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Simple Tips To Clean Your Garden

By Madhu Babu

Your garden defines and introduces you to the world outside. A tidy and well designed garden reflects your character and who you are. Its also your responsibility to maintain a litter free and clean garden to maintain your health and that of your neighbours. Lot of diseases and viral fevers are spread due to standing water and waste lying around in your garden. Hence its very important to regularly clean your garden.

Cleaning and maintaining your garden can be made easy with proper planning. It starts from the time of designing your garden itself and hiring or purchasing handy tools that help you clean your garden with ease. Since gardens are open spaces, you have to accept the fact that accumulation of dirt and litter is a part and parcel that comes with having a garden. Hence you have to be prepared and not constantly whine about it.

Simple Tips To Clean Your Garden

Different seasons bring different challenges to maintaining your garden. During the months of March to May you have dry spells in India resulting in trees shedding their leaves. This brings a different cleaning schedule compared to monsoon that follows the dry spell where in you have to make sure water does not stagnate after the rain. Though we do not have extreme winters with snow in most parts of India, you have regional factors like sand storms in parts of Rajasthan that bring about different challenges.

Designing
The first step is to design your garden in a well thought out manner so that maintenance and cleaning it is easy. Placing trees, vegetable garden, manure pits and paths in the right places helps in cleaning and maintenance the garden over time.

Tools
Have right kind of tools at your disposal to maintain and clean your garden with ease. Cleaning your garden is physically exhausting and challenging, hence seek help from handy equipments like mowers and sprinklers help.

Moderation
Though it is easy to excitedly begin big and bold, don't overdo it. Set achievable goals for cleaning your garden. Divide the garden into portions that can be cleaned in a day without strain.

Schedule
Always set schedules for different parts of the garden. If there are water bodies, set certain day of every month for its cleaning. Set a separate day for cleaning of passages and hard floors and similarly for mowing grass at regular intervals.

Right slopes
Make sure you have right slopes leading to drains. Uneven surfaces result in water logging. Hence make sure there is even surface and all the slope tilts towards drains that collects the water. This is particularly important during monsoon season.

Grass
Grass is the most essential aspect of your garden. Grassed areas should always be kept at a reasonable height and weeds should be kept under control. Know the right schedule for mowing the grass from your supplier.

Vegetable gardens
If you have a vegetable growing in your garden, make sure its separated by a small wooden fence or a concrete separator. The soil and manure from the vegetable garden should not blot into your grass and rest of your garden.

Manure pits
Manure pits are best kept in backyard corner. It is important to be well maintained and closed properly so that stench and insect issues does not affect you and your neighbours. Make sure you clean the pit after every manure cycle and apply disinfectants.

Water right
Always make sure you water the lawn and plants the right way with right supply of water. Too much or too little results in improper growth of grass and plants resulting in messy look of your garden. Make sure you use right sprinklers and regulate water that is sprayed.

Story first published: Sunday, October 6, 2013, 11:38 [IST]
Read more about: gardening