Organic gardening is a form of agro-ecology: a form of gardening that seeks to enhance the ecological relationship between humans and their environment by ensuring that humans and their environments co-exist harmoniously.
For gardeners and farmers who understand the value of sustainable agriculture. There is little reason why organic gardening cannot thrive on our modern farms and landscapes.
Organic Gardening
Indeed, it has been stated that many of the world’s major agricultural challenges can be solved through organic gardening methods. Not only does organic gardening reduce the strain on the environment. It also makes farming and razing necessary for a healthy food supply.
A garden is basically a planned area, typically outside, designed as an ideal place for cultivation, display, or simply enjoyment of plants and various forms of nature, as a perfect setting for solitary or social life. No matter where you live in the world, a garden can be found there.
Although you will not always know what kind of plants you are growing there. The single defining feature defining even the wildest garden is enclosure. With the right kind of planning, any gardener, independent or not, can establish a beautiful garden of their very own.
So, whether you want a modest flower garden for your patio. Or an elaborate ecosystem based on a specific theme, you can have it.
Gardening cover a number of practices
Gardening is a very broad field, covering a number of practices and ideas about growing plants, growing flowers, fruit or vegetables, and maintaining gardens. There are some schools of gardening, like horticulture. Whereas others are based on sustainable agriculture, conservation, reclamation, gardening for food, landscapes, and others.
Sustainable agriculture is essentially the practice of farming in a manner that allows for environmental preservation as well as productivity. And these practices have become increasingly popular as organic gardening gains popularity and becomes more accessible to a broader range of people.
One such important aspect of sustainable gardening is the concept of an English landscape garden. An English landscape garden was a type of plan designed to improve the visual appeal of a particular piece of land. More importantly, to make it more functional.
The basic purpose of an English landscape garden was to add beauty and usefulness to a piece of land by improving the surrounding landscape. A landscape garden was usually located within a boundary walled garden, with walls of stones or landscaping to protect plants from damage.
Gardening Functionality
In addition to the functionality, an English garden also attempted to create an aesthetic oasis. An atmosphere that was intended to be self-sufficient and away from the distractions of the surrounding world. The gardener of the day would often plant herbs and flowers to promote healing and encourage meditation.
Aesthetics were also important because most gardens included plants that were poisonous to humans (such as garlic and onions) . Or those that were toxic to other animals (such as poison ivy and some forms of insecticide).
Therefore, the garden plot was designed so that harmful or potentially harmful plants and animals would be contained within the boundaries of the garden plot.
The idea of gardening has changed over time. In the early days of farming, when people first began to raise animals, growing plants for animal production was quite natural. Livestock production increased with the availability of better meat products. Planting crops for human consumption was more of a supplement to this rather than a necessity.
However, over time we started to need more food. Then farming became an industry that required large quantities of land with little return. It is from this basis that we see today’s interest in organic farming techniques and practices.
Garden Design
Design of garden is an art and procedure of creating and designing landscapes and garden structures for planting and design. Garden design can be performed by the backyard owner themselves. Or by experts of differing degrees of expertise and experience.
It also involves coming up with a balance of plant species that will thrive in the particular environment and soil conditions. The end result will be a garden or landscape that adds beauty and value to the surrounding area. And blends in harmoniously with its surroundings.
In order to come up with a garden design, the designer must consider how the garden will be used and designed as well as what types of trees and plants will be suitable for the area.
Successful Garden Design
There are four main key elements of successful garden design. These are functionality, aesthetics, social aspects and coherence with the landscape. All these need to be considered in equal measure in order for the garden design to be a success.
The aesthetic aspect of garden design focuses on how the plants look and the overall effect of the garden design. This is very subjective and differs from person to person.
One of the main issues with aesthetic garden design is the selection of plants that will thrive and grow best in the specific environment and soil type of the area where the garden is to be located. For instance, some plants will require full sunlight to other plants will require partial to full shade.
Landscaping is one of the more important aspects of garden design and an important part of landscape architecture. Layout architecture is used to describe the design patterns that support the different parts of a garden like the roof, the foundation, wall structures and flooring etc.
A landscape architect considers a lot of factors while designing a landscape. They include materials, lighting, ventilation, wind-fall etc. Other factors that landscape designers take into consideration is the comfort and ease with which one can move around the area.
Hard landscaping
The last but not the least is hard landscaping. Hard landscaping involves the construction of walls and patios. Hard landscaping is different from soft landscaping because it is much more labor intensive. It is generally done only by experienced hard landscaping garden designer.
As a matter of fact there is a debate going on whether or not plant size should play a role in the garden design. Some people feel that plant size should be selected based on the amount of light that they receive.
However, most professional garden designers strongly oppose this idea as they believe that the amount of light the plants receive should also be taken into account. Basically the only thing that we can say about plant size is that the larger the plant the more exposed to the sun it receives.