Hotel decorators spill their bedroom secrets

Top designers offer tips on bedding, furnishings and accents to help you upgrade your sleeping space.

* This article was originally published here

‘Cheap as chips and save backache’: gardening pros on the tools they can’t live without

Getting your garden ready for spring? We asked the experts for their go-to kit, from secateurs and soil knives to trousers with enough pockets for twine

• How to make your garden tools last longer

In my garden, the celandines are popping, the blackthorn buds are breaking, and the bees are beginning to bumble. These, to my mind, are all solid seasonal omens, and I for one can feel my sap beginning to rise: time to venture outside.

Though undoubtedly there are cold, damp and dreary days still to come, the spring starting pistol has been fired and months of good gardening now lie ahead. There are seeds to sow, shrubs to prune and perennials to chop back and divide. In all tasks, however, being well equipped makes every bit of difference to the experience, so here are some dependable, tried and tested – and in many cases beloved – tools recommended by professionals, from head gardeners and growers to producers of vegetables and cut flowers.

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Ask a Vet: These household items could kill your pet

What to know about some of the most common — and deadly — indoor household toxins.

* This article was originally published here

Our back yard harvest has been getting harder each summer, so this time I tried something new

Welcoming a family of wattlebirds into his Melbourne garden helped deter Andrew Herrick’s less amiable avian visitors – it’s a service he’s happy to pay for in apricots

There is an insect circus in our sink.

My wife is in the kitchen preparing our homegrown apricots for drying. But there are grubs, lots of them, dropping from the fruit into the sink, then leaping like acrobats from one bowl to the other and back again.

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* This article was originally published here

* This article was originally published here

Our back yard harvest has been getting harder each summer, so this time I tried something new

Welcoming a family of wattlebirds into his Melbourne garden helped deter Andrew Herrick’s less amiable avian visitors – it’s a service he’s happy to pay for in apricots

There is an insect circus in our sink.

My wife is in the kitchen preparing our homegrown apricots for drying. But there are grubs, lots of them, dropping from the fruit into the sink, then leaping like acrobats from one bowl to the other and back again.

Continue reading...

* This article was originally published here

When it comes to preparing seeds for your garden, you’ll reap what you sow

Knowing how much water and warmth different seeds need to germinate will improve your changes of getting a great crop of vegetables

Many of our minds will soon – if they haven’t already – turn towards sowing seeds. While germination appears to happen willy-nilly in the wild, this process requires a certain set of factors to take place. Different seeds require different conditions, and knowing what your seeds need will mean more successfully germinate and fewer are wasted.

To an unimaginative eye, a seed looks inert. Yet they are packed with genetic information and biological processes poised to unfold. All it takes is the right configuration of signals and stimuli from the environment to let them know it’s time to dare to grow.

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* This article was originally published here

Decades after my father’s garden grew wild, one man helped us see the sky again | Jessie Cole

A giant bamboo grove had completely blocked our light – but with the right help, no problem is insurmountable

When I was a baby, my parents planted a garden that became a forest. All through my childhood they toiled in this endeavour. Watering, mulching – tending plants like they tended us.

My father was a man of action. My mother had to be careful what dreams she spoke aloud, as by afternoon he would have brought them into actuality; before she shared an idea, she learned to be sure. Living in close proximity to this kind of impetus made the world seem governable. My father – the creator – shaping our habitat. You would like a pond? Dig here!

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* This article was originally published here