How to bring a festival atmosphere to your summer garden | House & Garden

Get ready to experience a frosty blast of family-friendly fun to warm up even the chilliest winter day! This list of ice puns and ice-cold jokes are sure to thaw out those serious faces and bring on the giggles.

One of the most loved holidays, Easter brings together friends and families to celebrate the idea of rebirth, good defeating evil and light breaking through the darkness, as well as end the Lent season with delicious meals.

Looking to add some life to your home without having to put in too much effort? Why not try a succulent garden? These water-storing plants are perfect for those who want to enjoy the beauty of nature without having to put in too much work. Plus, they come in a wide variety of textures and colours, so you can easily find the perfect look.

Yes, we’re talking about mint! The breath-saving, tummy-taming, taste-boosting mint. At Fantastic Gardeners, we love this refreshing plant, and why wouldn’t we? It is fragrant, easy to grow, and has many beneficial uses in culinary arts, medicine, and cosmetics.

Winter season doesn’t mean you have to turn your back to your flower garden until spring comes. There is a good number of plants that bloom beautifully even in the coldest of weather. Let’s dig into their world and see which ones you will fancy.

Hydroponic gardening is a method that uses a supply of water with other water-fertilizer solutions to grow plants. Hydroponic systems grow faster than other conventional ways, and more importantly, they are suitable for all seasons.

Ants. Love them or hate them, it is undeniable that they are amazing creatures. With large, complex societies, fungus-farming techniques and an empire which almost spans the entire globe, it is a blessing that they are so small and have not yet developed an overwhelming collective intelligence.

Birds make a great addition to your garden, they’re great to look at and they’re useful as well. For instance, they will eat slugs, snails, aphids, insects and other well-known troublemakers.

The gardening task which most gardeners dread, especially those new to gardening, is often pruning plants. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out how and when to begin pruning. The primary concern is that we will take too much of the plant off.

Just because our attention is focused on keeping things steady (ahem, alive) in the garden this deep into the summer, it doesn’t mean we should neglect our leafy loved ones who live indoors—especially if you have travel plans! Houseplants have special needs every season, but summer heat and time away come with their own set of challenges. 

Despite my garden being full to overflowing after the spring rain I have decided to create a new area for a Japanese Garden. When starting a new project I was advised to have a name that may colour the end result. I opted for the grand title of ‘Japan Land’  This will be a long term project and I won’t rush it as I have on other projects in the past.

‘The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Short Fiction About Gardens and Gardeners’ edited by Michele Slung.