​The most important components in a landscape are probably trees. Their prominent shape and size gives the necessary depth to any garden or lawn. Such a large and tall plant can be impossible to ignore in any scenery and they can add a sense of permanence with their remarkable longevity, making it possible for them to be enjoyed through generations. Additionally, trees attract life as they have the ability to support whole ecosystems being a possible home to birds, bees, butterflies, squirrels, small plants, and other creatures. Moreover, trees can also become aesthetic, flowering trees can add beauty and grace apart from a sense of strength and prominence. 

There are many kinds of flowering trees, each being valued for their distinct qualities. Here are some of the most popular in the landscaping scene:

Dogwoods are among the most popular and well-loved flowering trees that blossom in the spring. The soft white or pink flowers are indeed pleasing to the eyes. Additionally, dogwoods also look good in the autumn as their leaves turn to a rich and bright red tinge. Having a dogwood in one's backyard can definitely light up the surroundings for much of the year. 

Rose of Sharon is technically a shrub, most people think that it is a tree because it can grow tall and be trimmed down to a single tree-like trunk. Its lilac-tinted flower is very attractive. The blooms come relatively late which makes it good to be planted with early blooming trees to enjoy flowers throughout the season. 

Washington Hawthorn Flowering Trees are very much valued because of the distinct time when they bloom. They usually flower from the latter portion of the spring to the early part of summer which makes them ideal in the transition period between the two seasons, when most spring trees have shed their blooms and most summer trees have just started budding. 

​Magnolias are sometimes called saucers obviously for their big flowers that are very noticeable to anyone nearby. This type of flowering tree makes a big impression on anyone who beholds its beauty. 

Crape Myrtles are considered the queen of the flowering trees as it is a very popular choice. They bloom for long periods starting from the middle of summer to autumn. The flowers bloom in clusters that can be white, red, pink or lilac, which are attached to the tips of new wood. In temperate regions, these flowering trees can die in the winter, but come back in springtime.

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick is a unique tree with an odd name. It is indeed a distinct flowering tree as it becomes beautiful only when it sheds its leaves. It is also technically a shrub that looks like a tree because it can go over four feet high. Harry Lauder's Walking Stick is ideal for those with winter planting in mind. 

There are several other kinds of flowering trees and each could add beauty as well as strength to any landscape. Planting trees can be such a worthwhile endeavor to beautify any piece of land.

​The Bristol Gardening Team is always available to provide you with support in making the best out of your happy place. Call us now for a free quote.

​You may just have doubts of whether the plant will eventually grow or not. Also some plants require additional heat, water and humidity which may be difficult to provide. So here, we make gardening simple and easy for you. Here are the top easy to grow plants which will ensure success without fail!

Mint
This is one of the easiest herbs to grow. Mint plants will grow rapidly and even spread to neighboring patches of your garden if you are not careful enough. Hence, a good approach is to grow mint in a container. The good thing is that this plant needs hardly any maintenance and care. You can take a fresh sprig of mint and can grow it anywhere either in direct sunlight or inside a cool and shady place. You only need to make sure to water the mint plant thoroughly everyday till you see the seedling leaves appear.

Tomatoes
Tomatoes are so easy to grow that it is almost ridiculous! All you need to do is take a handful of tomato seeds from a tomato which you have already cut. Then make sure to wash the seeds from all the tomato juice that is clinging to them. Otherwise the seeds will be coated with sugar which can cause a fungal attack. Then place the seeds around a quarter inch from the soil top. You should begin to see shoots appear after around a week or so. Once the seedling leaves appear, place them in direct sunlight for three hours every day till the leaves are grown. Then transplant the seedling into a pot.

Sweet peas
These cute looking green peas are often used in germination experiments in schools because they grow so easily. You could even place peas in a moist wad of cotton in a bowl. Then keep the bowl in a shaded area and watch the seeds sprout in a few days’ time. You can transplant the seedling once you see the secondary leaves appear on the shoot.

​Beans
Beans are another great option if you wish to ensure fast gardening. Simply place a couple of beans inside a seedling pot. Then water them regularly and keep the pot in a shaded area. Once the shots emerge, place the seedlings in direct sunlight for a few hours daily until they toughen up to face constant sunlight.

Ginger
Did you know that you could cultivate ginger by just cutting off a portion of the ‘eye’? The surface of the ginger root has several small projections on it. In order to successfully grow the plant you need to cut off this portion and place it under the soil. It will breed marvelously. Slowly, it will grow its roots into the soil and then the shoots and leaves will appear.

Lemons
You can easily grow a lemon tree from existing lemon seeds. Just take out the seeds making sure none of them have been dehydrated or damaged by cutting. Then wash off the seed surface from all sugar residues. Then plant the seeds into the soil. You will need to place the seeds a little towards the bottom of the soil. Then you can expect to see seedling plants emerge. The good thing is that each seed will yield multiple seedlings.

Nasturtiums
These are vine shaped plants which have leaves that look like lily pads. The great thing about this plant is that it comes in vibrant colors like vanilla, yellow, crimson and orange. These flowers are not edible and once you have planted them, they will regenerate with every season.

Cosmos
This plant is typically found in old fashioned garden patches. You will find these plants in two varieties – sonata mix and seashells. Growing the plant from the seed is always better than just placing a seedling into the pot as the plant emerges stronger with better yield. The Cosmos plant is fantastic at regenerating itself time and again!

Sunflowers
These beautiful flowers can be grown from the seed itself. These flowers will be tall, bright colored and always facing the sun! You need to have ample space to grow sunflowers as the flowers grow as high as a corn crop! 

Ornamental grass
This is a type of grass which grows out very quickly. Besides, its soft and velvet-like appearance makes for a nice decorative patch in the garden or near your balcony. You can easily anticipate regeneration in the next season.

Arugula
This lettuce variety is nut-flavored and is mostly found in high-end salads. Hence, it would do you good to plant them to make your salads! You need to plant the Arugula inside a pot and place it in your kitchen where it is less sunny. 

The great thing about growing plants at home is that they are more economical and organic. Therefore there are no chemicals making for a healthier, tastier meal!

​The Bristol Gardening Team is always available to provide you with support in making the best out of your happy place. Call us now for a free quote.

​With just a little bit of planning, you can have beautiful butterflies and hummingbirds flocking to your garden. That's good news for gardeners because not only are these winged creatures fun to watch, they're essential pollinators.

 Hummingbirds are attracted to bright orange, red and hot pink blossoms. Their long, narrow beaks can reach the nectar of long, tubular flowers such as the Balboa Sunset Trumpet Vine with its large scarlet blossoms, and the Goldflame Honeysuckle, which has vibrant yellow and red flowers. Other good choices include the Super Red Flowering Maple and the Navajo series of Salvia, available in many colors, including bright red, rose and salmon red. ​Not all hummingbirds feed at the same height, so plant an array of shrub sizes and climbing vines for food sources.

Butterflies are attracted to yellow, orange and red. They too are seeking nectar, but their mouths, or proboscises, are much smaller, so they prefer flatter flowers they can perch on while they feed. The no-fail plant for butterflies is the Butterfly Bush, or Buddleja. However, since they can get too large for some gardens, consider the Petite series of Dwarf Butterfly Bushes. Petite Indigo has a profusion of lilac-blue flowers; Petite Plum sports reddish-purple blooms and Petite Snow has pure white blossoms. 

Lilacs are favorites of butterflies, but don't typically flower well in climates with warmer winters. Blue Skies Lilac produces huge clusters of light lavender-blue flowers that don't require winter chilling. Butterflies love coneflowers, such as the bright pink Pixie Meadowbrite. Asters are great because they bloom well into fall. The new Farmington Aster has a profusion of lilac bloom clusters that butterflies flock to. 

​Supply a source of water. Hummingbirds enjoy flying through a fine mist, which cools them off. Butterflies like drinking from shallow puddles. Position some large flat rocks in a sunny spot, on which butterflies can sun themselves to warm their wings.

​For container gardening ideas, search the internet, the library or a bookstore. The challenge is to come up with a pleasing container garden design. There are an unlimited variety of containers available for your container garden. These range in size from small house-plant pots to large boxes and planters. Equally variable are the materials from which they are made. These include wood, glass, clay, aluminum, bamboo, straw, plastic, fiberglass, terra cotta, tin, cast iron, zinc, copper, and brass, each with certain advantages and disadvantages. What you select will depend on availability, cost, background, and appeal, not to mention the characteristics of the gardening pots.

​Here are some container gardening ideas.
​In addition to traditional circular pots and tubs, there are modern and ultra-modern formsósquare, rectangular, triangular, hexagonal, and octagonal. Also eligible are old iron kitchen pots, kettles, pails, jugs, casks, vases, crocks, jelly tubs, barrels and nail kegs, Japanese fish tubs, old sinks, bathtubs, bamboo soy tubs.  There are novelty containers such as driftwood, wheelbarrows, donkey carts, spinning wheels and boxes attached to roadside mail receptacles. There are also bird cages, decorative well heads, animal figures, and Strawberry jars. Woven baskets may be used to conceal unattractive containers. Even tar paper pots, handled by garden centers and florists, are worthwhile if painted or covered to improve their appearance. Any of these can be used in your container gardening ideas.

Where to find your container supplies?
​Start with what you have. If you scout cellars or basements, attics, garages, and sheds, you will doubtless encounter something interesting. Old-fashioned pots and kettles, often sold in antique shops at country auctions or seen at old New England inns, have much appeal. ​Other container garden ideas are to consider old cookie and bean jars, pickle and other types of crocks, wash tubs, coal pails, jardiniéres, and ceramic bowls. For drainage, spread a thick layer of large pebbles or broken pieces of pots or bricks at the bottom and then water plants with care. In large containers of this kind, drainage material should be several inches thick. Where rainfall is heavy, be sure to keep garden containers without drainage outlets on porches, under awnings or the broad eaves of houses. With pails and old galvanized wash tubs, holes can be easily punctured at the bottom.

Plants in containers without drainage openings remain moist longer. Some of these crocks, jardiniéres and cookie jars are heavy enough to be secure against wind in outside container gardening.

What constitutes the ideal container for your container garden ideas?
A container must be attractive, even if it is not an object of art. It should be strong and durable and able to resist all kinds of weather. This is especially true of large sizes, which usually remain outdoors all year round. In the North, alternate freezing and thawing is a problem in winter (and could cause cracking); in tropical climates, excessive heat, humidity, and moisture are to be considered (and could cause fading). And in semiarid areas, there is the effect of scorching sun to keep in mind, another cause of fading. All these things must be kept in mind when coming up with your container gardening design.

​The ideal container must be large enough to hold a substantial amount of soil. It should have good drainage facilities through holes or other openings at the bottom or sides, though this is not absolutely necessary. It must not rust, at least in a single season, and it should have a wide enough base to rest firmly wherever placed. Besides, it ought to be heavy enough to withstand average winds. In severe storms like hurricanes and tornadoes, movable containers can be shifted to temporary safety. All of these things should be factored in when you are coming up with your container gardening ideas.

​Resistance to rot is another requirement. Wooden containers - except those made of rot-resistant redwood, Western cedar, and Southern red cypress - will need to be treated with a wood preservative. Except for permanent containers, the ability to move your container garden is another feature, and sometimes a safety precaution, of portable container gardening. Large boxes and planters can be fitted with wheels, and garden centers have redwood tubs that rest on platforms with wheels. A hole in the platform corresponds to the hole in the tub. Large containers without wheels can be pushed on iron or wooden rollers by two or more persons; however, if you live in an area prone to disastrous storms it is best to keep your containers small.

Smaller containers are ideal for growing herb container gardens. If you plan to plant an herb container garden be imaginative   Here are some container garden ideas for herbs that will go well together.

So these are just a few container gardening ideas. Get out a pad of paper and make up a container garden design that will please the eye and maybe even the palate
Happy Container Gardening!

​​The Bristol Gardening Team is always available to provide you with support in making the best out of your happy place. Call us now for a free quote.

A lot of money is spent on this to reproduce fragrances for perfumes and air fresheners. The majority of these manufactured fragrances have alcohol and other additives that can irritate the membranes in your nose. Nature has done it the best and these are some of the most heavenly fragrances you’ll ever smell.

They don't do well in direct sunlight or drafts so place them in a more diffused lit area. ​If you replace the water every couple of days and add flower food plus a new snip of the ends, you’ll have a long lasting, beautiful fragrant arrangement. ​

You can order any of these flowers from Bristol Gardening. If they don’t have them on hand you can ask them to order some for you. In most cases, if you place an order before noon, you should be able to pick them up later in the afternoon. 

Rather than putting chemicals in the air, you may want to get some flowers now and again and enjoy nature’s perfume. Enjoy!

​The Bristol Gardening Team is always available to provide you with support in making the best out of your happy place. Call us now for a free quote.