Gardening is a great hobby if you love plants and always want to be surrounded by them. Some people even love growing their own vegetables and flowers in their lawns. You might be visiting your nearest garden Centres like the Garden Centre in Carlow. But there are many tricks about gardening that your Garden Centre in Carlow will not tell you. Here are seven gardening tips that will make your gardening experience seem more fun and also make your garden look lush.

1. Newspaper mulch: Newspaper can make excellent mulch in soil. Just layer several newspapers and then cover them with mulch. They retain moisture really well and they also suffocate weeds.
2. Watering ferns with tea: Tea is a great way of watering your acid loving flowers. You can water them with tea and watch them flourish with very healthy looking leaves.
3. Banana peels for rose plants: Banana peels are great for rose plants as they keep aphids off. Just cut up banana peels and bury them just an inch or two deep under the ground when planting roses. Just be careful and do not bury whole peels or animals will dig them up to eat them and you certainly do not want that to be happening.
4. Aluminum foil with mulch: Using aluminum foil with mulch is a great way to keep bugs away from your plants. They are also great light reflectors and will reflect light back to your plants. This will do two things, one is protecting your plants from insects and critters and second is keeping your plants healthy by reflecting as much light as possible to your plant.
5. Salt, the insect killer: Salt kills leeches and snails because they have permeable skin, which allows moisture to pass freely through it. If they are in contact with salt, it’ll absorb all the moisture from their cell and make it incapable of supporting life. This does not seem like a very comfortable way of death to them but you need to protect your plants first. You have been working hard on them!!
6. Ripening end of season tomatoes: You can ripen end of season tomatoes by wrapping them in a few sheets of newspaper and keeping them in the dark. You can store them in a dark cabinet in your house. But keep checking them every few days.
7. Bringing more butterflies in your garden: You can bring more butterflies in your garden by placing overripe bananas and other fruits on a raised platform but do not keep it centrally placed as it will also attract wasps and bees. Make sure that you bring back all the fruits indoors before sunset or it will end up attracting unwanted critters.

These tips will certainly help you will all your gardening needs but they’re not taught at the Garden Centre in Carlow. If you need more tips then you can always check out Garden Help that is located in Dublin and Northern Ireland. The Garden Help website will also help you out.