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I am by no means an avid gardener. Though my parents had green thumbs and met while working at a seed company, I must not have spent too much time with them in the garden. Still, everyone who owns a home has a garden and taking care of it is essential to how well your home looks.

I just wish I could say some nice things about my gardens.

One area that I’ve been exploring lately is mulch particularly after having trimmed back the plants in my side garden and then realized that I’d soon have to do a lot of weeding to keep it looking nice. Besides, we just came out of a drought and I want to find ways to retain water every time that it rains.

Organic v. Inorganic

Many homeowners make the weekend trek their local hardware store or home center to buy their mulch, coming away with bags of stuff that is either organic or inorganic. Never mind the various colored stones you can also buy: there are dozens of choices when it comes to picking the right mulch.

Before you run off to the store, you may have a ready supply of mulch in your yard. Though my yard is full of hard wood trees, one neighbor’s yard is filled with pine trees and I get my share of pine needles on a regular basis. Though I hadn’t thought about it, friends have convinced me that pine needles are the way to go, therefore I saved a trip and a whole lot of money.

Natural v. Unnatural

Some of the other “natural” choices you may already have on hand include: manure, compost, straw, paper, and grass clippings. Unnatural or manmade mulch can include: newspapers, fiberglass, wood chips, asphalt, and aluminum foil.

I don’t know about you, but putting anything in my garden that isn’t natural seems a bit odd especially if you’re growing vegetables. I haven’t seen any evidence of creating a toxic mixture by using aluminum foil in my tomato garden, but that isn’t one experiment I’m willing to try. Ultimately, I want something that releases nutrients as it decomposes.

How To Order Mulch

If you do need to buy mulch, you can also order it and have it delivered to your home. Certainly not the cheapest option, but it could be the most efficient. Unless you have the right kind of vehicle to haul bag after bag, you could end up wasting gas and expending more time than you needed going back and forth between your home and store.

Should you decide to order mulch, you will order by the cubic feet. To get the right amount of mulch, multiply the length and width of your garden by the depth of mulch. For example, if your garden is 12×10 (120) and you want three inches of mulch, then your number would be 360. Divide that number by 3 and you’ll need to order 120 cubic feet of mulch.

Once your mulch is in place, you’ll have a garden that is healthier, distributes water more evenly, and is essentially weed free. Not a bad mulch primer from a brown thumb, eh?

Further Reading

Guide to Selecting a Garden Mulch

Ideas For the Exterior Home

Lost among the news about the current sub-prime mortgage meltdown is the housing market for second homes. Though the news media is focusing on the problems people are having with their first homes, there is plenty of news not being reported about vacation homes.

Vacation homes are those secondary houses people own at the shore, lake, or other favorite vacation spot. Most are small residences though some owners have lavish estates rivaling their primary home in size and in value. You’ve seen these homes spring up along prime waterfront property over the past two or three decades — houses which dwarf the cottages which once dotted most communities.

If you are already familiar with a particular vacation market, you probably have witnessed a recent trend: plenty of homes are for sale and those that are selling are going for a heavy discount. One of the most stressed markets offering fantastic deals is Miami where a spate overbuilding has forced prices down in a hurry.

For people wanting to come away with a great deal there are some things to consider:

Take Your Time — Finding a vacation home for a very low price isn’t difficult to do. But, pouncing on the first property that comes along can show that you are being too hasty.

Because you’re in a buyer’s market you’ll want to determine a few things first:

• Are you familiar with the area where you want to buy?

• If purchasing a condo, how many units are vacant? There could be a reason why your unit is going for a song — the association managing it could be bankrupt.

• How often do you plan on visiting your second home? Do you plan to rent it out? Would you do better simply renting a home every year instead?

• What are some of the related fees to managing the property — i.e., garbage removal, landscaping, outside maintenance, etc.?

• Based on the information available, will your second home appreciate in value? You may have no plans on selling, thinking that your children will enjoy your home when you are gone. Don’t count on that — they may not be interested in maintaining the property later on.

Financing Your Purchase — many second home buyers tap the equity in their first home to buy their second home. But, you may not want to put your first home at risk by purchasing a vacation home. Consider:

• Will you be able to find financing for a vacation home?

• What rates are being charged? Some lenders avoid second home financing while others specialize in financing vacation homes. Will you have to pay a premium rate in order to finance a second home?

Insurance costs can be a deal breaker especially for homes along the ocean. When Florida and New Orleans were ravaged in 2004 and 2005 by a series of hurricanes, insurance companies jacked up their rates, sometimes three- or four-fold to cover their risks. Can you afford to pay $4000 in homeowners insurance annually on your beach property?

The good news is that many second home markets are likely to be depressed for the next few years, taking the pressure off of you to make a fast decision. Look around, shop around and you’ll come up with a deal that is fantastic and one you can live with for many years.

One of the keys to having a strong credit record is your credit score, the number the three major consumer credit reporting agencies develop to help lenders decide whether you will receive credit, for how long (your term), and the interest rate that you will pay. The higher your score, the more likely you’ll be approved for a loan and at a competitive rate.

Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax are the three private agencies who track your credit and each one “scores” you based on the financial information that they have about you. Thus, each one will likely return numbers that are different from the other two, but their scores should be in the same ballpark.

Your credit score is also called your FICO score which stands for Fair Isaac Corporation score, a formula developed by Fair Isaac and used by all three credit reporting agencies.

If you are looking to buy a home and are seeking to finance it for 30 years, taking out a $300,000 loan then the most recent FICO numbers would give you the following loan details:

These are national averages, so your loan will look slightly different where you live. As you can see, the $950 per month premium for the person with a score in the low 500s, would add more than $10,000 annually to the loan, that is if they can get approved in the first place.

So, what can you do to raise your score? It can’t be changed overnight, but if your score is too low you can do the following which should yield decent results within 3-4 months time:

Clean up your credit report — that’s right, if there are errors on your report your score could be artificially low. Start off by checking your report first for accuracy before proceeding.

Pay on time — late payments can weigh you down, therefore make sure that you pay every bill on time.

Pay down debt — you don’t have to pay off all of your debt, but if your percentage of debt as related to credit line is over 35%, then that will lower your score.

Clean up an old mess — that unpaid and uncollected money you owe from long ago could be biting you in the backside. Contact creditors and offer to pay at least a portion of what you owe to settle your debt once and for all.

As always, check your credit regularly by ordering a credit report and your credit scores to see where you stand. Obtaining both is a small investment which can pay near instant dividends.