How to Have the Best Garden Party This Spring

Spring is the perfect time to host a garden party. The warm weather and sunshine create a relaxing atmosphere, but what about the other details? Use this guide to have the best garden party this spring and become an expert at inviting people to your home.

Provide Some Shade

Although the sunshine doesn’t feel too hot in the spring, your guests may want an option to sit in the shade. A patio table with an umbrella or seats on a screened porch will allow people to cool down whenever they want. Provide a few shaded seating options along with chairs in the sun to keep everyone comfortable.

Feature Spring Blooms

Parties wouldn’t be the same without a centerpiece. As you think about your garden party table arrangements, consider using spring blooms as your centerpieces. You could select them from your garden or a florist’s shop if they have springtime blooms such as:

● Daffodils
● Tulips
● Wallflowers
● Foxgloves
● Alliums

The various colors and stem lengths will lead to numerous potential centerpiece designs. Consider the types of vases you prefer to pick the best flowers for your party. You could even send your guests home with bouquets to keep the party going long after the day ends.

Upgrade Your Landscaping

Garden parties often happen outdoors to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Upgrade your landscaping before your guests arrive by mowing your grass, trimming bushes, and replacing any plants that didn’t make it through the winter.

Some property upgrades even double as useful decor. Adding shrubs around your property line would provide soundproof padding for your party. The thick bushes block noise from floating into your neighbor’s yards by letting the acoustics bounce off your plants as everyone mingles. Landscaping adjustments could be the best way to create ambiance and satisfy your neighbors if those are your primary party concerns.

Decorate With Crystals

Crystals come in many colors, so they’re great options for garden party decor. Research what each type represents and place them around your party to provide protection and benefit relationships with subtle spiritual vibes. Depending on the spiritual properties of your crystal selection, they could also help everyone feel more at ease.

Serve a Seasonal Menu

Your garden party is happening because it’s spring, so lean into the time of year with your menu too. You could serve lemonade instead of soda or a berry fruit platter instead of chips and dip. Your guests will love the weather and the tastes of spring in every bite of their snacks, drinks, or meal.

Time Your Party Date

If you have a garden full of flowers, research when they’ll bloom this spring. You could pick a date shortly after they bloom and invite everyone over when your garden is most beautiful. You’ll have less decor to worry about because your plants double as visual decorations.

Plan a Few Games

Sometimes people rely on party games to get conversations rolling. They’re also fun to play after people have warmed up or energized themselves with a meal. It gives your guests a break in their discussions, which may become stale if people run out of things to discuss.

Provide a few party games in case anyone wants to play. Your guests might enjoy a cornhole tournament or a few rounds of horseshoes. Even a game like giant Jenga would make your event more lively by setting the scene for incredible memories.

Create Party Favors

People may view party favors as a thing of the past, but most guests still love going home with a gift. Give your garden party attendees a thrill by making seasonal favors. They could each get a small pack of iced lavender cookies or mini flower arrangements. Even tiny bottles of floral perfume will dazzle your guests and make your party the event of the season.

Choose a Color Palette

Spring is a time for new life and rebirth. Many people associate the season with gentle pastel shades and happy color palettes. Pick colors inspired by the season to make your event look like it matches the time of year. If you chose decor in reds and greens, people would feel like they were at a Christmas party in April.

Customize Your Cocktails

Your party may not feel complete until you have a handful of custom cocktail recipes ready to go. Your guests could sip on beverages like hard chamomile punch or a strawberry spritz. They’ll love the seasonal drink options that match their enthusiasm for the time of year. All you’ll need are a few ingredients to impress everyone with your mixology skills.

Host the Best Garden Party This Spring

Anyone can learn how to have the best garden party this spring with simple tips like these. Consider party details like menu options, decor, and if you’ll spend the entire time outside. You’ll plan everything you need to host the best event of the year.

About The Author

Ava Roman (she/her) is the Managing Editor of Revivalist, a women’s lifestyle magazine that empowers women to live their most authentic life. When Ava is not writing you’ll find her in a yoga class, advocating for body positivity, whipping up something delicious in the kitchen, or smashing the patriarchy. 

How to Create Your Own Greenhouse At Home

Do you enjoy gardening and wish you could have a greenhouse? Well, it’s easier than you think, and you don’t need tons of space to build one. You can create your own greenhouse at home and take advantage of getting a jumpstart on spring. Our experts have some recommendations on do-it-yourself greenhouses that are budget-friendly, low cost and do a beautiful job of letting the sunlight shine in and warming the plants and air inside.

Cold Frame Greenhouse

Greenhouses come in a variety of forms, but one of the simplest to create is the cold frame greenhouse.

This type of greenhouse is designed as a clear, insulated outdoor structure that will protect your plants. According to gardening pros, vegetables, small fruit, and cut flowers do especially well in a cold frame structure and can boost your crop yield and profitability by up to 50%.

Some folks make their own greenhouses from salvaged windows and lumber, but that can get complicated and take a lot of time to construct.

A cold frame greenhouse is an excellent unit that you build with structural steel tubing into a hoop house design. You can purchase this material from farm supply shops.

These units are available in a variety of sizes. One of the smaller kits features dimensions of 8’W x 8’5″H x 24’L.

These kits are easy to assemble as there is zero drilling or welding and include ground posts and purlins. A baseboard is recommended for this type of greenhouse.

Greenhouse Cover Essentials

The greenhouse you create at home will only be as effective as its cover. For instance, a greenhouse not only offers shelter for your plants and excellent see-through convenience but it’s designed to evenly diffuse light, block the UVA/UVB rays and protect your plants from burning with the added benefit that your plants will need less water. The proper cover material will also provide waterproofing and UV protection, and it’s long-lasting for about three to five years.

Tarps made of polyethylene do very well in the elements and are cheaper than putting up glass panes and are also lighter in load-bearing weight.

A cover made of polyethylene has another advantage over most others as it allows you to maintain the ideal humidity levels inside your greenhouse. No moisture will go in or out, and you can keep the greenhouse going year-round. This type of cover offers a superb layer of protection against temperature changes.

D.I.Y. Greenhouse Guides

There are plenty of greenhouse designs you can find in books, magazines, and online.

Check out social platforms such as YouTube.com to see how gardening experts create their backyard greenhouses. Many of these videos provide terrific, step-by-step demonstrations and the materials you will need.

You don’t have to make an elaborate or pricey greenhouse for the structure to do its job.

Maybe you would prefer a low tunnel, hoop-style greenhouse for a raised garden bed for growing your vegetables and flowers. You can build a unit with something as simple as PVC pipes, which are easy to bend. You can use floating row covers or greenhouse polyethylene to build hoop houses and greenhouse tunnels over garden beds that are perfect for your backyard space.

Portable greenhouses are yet another design to consider. You’re not committed or restricted to one space, and these units come in many styles and sizes with easy-to-assemble and disassemble materials. You can even fit a portable greenhouse on a small balcony, for example.

You have many great options that will fit your budget and deliver a greenhouse that functions and looks attractive.

Gardening is a wonderful hobby no matter what you’re planting from seed or crops you’re hoping to shelter from the elements. A greenhouse is a stable environment and can help you extend the growing season and keep the annoying pests at bay. If you love growing your own food year-round, then strawberries thrive in a garden greenhouse along with veggies such as cucumbers, summer squash, beans, and peppers. Talk about healthy and nutritious! Do some research, and take your time. There is a perfect greenhouse at home that you can build. Have fun, and get growing!

Why Choose Homegrown Veggies Instead Of Store-Bought Ones

If you were to ask most nutrition-savvy people, they will tell you precisely why homegrown produce is always miles better than the stuff they sell in the supermarkets. As a matter of fact, it would not be wrong to surmise that store-bought veggies and fruits won’t be able to outshine homegrown stuff. This is because homegrown produce has many proven nutritional values and advantages that the usual supermarket variety produce tends to lack. If you were to opt for your very own homegrown fruits and vegetables, you will be able to bring better nutrition and flavor to your dinner table. Let us check out some of the more important benefits of homegrown over store-bought items:

Low Cost and More Variety

When you grow your own meals, you can save out on the intermediaries. Store-bought produce has the store’s profits tucked in. Not to mention the transportation charges, the wholesaler rates, and the profit of the farmers too. All of these things add to the final purchase price of your fruit or vegetable. When you grow them yourself, you won’t have to pay all of these extra costs.  Apart from that, there is the question of variety as well. Look at it this way. You go to a supermarket and purchase what you see there. If they don’t stock your favorite product, that is just that. For example, if you want a certain type of tomato and they don’t have it, well, you are fresh out of luck. However, when you opt for homegrown you can grow pretty much anything you want, and pluck it ripe and fresh, straight from its branch.

Less Waste of Food

Organic waste is one the most common components of landfills in the world, and it is the leading source of methane emissions. According to estimates, one-third of the food that is produced for consumption is wasted globally. But if you make your own garden, none of the fruits and vegetables are wasted. You will make every attempt to consume or preserve all of the garden’s produce. Whatever scraps or trimmings you don’t eat will be composted and returned to the garden as fertilizers When you take care of your garden, you will acknowledge the value of the vegetables much more. Just make sure you build the right environment for your vegetable to grow in your vegetable gardening, such as attracting Pollinators.

Rich Texture and Authentic Taste 

It is accepted by most experts that whole foods have far more authentic flavor than their commercially grown counterparts. Apart from that, they are also quite rich in texture. This has a lot to do with the fact that many, if not most homegrown whole foods are just simply packed with all kinds of great nutrients that we need. The naturally grown chemical-free vegetables have more minerals and nutrients than conventionally developed chemically cultivated vegetables. These include minerals, vitamins as well as antioxidants, and even fiber too. This makes them not just more wholesome, but also more delicious too. Some common and easy to grow examples include celery sticks, tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

Distances and Storage Matters

All fruit and vegetables are basically perishable items. This means they start to deteriorate as soon as they are harvested. With supermarket veggies, the time from harvesting to shelf space can easily take up to a week. This means that they lose their vital nutrients over time. With imported veggies, this process can often take weeks. In the long run, this means that most of the things that make them so good to eat, won’t be there when you put them in your salad dish. When you are just going to pluck them from the plant and rinse them, and pop them into your mouth, you might end up with over a hundred percent more nutrients than if you got the same stuff from the supermarket. There are times when you can’t find the veggies that you want at all in your country, and you might even consider traveling to further places for it. For this, you can google flights, more specifically ‘how to find cheap flights’ so you save money but also taste those delicious foreign veggies. 

Grow Lights and Indoor Vegetables 

If you are really interested in your own indoor vegetable garden, it would be a good idea to check the PH factor of the soil you purchase. Apart from that, you will have to provide adequate ventilation as well as drainage for your fruit and vegetable plants. Finally, you will need a viable set of LED Grow lights in order to make sure that your plants grow up healthy and strong and bear fruit as soon as possible. Always remember that light is absolutely essential for the growth of your indoor fruit and vegetable garden so choose only the best grow lights you can buy. 

Conclusion

It is always a better idea to grow one’s own produce than to buy from the market since homegrown plants are packed with excellent nutrients and are always fresh and wholesome. Another great advantage of homegrown plants is that they always taste better and have a richer texture than commercially grown products. As long as you have the right setup and grow lights you will be in a position to grow your own healthy and nutritious fruits and veggies. 

Header Image Source

About The Author

Freya is a Math teacher, Yoga enthusiast, and a beloved mother of three lovely daughters. She is always looking for ways to grow and help others around her thrive through self-learning, meditation, and physical fitness. When she is not teaching or spending time with her family, Freya regularly writes on topics related to self-improvement and women empowerment.

 

 

Why Having A Garden Is Good For Your Mental Health

Having your own garden is not just aesthetically pleasing, it can benefit your health and overall wellness.

As you get older you can now understand your mom’s or grandmother’s obsession with having a garden or doing gardening on their day off.

 

There is something about it, something that helps us connect with mother nature again. Is it something in the soil that brings us back to the original self, or is it the fact that we gave someone life and a new beginning?

 

Healing your soul with more green

We got used to urban living and the never ending sea of concrete that we often forget about our connection to other life forms on this planet.

Since the Covid-19 disaster struck, many of us decided to build our own little sanctuary where we can hide from all of the bad news and bad energies. Plants and herbs are known for their healing properties – but can they help you heal your soul as well?

Science says yes.

Green therapy has gained popularity nowadays in treating depression and anxiety and a lot of psychiatrists recommend it instead of medications.

 

Is spring the right time to start your revival process?

Winters are magical for many reasons. Snow is the main ingredient of your winter fairytale, yet you are probably feeling a bit tired of it by now. It is hard to remain active during winter as there is not enough daylight and a lot of people experience seasonal depression episodes.

In the wake of a new spring, it is amazing how nature revives all over again. This can be a great time to awaken your spirits as well. Gardening is not an expensive hobby and it’s very versatile. Create your garden on a balcony, in a backyard, or place your little pieces of creation in the living room.

Think about spaces first and equip yourself with essentials. Gloves, a rake, hand pruners, loppers, a watering can and discover the benefits of flower window boxes.

But what about the plants? We are glad that you asked!

Which plants are best if you are a beginner?

You’ve probably heard people saying that they are not so crafty with plants. That even their cactus managed to wither away even considering their natural climate is a harsh desert. So, in order to not disappoint with your first gardening venture, try choosing something easier to keep alive. Orchids are majestic but they are high maintenance – so leave them for when you become a gardening expert.

 

For your first time, we recommend succulents, snake plants, and also lavender. Herbs are a great choice as well. Just imagine, the fresh scent or their beautiful leaves that lingerie through your kitchen. It will instantly give you back some motivation to keep experimenting in the kitchen. Also try chives, basil, oregano, and mint. Can you already smell the freshness in the air?

 

Another great idea is planting a vegetable garden. Organic food is always the healthiest choice – and the products of your own labor are always the sweetest. If you have depression or anxiety it is a known fact that processed foods and sugars make things even worse. If you start planting now, you will have some fresh radishes, onions, or lettuce to enjoy pretty fast.

 

Health and wellness benefits of gardening

Gardening is a great choice if you want to improve your health and wellbeing. Since we are still living in fear due to the pandemic, it is time to make your little garden of Eden in your backyard. No forbidden fruits, of course, it is your garden after all.

 

Gardening is beneficial because we are in contact with the soil, rich in nutrients. There is something magical happening when we are touching the soil – it has healing benefits. It is the essence of life.

 

Keep calm and keep gardening….

What is also beneficial is that this process is extremely calming. It is a form of meditation. You can have your alone time to think. Focus is also improved drastically – you can avoid harsh thoughts and focus on something that is both productive and creative.

 

Depression is also caused by the lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency. So gardening will be there to get you out of the gloomy atmosphere and give your daily dose of vitamin D.

 

Gardening is also a great physical exercise. If you suffer from depression or anxiety, sometimes it is hard to start exercising regularly… because sometimes getting out of your bed could be quite challenging.

 

People who are suffering from mental illnesses are tired constantly due to bad thoughts and exhaustion – but a much different kind of exhaustion compared to physical. In the end, they are full of energy that is wasting in their bodies – it later converts into insomnia. It is a circle that is hard to break. Work hard but don’t push yourself to the limit as the goal is to enjoy this process.

 

But what about the aesthetics?

Beauty and aesthetics are an important part of your healing. If you are stuck in a gloomy and stale environment, it is the most logical thing that eventually you will blend in. You can’t heal in the environment that made you sick in the first place. Surround yourself with beauty. With aesthetically pleasing surroundings, your healing process will go much smoother.

 

Greenery is a great way to refresh your living spaces. What is another thing you can do to refresh your home? Add different water fixtures.  The sound of water running is natural and calming – and the best thing is it can fit all types of spaces which complement your greenery perfectly. From small fountains to water walls or even koi ponds or a fiberglass pool if you own a huge backyard.

 

Play with colorful pots, plant vibrant flowers, and pine trees. It would be your perfect getaway – and it is in your little domain.

 

Fire pits and outdoor pizza ovens can make spring and summer nights warmer and cozier. So you can enjoy a nice homemade snack (with the oregano and basil from your garden) and you will have a nice view of your little garden, your own work of art. Also, the scent of flowers, pine trees, and water combined – our travel options are still a bit limited but luckily with a bit of imagination, you can have fresh mountain air combined with the sea breeze.

 

In conclusion

Gardening is for enjoying with all of your senses. It is hard work but in the end, it comes with a prize. You will be proud that you did all of that with your own ten (green) fingers and you set the foundations for your little piece of heaven. Most importantly, the peace of your mind. Gardening can help with calming your inner storms by channeling them into something beautiful.

 

Header Image Source 

 

About The Author

Stacey is a freelance writer living in Minnesota with her cat, and she’s passionate about yoga, languages, home improvement, and drinking strong coffee. Find her on Twitter @StaceyShann0n

Exit mobile version