Easily Set A Sundial

Sundials are kind of a neat addition to your yard or garden because they have been used for centuries and they can add a sense of history and interest like no other garden decor.

Now there are dozens of different kinds of sundials and setting them up can go from very complicated to very easy depending upon how accurate you want them to be.

For our purposes, we are going to set up our sundial so that it is going to give us the most accurate reading we can get without spending huge amounts of time worrying about longitudes, latitudes, or percentages of angles.

After all, if you want precise time like Greenwich Mean Time, then your cell phone, or digital watch is what you're after!

Setting A Sundial

1. Be sure the spot you've chosen is level and in full sun. If you have picked out a 'vertical' sundial, it should be mounted on a sunny, south-facing wall.

2. Place your sundial so that the gnomon (the shadow arm) is pointed toward celestial north. (south in the Southern Hemisphere), not the magnetic north of a compass. The simplest way to find celestial north is to position your sundial at noon. Turn your sundial so that the shadow of the gnomon falls directly on the mark representing noon. You are NOW on sun time.

3. You may not be particularly concerned with complete accuracy of your sundial, but if you are, you should 'reset' it on one of the four days of the year when sun time and clock time agree:

4 Days Of The year When to Reset or Set Your Sundial

April 15
June 15
September 1
December 24.

If you set a sundial on other dates, it can be as much as 14 minutes behind clock time or 16 minutes ahead of it. This is simply because sundials measure time 'as it is' and each day the length of sunlight is shorter or longer from the previous day's length.

To a sundial, noon is always when the sun is highest in the sky.

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Have great week!

Make a Mini Toolshed!

Keeping tools handy can be hard if you live on a large lot, or have a good sized garden. To save time from walking back and forth to the garage for small hand tools, you can create a mini "Toolshed" near your garden using a mailbox.

Mailboxes come in different sizes and shapes, are very strong, weatherproof, and can fit several small tools in them like: hand pruners, small folding saws, trowels, gloves, seed packets, string, green tape, files, etc.

Just set the mailbox on a post or a fence near your garden or field. You can even paint it to fit your own style.

Now you can have your tools handy without the expense of building a real toolshed.

Make A Poinsettia Tree!

If you ever have the opportunity, try decorating your house with a poinsettia tree!

All you need is a tree rack (pictured to the lower right) which come in several different sizes. Racks come as short as 3 feet and go up to well over 10 feet as shown here.

Making a smaller poinsettia tree can be just as breathtaking as a larger one, and if you put it on a table to give it a little extra height, or use it as a centerpiece, it can be the highlight of your house or party.

They are fast and easy to make and they are easy to care for. The major expense is the poinsettias themselves, but if you have a junior college or college in your area with a horticulture program, they likely have a poinsettia project. Because the students are growing the plants for experience, they usually charge less per plant than garden centers or grocery stores.

If you don't have a college nearby, then it could be a pricey decoration and you will have to make the determination if it is something you want to afford.

Whatever you end up doing, you can't deny poinsettia trees are absolutely gorgeous!

Make a Water Fountain

I know summer is ending and fall is upon us, but you can still add features to your yard and garden in cool weather too!

This simple concrete fountain will work just as well indoors as out. Using succulents for color and texture is a good choice because they will do well outdoors in warmer climates, and really well indoors in colder climates.

Simply find some concrete containers of different sizes and shapes, and cut a square notch in the top and middle boxes. Stack them however is pleasing to you. Put your fountain pump in (they cost around $25), and run the tubing up to the top box. Add water and turn it on.

Adding water to your home's entry way, garden spot or any room is really pretty simple.

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Fun Garden Accent

Sometimes it is fun to add accents to your yard or garden that are not plants. This was a fun idea I wanted to share with everyone.

You can take any kind of bright ceramic animal or painted wood figure, or even colorful tiles and make these little "nests" around your house.

They add color and bit of fun and are an unexpected treat for your guests to come across when they are looking around your garden.

These would also be fun in a bedroom or bathroom, and are a great way to bring the "outdoors" indoors!

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Garden Rock Craft Idea

Now that the weeds are taken care of, let's do something fun!

These Rock Teddy Bears are easy and fun to make. I think they are really different, and they give your yard a fresh lift. It's always nice to add something new to your garden, and these can be made as big or small you like.

Here is what you do:

1. Choose 12 rocks: 1 large for the body, 1 second largest for the head, 2 medium sized for the ears, 4 round ones for the feet and hands, and 4 oblong for arms and legs.

2. Get a Masonry Bit for your drill

3. Drill holes where the head, arms and legs go

4. Get some heavy duty wire and then wire together

What takes the most time is the drilling, but once that is done, you can set your Teddy Bear anywhere you want. These also make great gifts.

Till next week!

Gardening Idea - Rod-Iron Gate

Murphy and I like to walk the neighborhoods and take a look at what other people are doing in their yards.

This house is so incredibly beautiful; it sits right on the Pacific Ocean. I hate to think what is costs, but the owners have added some very creative features to it.

They have this rod-iron gate that looks just like kelp floating and growing in the water. What makes it so perfect, is that about 15 feet from the edge of the house is real kelp growing, and it fits the atmosphere of the location to a tee.

I thought it would be good to show, because there are all kinds of gates you could make to match your perfect location.

Give it some thought, and see what creative things you come up with!

Neat Garden Idea

Hi,

Whenever I see something different, creative, or new, I like to share it with everyone. This weekend, I saw a very creative topiary. A large bird, a chicken, using a hammmer!

It was really cute and quite large. It was about 4.5 feet tall and had a nice assortment of plants used to get it started.

On the back, for the "tail feathers" they used ornamental grasses, like Phormium. The back used the ground cover Erodium, and the head had succulents.

You could easily do the same thing. You wouldn't have to make the topiary that large, and you could choose your own plants to make your chicken how ever you wanted, and unique to your tastes. Maybe some varieties of festuca for the tail feathers, a different variety of succulent for the head, and choose just about any vine or ground cover you can think of to fill in the body.

I think some Cerastium, or "Snow in Summer" mixed with different kinds of flowering Thyme might be kind of neat.

Anyway, I thought you might like to get a new idea. For other ideas for use of annual color, be sure to read this month's feature article in Weekend Gardener Web Magazine.