetables, the ornamentals, the decorations, etc. that you’d like in your garden this year, in their exact places. This plan will guide you on buying “just enough” and no more. And don’t forget to take account of plants that you’re already growing yourself.
6. Keep an eye on garden sales in catalogs. When the sales are on, this is an excellent time to buy the garden sale items in bulk. Naturally, only buy what you will use but have an eye for a good bargain, including for updating/replacing, and so forth of new garden tools, hoses, netting, and other essentials.
   • Only buy in bulk if it will be used and is a good price.
   • Don’t go overboard on gimmicky things like plastic garden decorations. They clutter the garden and may not be made from very good materials. Put your money toward plants and gardening tools you really need instead.
7. Buy plants that have been reduced due to lack of adequate attention or overstocking. In some garden centers, there will be a section of plants that haven’t been adequately cared for, or that have not been selling as well as the store owner would like, going for a song. If you’ve a green thumb and you can identify the likelihood of successfully salvaging any of the poorer plants back to health, these finds can make incredible bargains.
   • Be sure to tend to the weaker plants from the moment you arrive home. Give them better soil, keep them away from wind and heat to begin with, give them a tidy up and a nutritious feed. Remember to water them regularly until they start to thrive again.
8. Make your own garden decorations. Rather than buying decorative items for the garden, recycle and reuse household items to create new and amazing garden sculptures, feature pieces, water features, etc. Be as imaginative as you’d like and rope the kids in to help too. They can have great fun making a dinosaur garden with their toys, a fairy garden with their fairies, an animal garden for their pets, etc.
   • Make a bird feeder
   • Make a mini Zen garden
   • Make a rhododendron decoration
   • Make a faerie garden.
9. Keep it simple. A budget conscious garden is a simple one that is pretty, effective, useful, and pleasant all at once. If you can’t afford a greenhouse to keep tropical flowers, don’t aim for that. Visit the local gardens instead and see theirs and think about how much extra work is involved anyway! And there is nothing more appealing than a well-weeded, well tended garden, whatever your budget.

Video

This video describes how to make a cheap and easy sprouts greenhouse for someone with a tight budget.

click here for: spring garden on budget – video

Tips

• Note that some plants are best placed direct into the soil that they will grow in; research each plant’s needs first.

Warnings

• Be careful of cheap garden items, from tools to decorations. They may seem like a bargain but if they break they need replacing and they can also become hazards if they break when working with them. Also, cheap decorations may contain hazardous parts for pets and infants, and they might be made from toxic paint or other dangerous components that your family and your garden can do without being exposed to.
• Wait for the soil temperature to be right. If you plant too early, the seeds and/or seedlings won’t succeed and you’ll have wasted your money.

Things You’ll Need

• Budget
• Own seed
• Garden space readied for planting
• Garden tools
• Affordable plants
• Homemade decorative elements
• Springtime

Relateds

• How to Create a Household Budget
• How to Set up an Inexpensive Irrigation System
• How to Make a Bottle Watering Can
• How to Build a Greenhouse out of Old Storm Windows
• How to Choose the Best Time for Watering the Garden
• Turn Clay Into Growing Soil

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Prepare a Spring Garden on a Budget. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Hello and welcome!

Have you ever wondered about Earthquake safety and what you should do if you find yourself in a building at the time one decides to hit?

If so than you need to read this post and pass it on.  It was passed on to us here at Home And Garden Guide Online and we felt it was worth posting for our visitors.

Earthquake Safety

“Directly opposite of what we’ve been taught over the years I can remember in school being told to “duck and cover” or stand in a doorway during an earthquake. This guy’s findings are absolutely amazing. I hope we all remember his survival method if we are ever in an earthquake!”

Excerpt FROM DOUG COPP’S ARTICLE ON THE: “TRIANGLE OF LIFE”

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world’s most experienced rescue team.

The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake. I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries… I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years.

I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters. The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake.

Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles.

It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn’t at the time know that the children were told to hide under something.

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them.

This space is what I call the “triangle of life”. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured.

The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the “triangles” you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

1) Most everyone who simply “ducks and covers” WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake… It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created.. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on The back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different “moment of frequency” (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads – horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn’t collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

Get Near the Outer Walls Of Buildings Or Outside Of Them If Possible – It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway… The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

Spread the word and save someone’s life… The Entire world is experiencing natural calamities so be prepared! “We are but angels with one wing, it takes two to fly”.

In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul , University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did “duck and cover,” and ten mannequins I used in my “triangle of life” survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results. The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover. There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the “triangle of life.” This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA, Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.

How to Hire the Right Contractor or Remodeler

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Are you planning to hire someone to work on your home or property? If so, you will need to do some homework. While the law provides some protection from fraudulent or incompetent contractors, it doesn’t guarantee honest transactions or perfect performance.[1] Protect your investment by being an informed, cautious consumer.

Steps

Before you hire a Contractor or Remodeler:

1. Plan your project carefully. If you know what you want done and can clearly explain it, you’re less likely to misunderstand instructions or encounter cost overruns.
2. Interview several qualified registered contractors and solicit written bids.
3. Verify that the contractors you are considering are registered by looking them up online. You can do this by typing (“your state” contractor lookup) into your favorite search engine.
4. Ask for references and then check them out. If possible, view the work, visit a site with work in progress and interview the homeowner.
5. Ask for references of suppliers that the contractor works with and check out his or her payment record.
6. Ask for a copy of the contractor’s license and insurance policy to verify what is covered.
7. Do an Internet search on the owner’s name to look for general comments that might be posted.
8. Evaluate all the aspects of the bids, including the scope of work, warranties, references, time frames and price.
9. Request that the contractor post a performance bond for the entire cost of the project if it is more than $6,000.
10. Try to anticipate problems and inconveniences, such as cost overruns or cleanup, and come to an agreement with your contractor on how they will be handled before the work begins.

Once you have chosen a Contractor or Remodeler

1. Obtain a written contract that includes price, payment terms, sales tax, permit fees (if applicable), the specific work to be performed, materials to be used, warranties and start and end date. It is also a good idea to include change-order processes, final review and sign-off procedures and cleanup.
2. Ask for a disclosure statement prior to work starting. Sample disclosure statements are available from your state’s governing office.
3. Make frequent inspections and consult your local building department about required permits. Make sure that all permits are in place and that inspections are in order.
4. When advancing money for materials, it may be possible to make checks payable to both the contractor and the supply house or to pay the supply house directly.
5. Put all change orders in writing and ask questions as work progresses. Avoid verbal contracts, and be very cautious about paying for work that has not been completed.
6. Request signed lien releases from all major subcontractors and suppliers on your job before making final payments.

See Video Below

Tips

• Protect yourself with permits. Contact your local city or county Building Department.
• Ask for the legally required disclosure statement that advises consumers about lien releases.
• Make sure the contractor is currently registered and for how long.
• Verify that the contractor has workers compensation insurance for his or her employees.

Warnings

• Be wary of contractors who:
  • Provide credentials or references that cannot be verified.
  • Offer a special price only if you sign today or use other high-pressure sales techniques.
  • Accept only cash, require large deposits or the entire cost up front or ask you to make the payment in their name.
  • Do not provide a written contract or complete bid.
  • Ask you to pick up the building permit. In most instances, the contractor is required to take out the permits. Permits are your protection and help ensure that work will meet local building codes.
  • Offer exceptionally long warranties.
  • Want to do most or all the work on weekends and after-hours.
  • Give you an offer that sounds “too good to be true.”

Related wikiHows

• How to Design Your Own Home
• How to Succeed at Any Home Improvement Project
• How to Get a Construction Loan (US)
• How to Become a Fix It All Householder
• How to Navigate the Home Building Process
• How to Make Blueprints
• How to Remodel a House
• How to Buy a Home
• How to Identify a Sears Kit Home
• How to Increase the Value of Your Home

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://www.lni.wa.gov/

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Hire the Right Contractor or Remodeler. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Video

Air Conditioning Contractor - contact us now

Bryanna-Rose-smelling-a-rose

Here’s a brief primer on creating a flower garden design that’s absolutely fabulous!

Whether you’ve just moved into a house with no landscaping whatsoever, or if you just want to do a remake on your existing garden, the secret to success in a good flower garden design is in careful planning. Depending on the amount of space you have to work with, it may take a few seasons to get the garden filled out, but it’s certainly doable.

It’s well worth your time to think long and hard before you forge ahead and start breaking ground. Here’s how to make the most of your flower garden design, a design you’ll be happy with for many years to come.

First you must decide what style of flower garden pleases you most. For example, you might like a neat and orderly garden, with what real estate agents refer to as ‘curb appeal’.

Maybe what suits your personality best is the cottage style flower garden, with blooms in a variety of heights dotting your landscape. If your passion is cut flower arrangements, a cutting garden may be the answer.

If you have a large garden area, your dream flower garden design may consist of large drifts of flowers, with winding pathways and secret gardens to be discovered along the way.

Once you’ve settled on the style you find most pleasing, you’re ready to begin the flower garden design process.

Online, at your favorite bookstore or even your local library, you will find books which offer comprehensive pictorial depictions of various flower garden styles.

You’ll learn how and why particular placement of plants and various elements of garden design make that style work. You’ll also get plenty of ideas on which plants lend drama, seasonal color, as well as factors such as drought tolerance that might influence your choices.

It’s been said that variety is the spice of life and this is also true in a good flower garden design. You want to integrate an assortment of garden features to lend variety to the landscape.

For example, flowering trees, such as the flowering cherry and magnolia can add grandeur and elegance as a backdrop to your flower garden. Placement of shrubs along garden pathways can serve as a privacy screen in certain sections of the garden. If your land is basically flat, you can add interest by making a berm, a raised and rounded area which tapers off at each end. Planted with a few perennials, you can have a really eye-catching display.

Pathways, with stepping stones planted with a small ground cover, might wind through even a small stretch of garden, ending at a garden bench surrounded with fragrant flowers for a quiet, relaxing reprieve from the world.

Ornamental grasses are other elements of a flower garden design, which evoke a serene feeling when planted alongside a drift of Russian sage, with its beautiful, graceful purple flowers.

Daylilies, Alstromeria and Agapanthus are longtime favorites in the summer flower garden, with good reason. The displays are bountiful and little maintenance is required. If you live in an area with acid soil, consider integrating azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons into your flower garden design for a spectacular showing in spring. Daffodils which naturalize, multiply on their own, dividing and spreading over the landscape. If you can, shoot for four season color. It all depends on how cold your winters are.

Today’s garden software makes creating a flower garden design a snap. You can also preview how your garden will look over time, as it fills out and matures.

We are in the process of evaluating some very interesting garden design software products. We plan to make a decision and recommend our favorite one soon so be on the look out for the live link soon!

Remember, a great garden is all about careful thought and planning. That’s the secrets to having and enjoying the ultimate flower garden at home.

Related and highly recommended:

The Complete Gardening System.
Click Here!
A Massive Gardening Course That Will Transform Your Garden And Home And Help To Increase The Value Of Your Home. Downloadable Course Materials Including Audio.

Top Rose Gardening EBook.
Very Good Rose Gardening EBook, Lots Of Excellent Tips, Secrets And Competetively Priced
Click Here!