Home & Garden
What is the 3-hour gardening rule?
The "3-hour rule" is a rule of thumb, not a botanical standard: size the garden — its bed area, plant count, and mix of edible versus ornamental species — to roughly the…
Home & garden
Small changes that make a home and garden work harder
Practical ideas for the house and the plot around it — vertical planting and climbers, storage and furniture that earns its space, and the everyday upgrades worth making.
PracticalIdeas you can do
Practical, not aspirationalIdeas you can actually do.
House and gardenPlanting, storage, furniture and fixes.
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Plainly explainedWhat works, and why.
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Home & Garden
Raised garden beds: build or buy, and why the cost differs
Build or buy: why the cost differs Buying a kit costs more per square foot of growing space than building from lumber,…
Home & Garden
raised garden bed designs: build or buy
Native soil is compacted, poorly drained, or contaminated The reason to raise a bed at all is almost always a soil problem,…
Home & Garden
Climbing plants can help to hide flaws in buildings
It may include removal of old grass cover and planting of new grass seeds, bushes and tree seedlings. Also the landscaping of…
Home & Garden
Types of Vertical Landscaping
Landscaping the space with climbing plants. That's basically what «vertical gardening» Which is usually talked about in the landscape design. This type…
Free tool · runs in your browser
The raised-bed soil calculator
Enter the length, width and depth of a raised bed or planter and it tells you how much soil or compost to buy — in litres, cubic metres and standard bags, with a bit extra for settling.
Open the calculatorWhat you’ll get
Volume to fill in litres and cubic metres
How many bags to buy, at your bag size
A settling allowance so you don't come up short
Runs in your browser — nothing is stored
Suggestions & corrections
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We are always after practical, tested ideas for the house and garden. If something here could be clearer, or you have a fix worth sharing, tell the editors.