Brummet's Conscious Blog

Messy Yards Can Be Desirable Did you know ? ... Fall’s colourful leaves, old logs, standing snags and even a pile of branches can offer habitat to a wide array of creatures in your backyard.  While living a tidy lifestyle is often a top priority we can include these suggested items above in discreet ways – leaf mulch is profoundly useful around perennial landscape plants and overwintering garden beds, such as strawberries and garlic. Simply use your mower to chop up those leaves and spread on the beds around the plants where you need it.  A small pile of branches in the corner behind the fountain, or a couple tasteful and interestingly shaped logs or fallen tree roots lain in the landscaping beds. You can find really interesting shapes and colours when it comes to branches, tree roots, logs and drift wood. Depending on where you live and the type of yard you have and the kind of habitat you offer (small logs, large rotten logs, bark mulch, h...

Rainwater collection Rain gardens are a great way for people to support wildlife habitat while reducing problems associated with heavy rainfall and overly compact, or covered (paved, concrete, buildings, etc) ground.  These gardens can be very large or very small, depending on your desires and your needs.  Rainfall can also be managed with a series of capture bins (rain barrels) that are connected together and placed in such a way that they gravity-feed down to your hose connection.  This way you have a number of barrels of fresh, soft rain water that you can use around your property later on. Ideally, a property would have both grey water and rainwater collection systems in place. Each of these systems can be quite small, depending on your needs - or very large... and they require slightly different plants as well.  Check out this fine article titled: How to Create an Effective Rain Garden:  https://cornell.us2.list-manage.com/track/cl...

Attract Hummingbirds * Written by: Cheryl D. Jones, who shares gardening tips and landscape ideas through her blog, newsletters and her nursery's website - www.GreenwoodNursery.com  A lot of people think that hanging out a quick hummingbird feeder is enough to encourage hummers into their gardens. While hummingbirds will stop by and eat from these feeders, they tend to quickly move on to more welcoming gardens. Creating an ideal garden for hummingbirds offers more than just food. They offer all of the basic essentials for bird life. Hummingbirds come and stay in gardens that are perfectly suited for them. Here's what you need to create an ideal garden for hummingbirds. Many hummingbirds are a migratory species of bird that spend the winters in South and Central America, and in the spring travel all the way up to North America and even into parts of Canada where they spend the warm season breeding, raising young, and preparing to fly south again. Hummingbirds rel...

-- Brummet's In the Media --  Drop by this site to find my article on converting urban properties into biodiverse parks, along with before-and-after pics of two properties we have owned over the years :  http://thegreengrandma.blogspot.ca/2014/07/a-canadian-backyard-habitat.html I had so much fun putting this project together this article for Hana's blog and share my passion for gardening consciously. :) If people would like to find out more here are a few resources:  http://www.cwf-fcf.org   http://seeds.ca   http://pollinationcanada.ca Also check out the archives of my radio show (on hiatus since December) via this page below and look for " Sunday Gardening " episodes: http://brummet.ca/radioarchives.html   Find Dave and Lillian Brummet, excerpts from their books, their radio program, blog, and more at: http://brummet.ca * Support the Brummets by telling your friends, clicking those social networking buttons, or visitin...

5 Tips to Spruce up a Boring Backyard * Today's article was submitted to us by Matthew Laphet The arrival of warm weather heralds that time of year when families look to their backyards for summer fun and recreation. A dull, boring or shabby-looking garden, however, can quickly send everyone back indoors. The right home improvement can spruce up your yard and ensure that everyone gets the most enjoyment from their season in the sun. Some projects also offer a great return on your investment when it comes time to sell your home. If your backyard is bland and boring, here are five outdoor upgrades that can turn any summer weekend into a fun-filled "staycation." 1. Consider a Swimming Pool An amenity that offers years of summer fun, a swimming pool creates the ideal setting for outdoor entertaining and family activities while promoting healthy exercise too. You can expect to recover around 50 percent of the installation costs of an in-ground swimming pool when y...

-- Quote of the Day --  “There are only 2 days that you can’t do anything –  yesterday and tomorrow.”  ~  unknown   -- Conscious Discussions Talk Radio --    * Airs live @ 10-11 AM (Pacifc)  - all episodes are archived indefinitely within moments after they air live, and are available for you to listen to later on at any time of day.   Sign up via itunes for the Conscious Discussions Radio show: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id262138144   Sunday Gardening episodes air every 2-3 weeks from March - October annually featuring topics like bio-dynamic, sustainable, organic gardening and landscaping using square foot, inter-planting and succession crop methods, permaculture and laye...

-- Brummet's in the Media -- Check out our  appearance on: http://authorsatthevirtualpark.blogspot.com   (scroll down a couple posts to find us) ...An online writer friend of ours: Ami Blackwelder – sent me a note offering her services to our listeners. She says that her 2 blogs are open for author tours and she welcomes author applications for spotlight features. She also has some writing related services that you might want to check out – including book trailers and cover art. So take a look at her two blogs: http://hotgossiphotreviews.blogspot.com http://authorsatthevirtualpark.blogspot.com And then send her an email via her site: http://AmiBlackwelder.com -- Conscious Discussions Radio -- Today's guest : Nathalie Chambers -- Topic : Pollinators Link : http://www.blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions/2011/05/01/pollination--bees-whats-happening-to-them Nathalie works as the Land Conservancy’s Agricultural Programs Assistant , is leading the charge on th...