Jane

Patio Cover Design Ideas and Suggestions

Published May 11, 2012 | By Jane

Patios are more comfortable in the summer months if they are furnished with a patio cover. There are many different ways to provide shade for your patio. Here are some ideas on how to build that comfortable shading into your patio while creating something makes your landscape more attractive. You can design a patio cover in many different ways.

You can design a patio in the more familiar designs with vinyl or wood. Vinyl is easy to maintain being free of insect problems and rot and needing no paint. Wood, on the other hand, has a natural beauty that cannot be replicated, but does require care and maintenance. Post and slats are the typical structure but different designs can include ornamental supports like columns and roofing that can be executed with lattice or creative designs.

Variations are limited only by creative imagination. Roofs can be covered with tin, shingles, palm leaves, bamboo, welded metal tubing, shade cloth or any other material that can handle hot sun and occasional winds.

There are other shade covers you can use. You can find retractable patio covers that are made to roll up on the side of the house. You can also drape fabric over interesting supports. And if you are very patient, you can grow a patio cover with trees or strong vines training them to converge into a natural roof by pruning and guiding them with a removable frame.
If your patio cover is not self supporting (as in a retractable awning), a frame will need to be built. Frames can be built in shapes other than the traditional rectangle. Curves can soften the hard edges of your house. Supports can be sculpted, formed of brick, stone or cement, rustic beams or tree limbs, recycled wood or any other strong, stable material. Remember frames and supports must be able to safely withstand all kinds of weather. You can also extend the roof of your shade cover outward or downward with woven shades, hung windows, tapestries and more.

Your patio cover will be defined by the supports and frames as well as the shape of the patio beneath. Consider if your shade cover will be freestanding or attached to the house and sketch out your design before you actually install it. Most important is that your patio cover is built soundly and that the style and materials used will blend with both the house and the style of your garden. The best time to plan your patio cover style is at the start — when you design your backyard patio. That will make it easiest to integrate the patio cover into the overall effect. But if you keep in mind these design ideas and suggestions, you can add your patio cover design at any point — even to a patio that may have been built years ago.

For more info:

How to Build a Unique Patio

Designing the backyard patio

How to Choose Patio Stone

How to Build Patios Without Cement

Posted in Articles on Landscape Design | Tagged design ideas, patio cover, patio designs, patio shade covers, shade cover | 4 Comments

Houseplant care in summer

Published May 11, 2012 | By Jane

In the summer we tend to think about gardening outdoors while the weather is inviting. But houseplants also need care in the summer. And some of them would love you to give them a summer vacation too.

House plants hang out in the low light and dry air in our homes for much of the year and delight in some time outdoors. Indoor plants, for the most part, are tropical in origin and like humidity and warm temperatures. Those that best adapt to indoor conditions usually come from shaded conditions in tropical rain forests. So if you can provide similar conditions outdoors on a patio, deck or in your garden, carting your houseplants outside is likely to make them very happy during the summer months.

Before you move your plants, make sure you set up the space where they will go. Move pots carefully into full shade and make sure you locate your houseplants where you will be able to check the soil regularly so they don’t accidentally dry out. Potted plants dry faster outdoors with evaporation caused by faster air circulation. And happy, growing plants drink more than slow-growers in the darker conditions of the house.

Avoid sunlight. It is hard to realize how dark our homes are. But if you try to take a photograph without a flash indoors – even in what looks like a brightly lit room – you will see how black the photo comes out. Outdoor shade may look dark to our human eyes, but for plants, a sojourn in outside shade is like bright sun compared to what they’ve been experiencing indoors. If you expose them to any direct sun, it is likely to burn them.

A summer holiday outside will encourage lots of healthy growth in your plants. Bring them back in the house when temperatures start to fall into the low sixties Fahrenheit at night. Once back inside cut back on watering so they don’t get too wet. Some houseplants might even be willing to flower indoors after enjoying a summer vacation in the fresh air.

Posted in Articles on Gardening | Tagged Houseplants, indoor plants, move pots outdoors, summer houseplants | Leave a comment

Water features: about garden ponds

Published May 11, 2012 | By Jane

Ponds are another form of water feature. Ponds can incorporate streams, waterfalls or decorative sprays of water. They can look natural, sculpted, formal or stylized. Before you start building a pond, consider the time and effort you are willing to invest as well as cost. Don’t skimp on price when building a pond because cutting corners can create future disasters that will be frustrating and expensive. Consider calling in a designer if you want something special. Also, realize that in addition to the cost of installing the pond, there will be maintenance: pumps will wear out, liners can tear and wear out over time, concrete can crack – especially if it was not installed carefully.

You will need to give a pond daily or at least weekly care. For the first year or two, before a pond reaches balance, it requires relatively low maintenance. Ironically, once the pond reaches balance, it requires more effort to keep water from getting too acid, fish from becoming too numerous, algae from accumulating, and mulm (the dark brown cloudy material that settles to the bottom as organic matter deteriorates) from collecting on the bottom and in filters. If you don’t have fish, you need to make sure you are not breeding mosquitoes. If you want a planted water garden, you’ll need to be careful about the chemicals you use. And if you do have fish, although they will help with the mosquito issue by eating larvae, your aquatic friends will introduce a whole list of other considerations to handle. If you are willing to commit to caring for a pond, there are no garden features to compare with the peace and beauty this water garden can offer.

There are a number of wonderful water plants whose growth cannot be equaled by the land-lovers. Water lilies come in all sizes and colors. There are even varieties with variegated pads striped and splashed with purples, white and pinks. The stately lotus with its huge mellow leaves and gigantic flowers, lives up to it mystical reputation. Delicate parrot’s feather not only decorates the surface of a pond, it aerates the water for the fish. Bog irises are serene with their kaleidoscopic colors and sword-like foliage. Marsallia (the four-leaf clovers) give a light airy look while cattails grow tall and graceful producing stalks that can’t help but bring out the child in us. And if you haven’t been totally mesmerized by the magical forms of the water plants, you can check out all the shapes and colors available in fish!

Water plants grow very quickly and can provide surprises daily. Watching fish – be they koi, goldfish, mosquito fish or any other kind of pond fish — can be more fascinating and soothing than TV or an hour in effective therapy! Ponds have a lot to offer both as a resource for wildlife, a focal point in the landscape and a therapy aid with visual and audio relaxants.

Water features add a lot to our surroundings. Be realistic about how much time and energy you will have to devote to yours. A badly maintained water feature is ugly and a health hazard. Ponds are not for folks seeking low maintenance. But if you choose the right feature for your style of garden and your lifestyle, you may very well find your water feature becomes your favorite part of your garden.

Posted in Articles on Gardening, Ponds | Tagged pond care, pond design, ponds, water features, water garden | Leave a comment

Transplanting a Canna bulb plant

Published May 10, 2012 | By Jane

Canna Bulb Care & Transplant — powered by ehow

Cannas are showy plants that are easy to grow and propagate

Posted in Articles on Gardening, How To Garden Videos | Tagged bulb, canna, canna plant, transplant, transplanting, transplanting canna | Leave a comment

Quick tips for growing carrots

Published May 10, 2012 | By Jane

Carrots are not difficult to grow in the vegetable garden. Like many root crops, they are biennials, meaning they grow the first year and flower and set seed the second. Carrots need to be dug before they begin to form flower stalks or they will become hard, bitter and woody.

Grow carrots from seed. They don’t like to be transplanted so thin seedlings so there is space between plants for each to develop without crowding its neighbor.

Give carrots a rich, moist – but not wet – soil. They like compost but manure will cause roots to fork. Remove stones and plant them where nothing will interfere with roots growing downward. There are short-growing varieties that are best for stony or shallow soils.

Carrots grow attractive feathery foliage and can be grown among other garden plants if you don’t have a vegetable garden. They will need to be dug when they are large enough to be eaten, so if you plant them among other plants be sure to make sure you have room to dig without injuring their neighbors. You can also grow them in pots so long as they have enough depth for the long roots to grow uninhibited. Harvest them when they are big enough to be eaten. Younger carrots may be smaller, but they are tender and tastier than the older giants.

Not only are fresh carrots flavorful, but they are rich in vitamins. Look for wide, short, or round varieties or try one of the colorful cultivars in red, purple, yellow or white instead of the usual orange. Enjoy your garden carrots raw, cooked or store them in a cool dark place for the winter.

Posted in Quick tips | Tagged carrots, growing carrots, root crops, root vegetables, vegetable gardening | Leave a comment

Design with Daisies

Published May 10, 2012 | By Jane

The family Compositae is filled with the many-rayed flowers we know as daisies. Daisies come in all sizes, colors and shapes and bloom at different times of the year. You can grow a daisy garden that looks like a wild garden, an English garden, or a formal garden. Some daisy-flowered plants grow in neat mounds and others will sprawl. Most of them do well as cut flowers and tend to flower abundantly. There are many ways to design with daisies.

You can cross the rainbow with daisy flowers. Reds and pinks can be found in Pyrethrums, Gebera Hybrids and the charming little English daisies (Bellis perennis). Oranges blaze in Tithonias and Cosmos or glow in the peaches of Dimorphotheca. Yellows shine in Coreopsis and giant sunflowers. Greens subtly shine through varieties of Rudbekias. You can even find a sky blue color in the flower of the Felicia. Mauves of all shades are offered by many asters and Swan River Daisies (Brachycome). Design with Daisies

Design with Daisies

Purples are offered by Echinacea purpurea and more asters. And whites glisten in Shasta daisies and the diminutive Chamomile. Rusts and chocolates color Chrysanthemums, many Black-eyed-Susans (also in the Rudbeckia family) and sunflower hybrids. There are many other daisies to choose from and some of the above families come in whole selections of additional colors.

You can have daisy gardens by color groupings. Mixing blues, purples and pinks gives a cool feel to a garden. The hot bright reds, oranges and yellows create a bold statement. Selecting soft pastel shades will create a gentle feel to a garden. And white contrasts wonderfully in a shade garden with lots of green.

Daisies also mix well with other shaped flowers and add a sparkle of color to foliage gardens. Although many daisies bloom in the spring, if you chose carefully, you can have one variety or another in bloom practically year-round. Look for daisy-flowered plants available at your local nurseries and home stores. Look for varieties of Argyanthemum in single and double flowered pinks, whites and yellows. They will form a neat mound for several years. The bigger yellow-flowered Euryops can take our full sun and tough soil in most warm-climate locations, but it will grow 3 to 4 feet in size. Felicias offer a remarkable sky blue flower, though they tend to grow rather straggly after a few years.

Take a look around and chose some daisies for your garden. Create a whole garden of them. Use them to fill out bare areas, or plant them in patches. Bring the flowers inside for bouquets. You can design with daisies to bring color, playfulness and a feeling of eternal springtime to the garden.

Posted in Articles on Gardening, Articles on Landscape Design | Tagged Add new tag, daisy choices, daisy colors, daisy garden, daisy landscape, design daisies | Leave a comment

Precast Planters

Published May 10, 2012 | By Jane

Cement is a very useful material to use in the landscape. Heavy enough that winds won’t blow it over, resistant to rain and versatile enough that it can be textured and colored to take on a lot of different effects, concrete is ideal for precast planters in the garden. Cement is also slow to conduct temperature changes so it s a good material to use for container gardening since roots are less vulnerable to temperature changes than they would be in a thinner ceramic or plastic pot. If you shop around, you can find all sorts of sizes, shapes and styles to go with any landscape design.

If you want to grow living plants in your precast planter make sure you provide for good drainage. Not only is it important to add a layer of gravel or crocking at the bottom but you should make sure there are drainage holes to keep water from building up and rotting the roots of any plant growing there.

Designing with precast planters is easy. Because of their solidity, you can arrange long planters as low walls, dividers ore even edgings. Rounded containers can help define the edge of a step or a corner making a decorative statement while making passage safer. Mix several precast pots of the same style but different sizes to create an attractive container garden. Or line up small precast concrete troughs along the top edge of a block wall and plant trailing plants to cascade down the wall.

There are many companies producing different styles of precast planters you can use in the garden – or even indoors in an office or the house. Look through catalogs, check out garden centers and decorating shops, and surf the internet. You will find planters that will punch up a Tuscan, Southwestern, contemporary or other landscape theme. Some precast designs are showy enough use as focal points in the garden. Use textures and colors in precast planters to perk up the color design scheme of your landscape and to coordinate with your outdoor furniture, fabrics and plant designs. Using a good quality containers can add the final touch that makes your successful landscape design into something really special.

Posted in Articles on Gardening, Articles on Landscape Design | Tagged cast containers, cement pots, concrete pots, garden planters, landscape decor, precast planters | 2 Comments

Water features: How to use fountains

Published May 10, 2012 | By Jane

Water features have a lot to offer in the garden during the heat of summer. The light trickling sounds of splashing water are cooling and soothing, both assets in our hectic lives. Water features also offer a lifeline to our wildlife as we build over their natural habitats. And they create focal points and beauty in our landscapes. They can come in the form of fountains, waterfalls (with or without ponds) or ponds and rivers. The simplest is the fountain.

There are many ways to use fountains. Indoors, you can make room for a table-top or small standing fountain. Creative folks can find supplies at crafts and home stores to build table fountains out of all sorts of materials. Small submersible pumps are available at reasonable prices at hardware and home stores. A small container fountain can be decorated to create a whole miniature landscape. And any tabletop version will fit nicely on a balcony or small patio space where it can be enjoyed during nice weather.

Outdoors, large pots can be made into fountains as can sculptures or even a group of rocks or recycled materials – just about anything you can run water over or through. Fountains can lie flat as well; one idea is to create a bed of colored river rock with water bubbling up in the center and recycling into a tub hidden beneath the rock surface.

There are designers who can help you create your own vision of a fountain or you can check on the Internet or specialized books for ideas. You can stop by a nursery or home supply store to check out their inventory. For an extensive tour, visit retailers who specialize in fountains, concrete items and water gardens.

For finished fountains you can find just about any style ready-made. Make sure the fountain you chose is in keeping with the look of your garden and your house. Mediterranean gardens can go formal with tiered fountains, splashing basins with human or animal heads spouting water, or classical figures. Old fashioned wishing wells look great in country gardens. Modern sculptural shapes, simple geometrical fountains and columns can help emphasize a contemporary style. Bigger water features need appreciable space. Large fountains look best positioned as focal points with stairs, platforms or gardens delineating their spaces.

Fountains need minimal maintenance. Algae should be scrubbed clean. It will form faster in direct sunlight. When shut off, water should be drained and in frosty winter areas empty all pipes to avoid them cracking when water expands into ice. Where the surface of water is calm, fountains can become havens for mosquitoes to breed. Toss in a mosquito dunk or mosquito bits. There are several brands of these biological mosquito controls that introduce mosquito larvae-killing bacteria. The bacteria are Eco-friendly and safe for pets and wildlife, unlike using bleach or other chemicals.

Small fountains make fun gifts, attract birds and butterflies, are calming for the human spirit and can transform an unimaginative garden area into something magical. With recycled water, they can be water-wise. Large fountains should also be water efficient. These can make an entry into your property spectacular or draw the design of a landscape together. Use a fountain to decorate an outdoor room or patio. There are many ways to integrate these water features into your environment to make it lovely and comfortable.

Posted in Articles on Landscape Design, Ponds | Tagged design with water, fountains, Garden decor, water features, water garden | Leave a comment

Sustainable garden building can help end the recession

Published May 6, 2012 | By Jane

It’s easy to feel like you can’t make a difference in the larger events of the world. But there are very few people who have the influence to effect great economic changes. But just like voting, each individual DOES have an impact on the larger picture. It may take a ridiculously close election to make us realize that sometimes even a few votes can change who is elected. Well, each one of us can also impact the eco-system. Each person who starts to garden with sustainability in mind starts to turn around the demand that increases waste. Better, each person who uses more of the newly available products and systems developed in this country to improve sustainability in the home and garden is helping us develop new industries to help employ more people, create more jobs and help end the recession.

Here’s a list of just some of the things you can do to save money, help the planet, make your garden more enjoyable and maybe even more beautiful while helping to end the recession. Some of these projects you can do yourself. Some you’ll need to hire professional help. Or you might just compromise and do a little of both. Check into all the exciting products now being marketed that allow you to change your yard into a sustainable yet lovely garden. Many make building and maintenance easier. Most will end up saving you money.

Add solar lights to the garden.

Build in solar panels.

Grow native and water-wise plants.

Add permeable paving.

Build in water collection and storage from rain barrels to underground tanks.

Recycle or use recycled building materials.

Design in the right irrigation systems and add smart timers, subsurface drip lines, low volume emitters and spray heads or other appropriate water application systems.

Design shade trees on south or west facing sides of your house to cool your home with shade.

Regularly check for water drips or leaks.

Roof with living roofs or reflective colors and materials on all structures.

Build living walls.

Compost.

Grow fruits and vegetables — organically.

Use organic pesticides and fungicides, or better, hand wash and pick pests or build physical barriers.

Learn about companion planting.

Mulch.

Add natural drainage and erosion controls.

Build with your natural wildlife habitat in mind.

There are many more ways to make your garden more eco-friendly and comfortable. The first thing to make it all work is to change your thinking. All successful environments are systematic, that is, each piece interacts with the next. Your garden is a whole event where soil, water, light, living and non-living materials all work together to create a whole. That whole landscape system then interacts with your house and the surrounding land. In short, everything is inter-related. If you build your landscape as a whole, not only will it function in a healthy, easy-care manner, but it will look great, just like all the pieces in a fine work of art blend together to make a whole, beautiful painting. And not only will you increase the beauty of your property, you will reduce the labor needed for maintenance and save money on energy bills. Plus you will be installing new, green materials produced by emerging technologies that can help us all create jobs and end the recession. Whether you start off small or go for big changes, adding sustainable products and systems into your property is a perfect solution that each one of us can start doing right away.