Mama Kat Thursday: Pinterest Inspirations

The Mama Kat topic for today is "Pinterest Inspired!"
So here are some Pinterest inspired ideas for the yard & garden that I'm giving a whirl:

Adding copper pennies to my bird bath to keep algae out.

The copper has a chemical interaction against the algae, so pennies must be dated 1982 or earlier for adequate copper content.

I dug around in my coin jar and found several pennies from the mid-70's, including one for 1975, the year I graduated! Into the bird bowl it went.
(I can't say this works 100%. After awhile the algae seemed to build back up, but it was less severe.)

Banana Peels For My Roses:

I actually started chopping up banana peel and digging it into the ground around my various roses a couple years ago, ever since someone told me that "Roses Love Banana Peels."

What I'm going to try that's new is: mixing used coffee grounds with chopped banana peel and mixing that concoction into the soil before I plant the rose topiary tree I just bought.

(It blooms 3 different color roses!)

Orange Peels for Critter Repellent:

The caption for this pin read,“If you finely chop citrus rinds and sprinkle them on the mulch in your garden, they keep neighborhood cats, dogs and other critters away from your veggies..."

So, I've been chopping up orange peel into tiny bits and scattering into beds. I was actually hoping "squirrels" might be one of the critters repelled---but, no. Orange peel DOES NOT repel squirrels. 

It might, however, keep the neighbors cat from using my beds as a sand-box. 

(The only thing I've found stinky enough to be effective at keeping squirrels from digging in my various pots is mothballs! Though, you should press them under the surface of the soil so a bird won't pick them up.)

I might be better off turning the orange peel into home-made candied orange peels.

Inspiration for My Rain Garden:

This is NOT my house--it's an idea to inspire my own rain garden :)

The picture above is an example of someone else's mature rain garden and other rain garden pics in my Pinterest Likes to inspire me for designing my own, which I'm currently working on.
A "rain garden" is place in the yard where rain water or rain drain run-off tends to collect and you plant things in that spot that like drinking up that extra water, so it disappears more quickly.

My pooling problem is not so close to my house as in this picture. Thank goodness.
 And my soil is sandy, so water that does accumulate with an ordinary heavy storm generally disappears overnight. Several days of rain  means a longer lasting pool and this is what I hope a rain garden will help with.

Plus it beautifies and gets rid of grass I'd otherwise have to mow.

I also keep a number of dry stream & dry pond pictures to help inspire me with using rocks as accents in the rain garden.

Thanks for visiting.

*****