We have Rose shrubs boarding the front of your yard between our property line and the sidewalk. It looks lovely when it’s blooming.

Although some have the ability to grow quite large, there are shrub roses smaller than four feet. Many people like to use these shrubs for barriers as well as for ornamental purposes. Shrubs make beautiful hedges that have a touch of old-world class for your landscaping. The term ‘old-world’ is used because these shrubs have been around for such a long time.
Shrub roses work well for formal or informal landscaping. If you want to balance your scenery, you could plant shrub roses among herbs. Incidentally, roses have some of the same uses as herbs.

Shrub roses have a natural ability to resist disease. They’ll grow in various climates and require little maintenance. These qualities make it a friendlier choice for the person new to gardening.

You may want to plant shrub roses to hide an imperfection on your home or in your yard. If you have an eyesore that can’t be repaired or removed, it may be a good idea to hide it with the larger shrub roses. It should draw the eye more towards the plant and less towards the eyesore, or may even hide it completely.

You may not want to plant shrubs in an area where it will be accessible for passersby to pluck your favored blooms. If you are trying to win the title of “Yard of the Month”, or something similar, placement would definitely matter! These shrubs in bloom may make it irresistible to passing admirers. Besides taking the blooms, the flowers could be damaged carelessly by wandering hands. Bruised blooms would not be a welcome sight to a judge.

The more shrubs you plant, the more beautiful blooms you can enjoy. They would make it easier to decorate for an event you may want to hold. It would save the convenience and cost of ordering flowers from someone else. The added benefit would be the pride of showing something you would have produced yourself. The shrubs would not only provide beauty, but a fragrance as well, to share with your guests.

You could use the roses from your shrubs in many ways. Suppose you are crafty, you could use them in dried flower arrangements. Maybe you want to share them with your neighbor, or use them for romantic purposes for your spouse( such as covering the bed or floor with the petals from your very own shrubs). You could try selling the blooms from your shrubs for corsages. Even a blind friend or relative could benefit from the sweet, uplifting smell of the roses. Maybe you are an artist as well as a gardener. You could plant your own shrubs for your oil, watercolor, or acrylic paintings.
Roses have one of the more dominant scents used for commercial purposes. Planting your own shrubs would give you an outdoor air freshener that you could also bring inside to show off in vases placed around a room. The rose scent can be subtle rather than overpowering. Some roses do have a stronger fragrance than others.

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We bought an older home as our dream home for a couple of reasons. It was priced right, it was located almost exactly where we want to be located and the property is big enough for us to have our first backyard garden.

Because our new home is an older home we do have a few problems and some pest control issues but we knew the going into this. I am semi-retired from the brick and mortar world so I have more time to spend on projects that will make our new to us home a lot nicer.

We have about 6 big ant hills that really look aweful and mess up the appearance of our lawn and they are even in the area we have chosen for our new backyard garden. We need exterminators that will clean them out once and for all. Hopefully we get this taken care of before they all start marching into our house.

Our house seem to be fine at this point and of most pest, we think. We do have an old garage that has seen better days and has a lot of what looks like wood rott but we might be looking at a termite problem. I am not an expert by any means so that is when I call in the experts. While they are here they will check out our house to make sure all is well in here.

A few other pest control places you can check out, depending on where you live are:

Portland Pest Control and Washington Pest Control

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Soil is a main food supply for your plants but sometimes plants need a little more help and that can be in the form of fertilizer or mulch.

Mulch is great for plants, simply because you are turning something that would normally be thrown out as waste into a food supply and a very effective one at that.

Mulch will help to maintain moisture in the soil and reduce the weeds in the backyard garden too.

Generally you should use mulch in damp weather so the plants will have sufficient moisture in the soil. If you are using mulch in dry conditions make sure you water the soil first to retain some moisture as it will be harder for any water to get to the roots of your plants through the covering of mulch.

Mulch keeps the soil moist but it can also stop the soil getting moist if the water can’t penetrate.

If you are using lawn clippings for mulch make sure you haven’t used any chemicals on the lawn prior to cutting, that could have a detrimental affect on your plants.

If you leave the clippings to rot this will often reduce any side effects that these chemicals might have on your plants.

Lawn clippings can also generate a lot of heat so spread them around lightly in thin layers and don’t smother your plants with it.

There are many different things that can be used for mulch, from lawn clippings and plant cuttings to straw, hay and bark.

All those autumn leaves that are blowing around your property can make good mulch but they really need to be left to rot before being used, as they can be quite acidic if used too soon.

If in doubt with anything you are using for mulch, leave it to rot and you can be sure it will be better for your garden.

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