Art can be fun and whimsical in the garden

Richie Steffen, expert on integrating art in the landscape offered a lecture at the recent Pacific Horticulture Symposium in Pasadena, California that reminded all of us just how the garden can contain art or become a piece of art itself. In the desperate pursuit of fame and fortune encouraged by our consumer society so many of the finer aspects of our culture and life are falling by the wayside. The arts and those aspects of human creativity that are being displaced by the need for material acquisition are leaving people with a growing need for something more than physical comforts to nourish the heart and soul. You can create your own home retreat to lift your spirits and put back the missing creativity in your life by making your garden a place of art. Whether you add art to your garden with murals, statues, décor, ornamental surfaces or make your garden into art with creative structures or design with plants.  Steve encourages us all to look at the garden as not only a place to entertain or to use for practical applications like pets, growing edibles and play, but as a place to have fun, add healing, therapy and joy to daily life. Enjoying art in the garden and the garden as art can make your landscape into a very important part of your life.

Originally posted 2010-10-29 12:22:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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You can design a landscape plan by hand or on the computer.

The most common mistake in gardening is failing to plan out a garden first. Even if you just scribble out your ideas on paper, you will be doing yourself an enormous favor. The more detailed and accurate your plan, the more money, frustration and regrets you will save yourself. You can call in an expert designer for the more complicated plans or even to coach you with your own design. Or you can design a DIY landscape plan for yourself.

The reason you want to start on paper is so you can see how things will flow together. Designing on paper gives you a chance to test out different ideas. It is much easier to change things with a delete key on the computer or a pencil eraser – and cheaper than having to make changes with heavy labor and expensive materials in the garden itself.

Start out by making a list of all the things you want in your DIY garden. Think of how you will be using your space: for exercise, pets, entertainment, growing edibles, relaxing etc. Then add appropriate items to your list like patios, swimming pools, lawns, pens, barbecues, raised vegetable gardens, water features, seating areas, driveways and patios and so on.

Sketch out how all these areas will work along with each other to form a useful yet decorative flow. Use walkways and paths to link events together. Remember safety and design areas like swimming pools and child play areas where they can be observed from the house. Place edible gardens like herb gardens and vegetables where they will be convenient to the kitchen. Designing wisely can then be made artistic and picturesque.

As you lay out a DIY plan place the permanent features – the hardscape – first. Also make sure you sketch out the important systems like drainage, irrigation and utility lines like electric and gas. Make sure you make provisions for future expansion – utility lines that can be capped but will be available for future use.

Once your overall design, hardscape and systems are in place, you can then start designing the living part of your design or the softscape. Start with the largest features; the trees. Plant the right kind of tree in the right location so it will fit properly when mature, the roots will not interrupt any of your hardscape as the tree grows. Consider the sun at different times of the year and plan shade from your tree so it enhances your garden. Then move on to specking out the different kinds of plants you will use. Always plan for the mature size. (You can always fill in with smaller plants and annuals while the newly-planted are too small to fill their space.)

The final part of you plan can involve adding final details like décor, supplementary plant lists, edging materials and other practical and decorative elements. Do plenty of research. The more you know about design and the elements you include, the better your design will be. Like any do-it-yourself project the success of your project is directly proportional to the wisdom with which it is pot together. And one of the wisest things you can do in a DIY landscape design is a plan.

Originally posted 2011-04-09 05:54:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Covered chain-link fence gives the illusion of a deep, informal, wildflower garden while blocking undesirable views. (Photo and design by Jane Gates)

Garden design is a science with a lot of different techniques to make your landscape into something that not only grows well, but functions practically and looks great. But there are many tricks to the trade. One element that can help any space accommodate a more scenic garden is to use space – to sculpt what exists and use illusion where it doesn’t. There are many ways to make your garden appear much more than it is. You can build illusion into your landscape to punch up the assets or to disguise any short-comings on your property. Here are some tips on how to build illusion into your landscape.

* Small trees will give the illusion of distance. To make a garden look larger, plant small trees in the furthest spaces. You can build illusion into a landscape to make a small garden look larger by using perspective. For example, a large tree will make the general area look even smaller. A small tree in a short distance will read as a larger tree viewed more distantly
* Large trees will dwarf a garden unless the space is so small that the canopy has the effect of a roof and the trunk is like a wall in which case the tree won’t register much as a tree from a perspective view anyway. But it can create a natural outdoor room.
* You can create a rolling effect without having to move a lot of soil by planting gardens or areas of the ground cover plants that grow at different heights.
* Create ‘windows’ to look through to define special spaces or punch up a focal point. ‘Windows’ can be in the form of shrubbery or walls that have spaces to look through, actual windows hung from patio overhangs or cut in walls, or the spaces between objects or structures. Creating window views adds an illusion of complexity.
* Distract the eye from something you want to down-play by refocusing attention elsewhere. Creating a focal point will help move the attention to where you prefer someone to be looking.
* Disguise ugly features by growing vines over them or surrounding them with decorative panels.
* Paint objects a bright color, grab attention with showy décor or plant hot colored flowers in reds, yellows and oranges to make an area stand out. Conversely, blend in areas you want to down-play with dull colors or masking walls, vines or facades.
* Elongate short spaces by building a winding path that draws out the look of distance. This works especially well when landscaping hills and slopes.
* Break up long spaces by dividing them with fences, structures, patios, hedges or other items to partition off space and create rooms. You can create intrigue by inviting someone from one outdoor ‘room’ to the next with an archway or decorative gate.
* Disguise utility areas with decorative fencing or handsome planter areas that will hide eye-sores.
* Paint murals behind narrow garden areas on walls or fences to add the illusion of depth.
* Hide smaller pipes and utilities under fake rocks or grow shrubs around them to disguise them.

Other things you can do are to use the overall effect of your landscape area to play with illusion. For example, lighting can transform the whole feel of your property. Use lighting at night to pick out features that will make your garden glow. You can spotlight only the areas you want creating the illusion of a whole new and different garden from the daytime view. Or you can be more subtle by simply highlighting certain gardens, your front door, a seating area or a single focal point in the garden.

You can divide space up by light or by passageways. Create pathways that meander to break apart areas. If your space is shallow, make the path start wide and narrow as it continues to form an illusion that it is stretching much further away.

These are just some ways you can use illusion to change the shape and effect of your garden. With some tricks of space and color you can make any garden look better.

Originally posted 2011-03-06 07:20:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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A pondless waterfall can be built in any style. This one is made of rocks to look natural.

In the heat of the summer, there is nothing as refreshing as the sound of splashing water. In many places, however, water is at a premium and likely to be even more scarce in the future. So how can a water feature bring beauty and freshness into the garden in a responsible manner? Consider the pondless waterfall. are wonderful fun, but they are expensive to install and require a fair investment of time and money to maintain. All too often, ponds lose their appeal after the first couple of years and become eyesores of neglect, or worse, health hazards where they are abandoned. So if you don’t want a pond, or simply aren’t sure, try starting with a pondless waterfall. It’s water efficient and lower maintenance.

Okay, what IS a pond-less waterfall? The idea of a pond-less waterfall is to create something between a fountain and a pond. Structurally, it can take any form you’d like to imagine. The basic concept is that water is moved from a storage space, through a pipe and out into the air to splash back into the storage space and be recirculated again. This is the same basic concept in all water features. The difference here is that the ‘storage space’ is not a basin like you would find in a fountain, nor is it a larger body of open water like a pond. By covering the ‘storage receptacle, there is no open water visible (hence: “pond-LESS waterfall”). There are a number of advantages to building a water feature like this. First of all, you will not have to deal with mosquitoes laying their eggs in open water. You also do not have to buy or care for fish. Additionally, you do not have to use chemicals in the water to avoid build up of algae or pests. And depending on how you build this feature, you can create a water feature that is low on water usage and evaporation. You can still plant bog plants if you’d like to have a break from drought-tolerant gardening or you can design your waterfall for minimum maintenance and avoid any organic decor.

To build a pond-less waterfall, you only need to understand the basic concept. An underwater pump needs to be submersed in a container of water. The water will be pumped out an outlet pipe attached to the pump. You can guide that pipe however you wish. When the water spills out the other end of the pipe, it needs to go back into the container again. This is how any fountain or pond works. In a pond or fountain, the water splashes directly back into open water, often cascading down multiple tiers before returning for recycling. If you eliminate the surface of the water, you eliminate many of the maintenance issues discussed above. You can cover the surface with stones, gravel rock or many other materials so the water filters down below into the area where the pump is housed. The pump will need a special permeable house or box that allows the pump to remain submerged under returning water, yet keeps the stones or other material covering the surface of the container away from the pump. A cage with an easy access top – for servicing or changing out the pump – would work well.

Designs for pondless waterfalls are limited only by your imagination. You can create any structure you want to match your home or garden. If you fall in love with a piece of garden décor, such as a sculpture, you can incorporate that sculpture as if it were a part of a fountain. People, animals and objects can be used as a focal point with water splashing over rocks behind, cascading at the sculpture’s feet, or even becoming incorporated with the action of the sculpture if the positioning allows. The trick is to hide the pipe so it can’t be seen. The water can pour out wherever you direct the pipe opening. A common and tasteful version of a pondless waterfall can be seen in bubbling pots that spill their water into gravel covered receptacles. The fun of using these pots is that you can find all colors and styles of pots so you can easily find something to underscore your favorite look.

You can use unusual materials to create pondless waterfalls. Rock and bubbling pots may be popular, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get creative. Watering cans, hollow chunks of bamboo, anything that you can conduct a line of water through can spill water back into the receptacle. You probably would do better not to choose items with material that can rot or rust badly, but plastic, glass, stainless steel, PVC, and treated wood are all examples of materials that should work fine. You can use less resilient material to surround the water flow as well. That way you could use, say, a wagon wheel or a piece of furniture as a setting in which a more water-friendly material can conduct water though. You could use an old computer monitor housing for an unusual focal point, or send water around a dollhouse, or maybe run an electric train set over real waterfalls. You can go small or large, abstract or realistic. You can underscore a theme, like a lion’s head waterfall in a Tuscan garden or a fabricated cement tree with water flowing from all the branches for a fantasy garden. Not only can you create any type of water feature, but you can cover the receptacle with materials other than stone. Picture the fantasy tree splashing branches of water onto a bed of tumbled glass with the pump hidden safely beneath for a pondless waterfall. Or maybe you might want colored rocks for the Lion’s head. Consider using brightly colored small tiles spaced sufficiently for the water to run down between in a Mexican styled garden. You might even do away with the “fall” of the water fall and simply install a spray that blossoms from the material covering the tub beneath. In short, just about any effect can be created using a pondless waterfall. You might have an artist design something special for you or you might want to play around with your own creative skills. You can bring in a contractor for larger constructions or play with your own smaller versions. Whatever you want to design and build, you can create it with a pondless waterfall.

Originally posted 2011-05-15 07:26:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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A Southwestern theme design at the Baker Residence

Whether you have a small landscape or large one any garden can be made into something really special by designing with a theme. Themes can pull together hardscapes and plants and transform any space into your own private vacation-land or retreat.

Themes can come in colors. Using a single color or family of colors will add cohesion to a landscape. Using white flowering plants and white décor can create sparkle in a shady garden.  Bright colors can make a garden look festive and make a trip through the landscape an energizing experience. A garden with a soft blue and purple theme is likely to be restful and make for a gentle, stress-relieving landscape.

Designing after a location you love is another way to create landscaping with a theme. Ideal designs can be sculpted around English or cottage landscape designs. Western or Southwest themes can transform a bland garden into a place worthy of visiting. You can build an Asian, Japanese or Zen garden for beauty and tranquility. Or consider making your garden into a tropical paradise.

Other ways to create themes are to design your garden around a special event like a sculpture, a water garden or a natural rock or gnarled tree that already exists on your property.

Use your climate and property to blend into your theme. With care a tropical design can be created with bamboo structures, recycling water features and some of the showier drought-tolerant plants even in a hot, dry climate.  Design a theme that integrates well with your house and its surroundings. By making your theme work with the environment where you live you can not only make your garden into something special, but keep costs and maintenance as low as possible.

Originally posted 2010-04-12 16:00:43. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Patio shade cover

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.

Originally posted 2009-07-15 18:06:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Arctotis Daisy

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).

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.

Originally posted 2009-04-24 15:31:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Precast planters, fountains and sculptures can decorate the garden.

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.

Originally posted 2011-03-27 06:05:33. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Artistic fountain in a tumbled glass garden design

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.

An exotic tropical design fountain

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.

A simple pot fountain design

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Rocks, boulders and gravel are a major part of this Southwestern Design.

Tips on using rock, stone and boulders as building materials and accents in landscape design

Rocks and boulders are one of the best ways to decorate your garden. They not only make a powerful design statement in the landscape, but they can be used to anchor changes in the design, soften hard angles, offer play features for children and pets and to mask or hide undesirable views in the garden. The best part of using rocks and boulders is that they require no maintenance!

When using boulders in the garden as a design element, try to use large single specimens or group your rocks or boulders in clumps of three or five. Odd numbers always look best in landscape design.

Choose your rocks from a limited palette of color and texture. Different rocks come from different areas and you can find stone that is red from iron, speckled with glittering mica, perforated from volcanic gasses, smoothed from water erosion, or colored and textured in many other ways. Too many different kinds of rock used in the same landscape design will look disorganized. And if you want to blend in with the surrounding environment, consider using local rocks. The worst and most common mistake made with big rocks is to space them evenly like three-dimensional polka-dots. They look downright ridiculous, yet this totally unnatural spacing seems to happen all too often. Rocks and boulders are natural items that should be used in a natural looking design. For a highly controlled effect in a more formal garden design, arrange the rocks in artistic patterns that have a creative flow.

Using a big, interestingly shaped boulder or grouping of large rocks can create a powerful focal point. Planting foliage around rocks creates a lush feel and softens hard edges. For a Southwestern theme landscape, rocks can blend in nicely with succulents, cacti and other desert plants. Boulders and rocks can also create a woodsy feel. Add rounded shrubs, small trees and clambering vines to complete the effect.

There is nothing better to lead into a pond – or a naturally designed swimming pool – than a stand of boulders. Odd rocks and even gravel patches will naturalize the transition between gardens or the rest of the yard and a water feature. Gravel is ideal as permeable paving for patios and driveways. You can even use good sized rocks to create natural-looking fountains where water can pour down from a vertically placed rock. Such areas can appear to be normal outcroppings and blend into the landscape creating their own water feature or statement.

Rocks and boulders can be used to herald entryways, to mark the beginnings of walls or gates, or to serve as sign posts. They can break up open fields or add interest to ornamental grass gardens. Set them into hillsides to form stairs or retaining walls. Soil mounded behind rocks can spill cascading flowers over the top of the rocks.

Rocks weigh much more than they look like they should. Feather rock is a rock that usually comes in dark grey or deep red and is formed by volcanic action. As a result it is perforated with thousands of tiny holes making it lighter than most other rocks. But once you get a rock more than a foot or two in size, even these rocks tend to become weighty. Plan on using the help of machinery to move larger rocks. This can get expensive if you don’t know someone with a crane or other equipment. Sometimes you can get the effect you want by grouping several large stones together rather than trying to move one big boulder. If you group rocks, try not to use all the same size. Using different sizes and shapes will be more appealing to the eye. If you enloy crafting or sculpting you might even consider building your own cement rocks and boulders.

Always take care of your back when moving any heavy object like a rock. It is a good idea to wander around your landscape and mark out where you want the rocks before they arrive. Dig holes that can seat them securely and make the boulders and rocks appear as if they have erupted out of the soil rather than looking dumped accidentally on the spot.

Rocks and boulders can transform a landscape into an impressive picture that will be a joy to look at day after day. Choose your stone carefully and plan for how it will be designed into your garden and you won’t regret using it in your landscape.

Originally posted 2011-04-20 05:51:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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