Water is a major theme of an Asian garden.

Probably one of the most popular gardens for Hollywood television and movie sets, the Van Nuys Japanese Garden in Van Nuys is the epitome of a tranquil Japanese garden. It shares the address of the Tillman Reclamation plant here in Los Angeles, using some of the reclaimed water to irrigate and to fill the extensive lake that forms the central, uniting theme of the garden.

This is an example of a carefully researched, authentically designed Japanese garden created by Dr. Koichi Kawana, a native of Japan and a garden designer who created over a dozen impressive public landscapes in major cities across the United States. The garden is a piece of art that exemplifies the use of ideal, environmentally synchronized plants with Japanese symbolism to create a garden that is harmonious to the eye, the ecology and the spirit. It is an interesting marriage between the contemporary architecture of the Tilllman Water Plant and the traditional peace of a formal Japanese garden.

Meander along the pathways for a therapeutic visit to soothe stress or simply stop in the garden to enjoy a mini-retreat to pass the afternoon. If you want ideas for your own Japanese garden, this is a perfect place to spark your imagination. Areas work as a whole fabricated with internal pictures within the overall design so you can frame your own view.

Wander along the paths to compare the contrast of colors and textures. Stop and listen to the bamboo fountain or gaze at the water lilies in summertime bloom.

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Water lilies float serenely on the water surface.

A stand of Golden bamboo flourishes as it stands guard over a pathway.

Red azaleas light up this view of the Van Nuys Japanese Garden

Early spring paints the garden brilliant red with azalea blooms.  Expect to see the area alive with fish, ducks and birds – the latter flying in for a little vacation from their life in the wild.

The Van Nuys water garden is a haven for wildlife like these water birds.

Not only will you learn about the symbolism demonstrated in the garden (stop into the gift shop and make sure you pick up the brochure on the garden which will help explain the details), but you will see some of the fine effects that can be designed into an Asian garden by grouping and contrasting different building materials like stone, pebbles, wood and bamboo. Plants form their own visual communities and artistically interact with the non-living materials.

A garden of textures is created with non-living materials.

The tea house gives you views along the water as well as the shade garden on the side.

The tea house looks out on decorative garden views.

Behind the tea house you can follow a wooden-railed, curving ramp out into the sunshine where you can gaze at the different ways various styled bridges and waterfalls are integrated into specific views and the overall picture. The sound of  water spilling over natural tumbles of rock adds to a sense of peace and harmony. There are different sizes, shapes and styles of water features to offer design ideas for your own garden.

No Japanese garden is complete without a dramatic waterfall.

The Van Nuys garden illustrates the Japanese art form of controlling nature in the landscape.  Each area is carefully planned out with one event carefully leading to the next.

Even the trees are trained to grow in the exact, desired shape. There is no room for accidents.

Trees are carefully trained into shape with wires.

That means that if you come to enjoy the garden, expect a few restrictions to protect the gardens from damage. Visitors are encouraged to stay on the pathways, items like photographic tripods are discouraged and anything that might disturb the controlled conditions of the gardens is not recommended.

Different areas offer creative Japanese garden concepts. There are multiple solutions for water gardens, rocky areas, shade gardens, floating islands and artistic beachfront hardscapes (permanent features). Plants work together in micro-environments but also flow into the bigger picture so you can focus on the way a weeping cherry is reflected in the water, or gaze at how it creates a focal point for the walkway and water that surround it. Typical of Asian gardens, the Van Nuys Japanese Garden is rife with symbolism, whether it is reflected in the weeping cherry tree (symbolizing clouds and transience), stone lanterns (representing the light that outshines ignorance) or a bamboo fountain (representing internal cleansing in the modern Japanese garden).

The weeping cherry is one of the early bloomers in the garden.

Whether you want to spend a peaceful afternoon in the living art of a tranquil Japanese garden or you want to take home ideas for plants, design and decor for your own landscape, the Van Nuys Japanese Garden will not disappoint you.

Call to make sure the garden will be open when you want to visit. There is ample parking just off of 6100 Woodley Avenue in Van Nuys, California. You’ll find information posted on the Van Nuys Japanese Garden site at http://www.thejapanesegarden.com. Docent-led tours can be set up by appointment. Call at 818 756-8166. Admission is only $3.00 per person and $2.00 for seniors and children.

Garden decor is heavy in symbolism.

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Photo by Jane Gates

There are so many different landscape software programs on the market it is hard to know which software to choose for home use. Different software programs have different assets and liabilities. There are even some free programs available. And some of the paid landscape software programs allow you a free trial period to check them out before your buy.

There are some impressive programs available for professional landscape design, but there is a serious learning curve that is likely to demand more time than would make sense for home use. Professional software is costly, usually well over $1000 for most programs. Programs designed for home use can be simplistic and do not have the flexibility of more elaborate programs, but they should be sufficient to help the homeowner lay out ideas for do-it yourself design.

Some free programs might give you all you need. ‘Virtual Garden Design’ is produced by the BBC and it will give you a fundamental virtual view of how your design will look, although you won’t get a full plan.

The BBC’s ‘VirtualLandscape Design’ also gets high recommendations. You can either download it or use it on the BBC website and but you will need to use another program –  Adobe Shockwave — to run it properly. It’s a nice little program if you want to do some home garden designing in 3d.

‘Plan a Garden’ landscape software is a Better Homes and Gardens program that offers easy drag and drop plan so you can place plants, water features and rocks into a basic layout.

Although this is not exclusively a landscape software, Google ‘Sketch-Up’ offers a 3D modeling program that is quite impressive for a free program. It is the bare bones of a professional program with a lot of limitations, but it will afford a realistic format handy for playing around with home landscape designs.

‘Smart Draw Landscape Design Software’ has a nice paid program that most homeowners rate well. Smart Draw also offers a landscape program for free. Like most free programs, your flexibility is limited and you will have to work with the templates you are given, but you can still do a lot with this free landscape design version.

‘Design Workshop Lite’ is a free, highly simplified 3D version of the paid ‘Design Workshop Classic Home Design’ and ‘Design Workshop Professional’ softwares. You can get some basic, useful renderings, but don’t expect a lot of flexibility. Still, it’s not bad for the price.

‘Show Off ‘ is a program that takes a different approach. You start with a picture of your property and drag and drop in various features so you can try out different ideas and see how they will look. This basic program needs to be used while you are connected online directly to the Show Off site. More detailed design will require you to subscribe for their features.

‘Garden Planner 2.3′ from Artifact Interactive is an easy, wizard-driven free software that pretty much lets you click and drag elements onto your landscape format. It can be useful for working out an overview and some details of your landscape. A reasonably good software, it is free for a 15 day trial offer, and only costs around $20 to buy if you decide to buy it.

Be aware that these free and low-cost programs do not actually offer you the ability to do much drawing. But they can give you a chance to play around with locating different features in your property to help you design your property.

Look for the features you need. More is not necessarily better. And seek out software that is user-friendly. Like in all software program purchases, adequate software support and ease of use is also a priority.  Since different reviewers do not necessarily agree with landscape software ratings, here is another list of software that is rated by Landscaping Software Review as the top 2010 top ten list. These are not free landscape software programs but they range from about $20 to $90. This is list starts with the highest on their ratings list.

Realtime Landscaping PLUS

Landscape Deck & Patio

Home & Landscape Design

Landscaping & Deck Designer

HGTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite

Total 3D Home, Landscape & Deck

Turbo FLOORPLAN Landscape & Deck

Imagine Pro

3D Home Architect Home & Landscape Deluxe Suite

3D Landscape Design for Everyone

Some other landscape software programs for home use that are under $100 and have gotten high reviews are ‘LandDesigner 3D’, ‘Better Homes and Gardens’, ‘Punch Super Home’, and ‘Landscape and Garden Designer’. Most of these have a free trial period to check them out first and see if you like them.

Originally posted 2010-05-30 08:28:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Gardens are never perfect

Too many people expect to have a picture-perfect landscape.  They’re fooled by garden photos and publicity into thinking such gardens really do exist.  You know those ads on television with the awesome, colorful gardens?  And the calendars and book pictures of gorgeous landscapes in full bloom?  Well, if you are expecting your garden to match, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.  Oh, you certainly can have a lovely garden.  But it won’t be perfect.  Not even if you use the most expensive products on the shelf. And your garden won’t have everything in bloom at the same time and remain in bloom all year long.  Often those awesome photographs are taken at botanical or private gardens that employ a bevy of full-time gardeners who spend every day poring over every inch manicuring each leaf and flower.   Even so, there are areas in these gardens that look better than others at different times of the year, so photographs are limited only to the best sections of the best-looking gardens.  In most other cases the sets and photographs are stuffed with blooming plants – most still in their pots – freshly imported from carefully controlled greenhouses.  Sometimes the pots are hidden behind the foliage of some of the true resident plants.  Sometimes the plants are set into the ground.  Often the potted plants are just grouped and the pots are hidden behind other objects. Look carefully and you can sometimes spot a plastic pot in the picture-perfect landscape.

There was a very popular calendar issued a year or so ago that had twelve months of gardens decorated to perfection.  Yet something was suspicious.  Looking closer you could see spring and autumn blooming plants blooming side by side in the same picture.  And on close scrutiny, a shot of a gorgeous pond revealed plastic pond lilies growing in non-existing colors!  This was a popular calendar being distributed by large nurseries and plant wholesalers!  Is this fair to create such a bogus set of expectations?  If artificial photos are distributed to professionals in the green industry, why shouldn’t gardeners everywhere feel duped into thinking perfect gardens really do look like this?!

You can have a lot of success making gardens and individual plants look great by simply spending a lot of time doing manual labor.  Hand pulling weeds avoids chemical burn to other plants.  Judicious pruning creates a lovely, natural looking shrub rather than buzz-sawing the thing into a crooked cube or bulging globe.  Hosing off pests, hand-picking larger pests or using insecticidal soaps seem to keep pest populations down to manageable numbers.  Deadheading (cutting off spent blooms), pulling out dead foliage, raking and cutting back dormant plants, will keep your garden colorful, neat and clean.  This is, admittedly, a very labor-intensive way to garden.  But it works. And with a good garden design, you can build your landscape with attractive low maintenance areas to make your beautiful garden fit into the time you have available to keep it looking great.

Also be aware that photographers will shoot the best parts of a garden from the most flattering angle. Just because a garden looks marvelous in one shot doesn’t mean the rest of the garden is equally good-looking. In most cases, the photo you are looking at is the absolutely BEST part of the entire landscape. There may be some very dreary areas you are not being shown. No gardens look perfect all over. Not all the time, anyway. So be fair to yourself and your garden. Just like the shots of the glamorous celebrities you see in magazines, photos of many glamorous gardens are ‘made up’ to be stunning. I’ll bet if you searched your landscape at almost any time of year you could find at least one plant – even a weed – that would make a good photograph.

Remember that a beautiful garden is one that fits your lifestyle and taste.  It doesn’t have to look perfect.  Perfect gardens are perfectly phony.  Nature’s greatest beauty is in her variety, variation and imperfections.  A garden is a living thing and living things are in a constant state of change. Expect that the showiest plants will need to go through a rest period. Bulb foliage will have to die back after the flowers bloom. Even ornamental grasses can look a little scruffy in the winter and often show better after being cut back. Like all living things, plants need their rest period, too. If you let them follow a full and natural growth and rest cycles, your plants will look their best when they’re ready to put on their flowering displays.

The real trick to having a great-looking garden is to diversify. Plant your plants so groups of them come into flower at one time making a colorful focal point. Then when the show is over, these plants can rest up while another area of the garden colors up.  Use colored foliage for those periods when blooms are sparse. And hide fading foliage behind later flourishing plants so the resting plants won’t be noticed. If you have limited space for growing things, consider adding another attention-getter like an ornamental fountain, sculpture or some decorative furniture to attract the eye when the garden is not at its best. Planning your garden out this way will give you an attractive landscape year round.

Don’t be fooled by garden photos or unrealistic, enhanced gardens.  Not even the experts have perfect gardens. Just focus on enjoying the best parts of your garden when they are on display. And care for the rest so it will reward you later with picture-perfect areas – when the time is right.

Originally posted 2010-04-14 11:20:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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An arbor in one kind of beautiful landscape

What is a Beautiful Landscape?

“A beautiful landscape” can mean many different things to different people. For some, the only landscapes that will qualify require hundreds of thousands of dollars in elaborate construction. For others, the most beautiful landscape is the one nature created – with no sign of human intervention. For most, the concept is somewhere in between.

If you are building a landscape for your home – or for any building, the best choice is something that will not conflict with the design of the structure or that of the general surrounding area. A lake of emerald green grass surrounding an adobe styled house or pouring down the side of a scrub-textured chaparral creates visual discord. A wild English garden surrounding a formal building looses its charm and merely appears unkempt. A formal geometrical garden would look absurd surrounding a log cabin. This does not mean you can’t have a garden styled to your taste even if the house style you bought isn’t. It does mean that to make both beautiful, some thought has to go into making idea, taste and reality mesh.

You can create illusion of landscape styles even if you don’t have enough space or money to re-create you ideal. A “Beverly Hills” mansion landscape feel can be designed on a shoestring budget by creating miniature areas as focal points.

Do-it-yourself folks can save a lot of money. But since most people don’t have the knowledge or experience of professionals, it’s not a bad idea to spend considerable time doing research, or call in consultants for advice before diving into landscaping projects. Research and creative time is spent by the best professional landscape designers and architects. It does account for much of their billable time. Ideas do not pop into a creative’s head and drop onto the paper instantaneously. Also make sure you hire the right help for the right kind of expertise you need.

With the ‘globalizing’ of communications, generic plans have become popular and practical. Adapting a small number of basic designs to different layouts and plant environmental needs has created a whole industry that gives what appears to be a custom design at a less expensive price. If you are creating your own design, you need to allow yourself that time for thinking and researching. Then comes the adaptation of those ideas to the page format so you can delegate whatever you need to or work on the plan over time without forgetting important aspects.

Another point to consider about beauty, is that not everyone thinks the same plants are beautiful. I find some folks like a neat, contained plant to be beautiful whereas someone else finds the same look too stodgy and prefers a natural sprawl or wilder look. Colors are very personal. We probably start associating our feelings with different colors as early as in our pre-verbal childhood. Maybe we physically see colors differently depending on how our organic eyes and brains process the light waves. Who knows why we often prefer one color over another. And I don’t suppose it matters. But some people feel quite strongly in favor or against various flower or leaf colors.

Originally posted 2009-04-11 17:34:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Consider golf in your back yard

Just think of how much fun you, your family and friends can have if you build your own putting green in your backyard. You don’t really need a lot of space but there are some things you might want to keep in mind if you want to build your own putting green. Here are some tips.

Locate your putting green where the surface can be reasonably level and you can build in excellent drainage. Full sun is advisable if you want to grow healthy grass.

Focus on constructing a well-built base so your putting green will stay smooth, retain its shape and avoid drainage problems.

The most frequent difficulties that can develop with putting greens is shifting of the surface planes, poor grass growth or built up dirt and odor in synthetic grass – all due to drainage problems.

Make sure you choose the right kind of grass if you want to grow a living lawn on your putting green. The grass you use should be a fine, low-growing variety that grows well in your local area. Do not try using regular lawn grass.

Using an artificial or synthetic lawn can work well for a putting green and will reduce maintenance. Although synthetic lawns can be a bit pricey this is one use that may be ideal since the size needed is limited and the ease of maintenance should more than justify the expense.

And depending on how much space you have on your property, you might consider adding a sand trap or a chipping practice area to hone your golf at home.  These can all be designed to add beauty to your garden as well as to provide a fun backyard sport for friends and family. You might even want to create a whole golf or sport theme for your landscape.

Originally posted 2010-05-10 12:46:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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A fountain makes an excellent focal point

To create a successful landscape you need to design  a focal point into the layout of your garden.  All you need to do is create one event that catches the eye first when you look at the  garden area. A focal point is essential to a good design whether you are designing a room, painting a piece of artwork or creating a landscape. The purpose of a focal point is to give the eye something exciting to enjoy, to keep the view from becoming dull and boring.

You can create more than one focal point, but consider secondary focal points to be supports for your main event. Don’t add competing focal points that take away from the main feature and confuse the composition. Consider points of interest that are less riveting than your main focal point to be like supporting roles in a play. They help build the overall story and support the main event. Focal points can be living or not, a single object or a grouping. You can use  rocks and boulders, constructs or sculptures, fountains or logs.  Focal points can underscore a theme, like a carved tree-trunk bench in a woodland garden), an unusual banana specimen plant in a tropical garden or a wagon wheel in a rustic Western landscape. Consider a showy seating area with unusually shaped, colored or styled furniture as a focal point.

Lead up to your focal point with paths, garden beds, fencing or decorative border materials. Add an archway or an unexpected gateway to a fence and that can become a focal point in itself.

Creating a focal point can one of the more fun parts of designing the landscape. You can use a favorite item, search through garden centers, check out your attic, garage or wander through a junk yard and find a creative way to recycle some object into a focal point. Or you can plant an exciting area with some really showy specimen plants to create drama in your garden design. Designing a garden focal point can not only be a fascinating project, but it can make a bland landscape beautiful.

Originally posted 2010-11-17 06:47:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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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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Gate can be decorative as well as utilitarian

Whether you use fencing or walls around your property, as an entry or to partition your landscaping, passage is usually heralded by a gateway. You can make a gate purely functional or you can make it into something special. Why not create a welcome with decorative gates?

To design your gates you first have to decide if you want a solid door for privacy or something that allows a view. You can even create a controlled view by building a solid doorway with a window shape cut into the design.

Think about practical use. If a gate must retain a child or small animal you will want something that doesn’t have gaps large enough to allow passage. Then, apart from figuring how your gate will open and close and which way it will swing, you can let your creativity flow.

Ideas for decorative gates can start with materials. Consider recycling old doors from barns, cabinets, or other enclosures. Take a wander through a junk yard in search of an unusual treasure. Or build your own from wood, metal, vinyl or another sturdy material. Interesting screening, filigree or twisted wrought iron can make excellent materials for gates. Even traditional, purchased gates can be spiced up with a colorful paint job or by weaving in bamboo, strips of plastic or mounting wall art on them.

You can build archways to frame your gates, or guard them on either side with decorative pillars or pilasters. Your decorative gates can set the mood for your home and garden by making a statement in the entry to your property, or they can enhance the style of your garden by setting a theme.

Use your imagination and make your gates more than just ways to enclose a space. You gates can create a surprising welcome to your home or garden.

Originally posted 2011-05-22 06:12:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Solar lights come in all sizes and shapes.

There are new and exciting styles and fixtures for landscape solar lighting being introduced every year, expanding the effects you can get with them. It used to be that the only way to use them was to stick them in rows like lolly-pops. But there are now solar flood lights, spots, hanging and table lamps and even lights you can attach on the stem of an outdoor umbrella to up-light the inside of the fabric. As the demand for solar lighting grows in popularity, even these choices will continue to expand. Solar lights collect energy from daytime sun so these lights will have no impact on your electric bill. You can even bypass the issue of wires that can be broken or cut outdoors since the only bit of wiring required takes place inside the solar light fixture. That also means you can place your lights at any distance you want since you do not need an electrical outlet.

Although light capacity is increasing, solar lighting is still weaker than low volt lighting. It is best for creating glowing effects in the garden. One suggestion might be to follow a winding path with solar lights to draw a sinuous snake of light through your garden or up a slope or hill after dark. Another idea is to place solar lights behind sculptural plants to create a background glow. There are solar lamps that are fabricated to look like ordinary table lamps that are safer to use than candles. There are even some low volt and solar lights that mimic candles! Edge a garden or patio with solar lights, or consider lining an edging with a strip of LED tubing. Add solar lights in areas away from the house where you might want to see your footing at night. Wherever you use your lights, always position the solar collectors on top to get the maximum exposure to direct sun so you’ll store enough energy to last well into the night.

Most solar lamps still come in either a cool or warm hue. The cool, stark white color that looks best in a garden with a contemporary, nautical, or a stylistic feel. Some of the warmer yellow tints even border on orange. These blend in best with rustic, country, romantic or cottage type gardens.

Expect batteries to collect solar energy for two to four years before they start to dim and need replacing. The job is easily done and batteries can be found at some home stores, garden centers, electrical supply shops and online.

Add night lighting to your landscape and suddenly you will have magical views from both indoors and outdoors. Create different effects with different lighting and punch up focal points, target your favorite décor or make cooking, relaxing and entertaining out-of-doors safe, easy and attractive. Remember that lighting your property will also discourage unwanted visitors – human and wildlife alike. And keep in mind that you will walk safer after dark if you can see where you are putting your feet – especially where there are steps, stairs, level changes or protruding objects.

Lighting the garden makes outdoor living a real asset to your house. You will be able to use more square footage, help increase the value of your property and make your home a more beautiful and fun place to enjoy while riding out the housing market slump. There are so many ways to light up your landscape, so many tricks, fixtures, angles and possibilities that you might just as well light up your spirits and the whole ambiance of your garden at the same time. You can mix low voltage lights with LEDs and solar lights to invent a whole design of your own or call in a designer or lighting expert for suggestions. Then you can have your own outdoor garden party every night. Don’t miss out on all the possibilities you can create by lighting up your landscape at night.

Originally posted 2011-04-06 05:25:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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