Year: 2020

General

Landscape Gardening in Sussex – History and Beauty Combined

Sussex is located in the south-east of England and boasts an array of beautiful public landscape gardens for anybody who loves the outdoors and horticulture to enjoy. Sussex is home to a number of fine examples of landscape gardening and innovative landscape architecture. Landscape gardening in Sussex has survived the test of time and has managed to preserve and maintain its historical and ancient examples of horticulture and landscaping for all to visit and appreciate. Such gardens are indeed offered to the public audience now to appreciate and enjoy. A lot of inspiration and design derives from these fine landscapes for personal project and home design, which is great for maintaining the feel of the English countryside throughout gardens at home or indeed public parks and recreation areas.

Traditional garden design especially those gardens located in regions such as Sussex summon an image of what everyone considers to be the typical English garden. They are generally designed with a well-maintained lawn and flower beds that are abundant with a mix of flora, colourful and vibrant. Traditional landscape gardening often uses a very simple layout, based on those of the historical gardens typically found in the region. The basic layout is the most important factor and usually time is dedicated to design of suitable locations for flowerbeds, lawns and other elements which one may want to implement. Inspiration is often sought from the historic examples of landscape gardening in Sussex which exist to this very day and set the standard for domestic garden options.

Within Sussex lies the Grade I listed Leonardslee which resides in a valley and boasts 7 meandering lakes and comprises of around 200 acres of land. Many types of flowers including Rhododendrons, Magnolias and Azaleas can be found on display here. It was initially opened up to the public by the Sir Edmund Loder in 1907. It is still run and maintained by the same family and of course like many old estates has volunteers who help to preserve the gardens and house. A garden the size of Leonardslee has evolved over centuries. The mainstay of the garden was created in the early years of the 19th century, but generation after generation of the Loder family since around 1889 have continued to preserve design and development of the valley plantings and landscape gardening to form the remarkable splendour that is seen today in Sussex. Many professional garden designers are lucky enough to visit and take inspiration from such areas and as such have great design ideas when it comes to your personal landscape gardening requirements.…

June 29, 2020 Miracle

General

Gathering Around a Fire Pit

With a fire pit in your backyard, you will realize how easy it is to have family gatherings or to entertain guests, even on a fall evening with a chill in the air. Gathering around a crackling fire will easily result in having a great time outdoors in any season. As the orange and yellow flames cast a warm glow over everything and everyone, the festive mood in your yard will be one of friendship and remarkably enjoyable fellowship.

Image the possibilities of using your fire pit as the focal centerpiece of a themed party. Decorating the area to match the theme you have chosen for the gathering adds finishing touches to the occasion. The dancing and darting flames can inspire friends and family to join in and play along with the theme. Without much effort, you can certainly come up with activities which you and your group will enjoy participating in. Keep adding wood and the good times will last as long as the flames brighten the area.

The festival nature of children’s parties can be particularly enhanced by introducing a fire pit. Without fail kids love the big, crackling flames that cause their imaginations will run wild, whether listening to a scary or funny Halloween story, becoming cowboys and cowgirls around the old campfire, or watch a backyard puppet play in the flickering light. With children, though, you must be cautious. Children are naturally curious and may try getting too close of a look at the fire. A responsible adult should always oversee children’s activities around the fire pit.

You can encourage everyone’s participation when bringing people together around the colorful flames. The gathering can be an opportunity for your guests to cook their own kabobs or round up sticks suitable for roasting marshmallows.

These suggestions barely scratch the surface of how to liven up your backyard gatherings. Coming up with additional activities will only be limited by your creativity and willingness to try things.

Before they attend one of your gatherings, people would probably picture a fire pit as a simple structure with fire in it that gives off heat. But, after experiencing an evening in your backyard they would undoubtedly envision the laughter, fellowship, and great times spent with family and friends.…

June 26, 2020 Miracle

General

Incredible Edible Garden Plants

There is a resurgence of home vegetable gardens and people interested in growing their own food. A few reasons for this shift are higher food costs, environmental awareness and stewardship, plus the amount of chemicals being used on our food. These factors have contributed to the trend and new innovative way of thinking about landscaping, called Edible Landscaping.

Since the early 1900’s, landscape design has focused on and been limited to hardscaping, trees and shrubs, a few perennials, and a large lawn. Edible landscaping includes fruits, vegetables and herbs in addition to the traditional landscape design. Edible plants are nutritional as well as attractive. Edibles such as cucumber, eggplant, melon, squash and zucchini are covered with showy blossoms that turn to beautiful fruit and vegetables. Other edibles like leaf lettuce, red lettuce, cabbage, carrots and Swiss chard have attractive, colorful stems and foliage. Other suggestions for edibles in the landscape are blueberries and Fig trees. Rabbiteye blueberries are native to the southeast and perform wonderfully with little care.

A person’s lifestyle, available space, interest and family situation are important factors to consider when deciding the amount of edible landscaping to plant and maintain. The edible landscaping possibilities can range from a dedicated vegetable garden, planting edibles in landscape beds, to container gardening, or a combination of all these. Think back to vegetable gardens your family or neighbors had; was it a traditional backyard vegetable garden, with a haphazard look and generally lacking in visual aesthetic? Over the past 20 years, we’ve transformed the vegetable garden into a new art form. There are endless design variations on a garden full of vegetables.

The soil in Huntsville, Alabama is the famous Alabama red clay, and for most homeowners, compacted red clay. To be successful growing vegetables and edibles our red clay needs to be amended by adding compost, soil conditioner, worm castings and organic fertilizers. The key to a beautiful healthy landscape, edible or not, is healthy soil. This may not sound glamorous, but is the most important factor for any plants health.

Raised beds and container gardening are excellent methods to grow vegetables and fruits if you have poor soils. The main benefit is that you can fill raised beds and containers with a blend of soils that maximize your gardening efforts. The soil also warms up faster in the spring in raised beds and containers and this helps seedlings and plants grow sooner. Tomatoes are the most popular vegetable for containers, but many other vegetables grow well in containers.

In my own garden, I struggle with difficult, compacted clay soil. I spent three years trying to amend my vegetable garden soil and raise the soil level so that my traditional row garden would be successful. This year I built and installed raised beds, painted them to be colorful and attractive throughout the year and filled them with a mixture of topsoil, soil conditioner, compost, worm castings and chicken manure. The results are amazing! I credit the successful results to the raised beds and the quality of the soil.

As a landscape designer and garden consultant, I work with clients to help them have a beautiful and successful yard, with or without edibles. Our yards and gardens should make us happy and be a place we can enjoy. Gardening can be fun, interesting and nutritious!…

June 23, 2020 Miracle

General

How to Discover a Business to Help With Landscaping Design in a Graveyard

Being in charge is a blessing and a curse at the same exact time. The hard part though is knowing exactly how to do the landscaping design in cemetery. To do this successfully you might need to consult with a company that does this for the business that they do. Here are some ways to locate these companies.

A great place to look at would be in companies in your area that does this work for private people. They might not specialize in this area that you are in, but you could find that they are going to be able to know what people are looking for since they deal with people on an everyday basis.

You could also utilize the computer that is sitting on your office desk to research various companies that could help you out. The problem with this is you might find that they are going to be nationally based and you might have to research it well to find one in your area.

You could call upon your networking connections with other managers and owners of these types of locations. You could talk to them and see if they are going to be able to refer you to anyone and if not they could be willing to go in with you to hire a company that can design yours and there’s.

Something else to consider would be if you are looking hard enough would be to consider doing this yourself. By doing this yourself you could save money, but you might want to make sure that you do this properly because if it is not the people that over see you could end up letting you go.

The blessing of being in charge is that you are going to be the one making the decisions. The hard part can be that you are going to find is going to come when you have to find a landscaping design in cemetery company to help you make it look beautiful.

It’s hard to find the right store that has the right headstones for your loved one.…

June 20, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping Design Ideas For Your New Home

The internet is a great place to go for your landscape design ideas.

Being a homeowner in these hard economic times, you will be looking for ways to save time and money on your yard. There are many ways that you can do this project inexpensive, so you can enjoy your new yard.

Yes you can do this yourself and a great way to start your landscape project is to get design ideas. Look at books and newspapers then gather the ideas. Then you and your family can get some ideas on your yard project for this spring. You may consider buying in bulk to save money. You can have your family and friends help pay when you buy in bulk. This will help when doing some yard projects this year.

Ask around then you may purchase your landscaping supplies in bulk. Mulch is used in most yard projects this is less expensive when buying in bulk. In addition, when your plants have matured such as day lilies and hostas you may divide in to smaller clumps. Then spread into your landscaping garden. Share with your friends and family. My friend did work in a garden center and every spring he would brake up the day lilies and the hostas into smaller pots.

There are many ideas you can look at for your landscaping project. The look of your home may determines the shape and the arrangement of the lawn you can work with. You will need to remember the four seasons of the year, to compliment the types of the plants you plant in your garden; depending were you live.

You can always go to your local garden center and ask for your nearest landscape designer. Here are some ideas, you can put to work. So you and your family can get out and enjoy your new yard.…

June 17, 2020 Miracle

General

Florida Live Oaks and Tabebuia Will Make A Seasonal Impact

Keep your snowbird visitors happy by suggesting Live Oaks and Tabebuia thus providing lush greenery and flowering during their stay this winter.

Let’s face it; everybody in the nursery industry, at some point in time or another, has heard a similar statement from one or more of their seasonal clients. “If I wanted to see a bare tree, I would have stayed up North!” says the client seriously.

To this enduring statement, I have developed a somewhat standard answer. “Live Oak and Tabebuia may be just what you’re looking for.” I say confidently.

Their usual answer is “Oh yes, Live Oaks.” Most also follow with the question “What is a Tabebuia?”

At this point in the conversation I have an excellent opportunity to lay it all out on the proverbial line. I warmly dive straight down to in-depth descriptions of how some of the seasons showiest flowering species, namely the Tabebuia trees, perform as they begin to display their winter colors.

“More commonly known as Trumpet Trees, some Tabebuia cultivars prefer to be pollinated during these colder months, hence the profuse blooming. The less frequent rainfall and cooler weather trigger these charming attributes into action. Some if not all leaves drop as the entire tree bursts into bloom, seemingly all at once…..” I can go on and on.

If you too are wondering which of these may be well suited for your customer’s landscape, try suggesting individual varieties that posses the properties and colors that work best for them. You may want to try the Carib, Chrysotricha and Impetiginosa cultivars, just to name a few.

Live Oaks on the other hand need little introduction. Once the clients are reminded of the beautiful canopy that provides summer shade, wildlife attraction and strength, they practically sell themselves.…

June 13, 2020 Miracle

General

Backyard Landscaping Ideas – Tips For Do it Yourself Landscaping

Are you just plain tired of seeing your dull and boring backyard? Looking for some backyard landscaping ideas? Ideas that you can do yourself. Look no further. Here are some tips that you can follow to put together a backyard in which you and your family can relax.

1. Divide and conquer

If looking at the whole backyard scares you, split it into smaller areas of squares or rectangles. Each of these areas can be for a little sub-project with pathways separating the areas.

2. Research

Next, do some research on the types of plants that you can have in your backyard. Doing this online is one option. Or go to the local nursery and get help. Check out the kinds of plants that are suitable and also get their prices.

Some of the options are flowerbed plants, shrubs for pathways, crawlers and trees. Check out on the specific needs like shade, amount of water they require and so on.

3. Plan the Layout

You then need to decide on the locations of the plants in the layout. Also, think of the colors of the flowers when you are planning, so that you can get a beautiful display of colors when the flowers bloom.

4. Fix the Walkways

There are a number of materials that can be used for your walkways. You can use tiles, gravel, bricks or plain sand.

5. Add Some Optional Others

If have more money to spend. there are more backyard landscaping ideas. You can have some garden furniture. A pond or fountain if space and budget permit. Statues and figurines with lighting arrangement will look good. These can be part of a theme.

At a general backyard designs level, cover most of the backyard with greenery to keep the space cooler and have natural surroundings. If you are not into too many types of plants, then stick with the lawn and flowering plants around the sides.…

June 11, 2020 Miracle

General

A Gardener’s Shopping Spree

Shopping for plants is one of those highly motivating tasks for a gardener. This is especially true if you have been bored by the same old look of your backyard for weeks or even for months. It is quite customary to see gardeners changing the habitual places of plants from time to time, but is this an ethical thing to do? After all, plants have life too!…

For some gardeners, the eco system in the backyard which they have contributed to put up is one of the most important things. However, for those who get bored quickly, the scenic beauty is the top most priority. If that is the case with you, no doubt you may have already unplugged a few healthy standing plants and migrated them elsewhere making space for a new member in town.

Some experts believe that such migration is healthy in some ways. However, you need to be knowledgeable about what you are doing. It is a known fact that color leafed plants absorb more energy and water than whole green plants and native plants. Therefore, if you were to throw a bunch of colored leaf plants in an area where the whole green fellows are standing strong, the chances are that the green fellows may become malnourished in months to come. So be wise when you chose a home land for those plants that you plan to move from one place to another.

Some people fancy changing plants from the ground to eye catching pots. You could merely here the earth’s cry when you do this. While smaller plants grow well and adjust themselves to pots, medium to larger scale plants will do a good job growing on the ground. So size definitely is a consideration you need to tick in your mind before you move houses for these dear plants.

Getting back to our shopping spree, it is quite usual to lose your mind when you visit those nurseries. If you know what I mean! The type of plants that takes your breathe away may not always be the best to have hanging around in your back yard for many reasons such as the weather, the type of soil and of course, how frequently you could maintain those. Another common consideration is that plant shopping can be an expensive venture if you go all out and buy everything your eye pleases. So why not make an appointment with your landscaper and discuss the implications before hand? If your garden designer or landscaper agrees, you could even visit the nursery with him/her.

Buying plants can be an exciting thing to do. After all, we all need scenic changes and a little bit of spice added up in life (or at the back yard) for that matter, from time to time. But in the process of trying to beautify your scenic landscape, you should never allow risk factors to ruin the already landscaped garden. So there goes! If you don’t know how to do plant migrations properly, keep away! After all, the experts are always on board to assist you.…

June 7, 2020 Miracle

General

Vegetables and Flowers Can Be Friends

I had a friend who grew up on a farm and even now, years later, she refuses to plant anything unless it has some sort of usefulness. To earn a place in her garden, plants require more than pretty petals; they have to deter pests or provide a source of food. Today, more and more people are planting similar useful gardens by combining edible plants with flowers in an effort to introduce more home grown foods in their diet.

This mix of food and flowers is also very practical for those with small yards or even balconies. Years ago, people lived off the food from their gardens, much like my friend with the farmer roots. Commercial food production took over and people transformed their gardens by planting lawns and blooming ornamental plants. Now, however, we’re seeing a merging of the two as home owners are going back to their grass roots. Often, fruit trees are chosen over ornamental varieties. Fences and trellises are now being adorned by grapes, and vegetables are being planted in amongst summer annuals. Even landscapers are noticing the difference, with requests for edible landscape designs becoming more common.

Here are some tips to get you thinking like an edible plant gardener:

Add color by planting red cabbage, yellow peppers, purple eggplants or rainbow chard. Combining these nourishing plants with flowers attracts more useful insects and increases flower production and vegetable yields. Certain plants such as garlic when planted next to roses, provides a natural insecticide by repelling aphids.

Instead of ornamental shrubs, try blueberries for their tasty fruit, fall color and low maintenance. Others include Saskatoon/Juneberry, Gooseberry, or Blue Elderberry. Hazelnuts when trimmed, make wonderful hedges, and strawberries make a tasty ground cover.

For filling in those large areas, try horseradish, or Jerusalem artichoke with its showy yellow flowers.

Shade tolerant veggies include beets, brussel sprouts, cabbage, garlic, leaf lettuce, spinach, turnips and radishes. Once you taste the flavor in your homegrown delicacies, you’ll be increasing your crop every year.

Edible flowers are both decorative and tasty when added to salads and soups. Some of my favorites include:

Nasturtiums – Adds a peppery flavor to salsa and gazpacho.

Anise Hyssop – Sweet anise or black licorice flavor.

Basil – Flowers have a similar, milder taste than the leaves.

Bee Balm – Use leaves and flowers to make tea with an Earl Grey flavor.

Borage – Large shrub with purple star-shaped flowers that taste like cucumber are wonderful in soups and salads.

Calendula – The bright orange flowers taste similar to saffron with a peppery taste that adds a golden color to foods.

Carnation – Has a peppery, spicy flavor.

Chamomile – Tastes similar to apple and makes a relaxing tea that’s easy on the stomach.

Chicory – The beautiful bright blue flowers tolerate the worst of growing conditions. The roots can be used to make a coffee substitute, the buds can be pickled similar to a caper, and the young leaves make a nice addition to a salad.

Chives – Flowers have a mild onion flavor and the chopped stems are a nice addition to soups, salads or just about any recipe you would add onions.

Pansy – Flowers have a mild sweet to tart flavor.

Violet – Sweet nectar-like flavor.…

June 3, 2020 Miracle

General

Church Design Tidbits: Balconies and Landscaping

In this article, we will be giving some design tidbits for two unrelated, but important, features of your church project: balcony seating and landscaping.

Balcony Seating

When properly designed, balcony seating has some benefits worth considering. Balconies can solve the problem of future expansion as the congregation grows and can enable a church with limited land to expand “up” rather than “out”. In fan-shaped sanctuaries a balcony can increase the seating by almost 50%. A future balcony should be master-planned from the start with the major structure completed during the sanctuary construction. A removable wall can temporarily hide this unfinished space.

Many people assume that a balcony is always an inexpensive and smart way to expand. However, the floor system, structural framing, riser framing, handrails and multiple stairways are an additional expense not incurred when seating on the main level. The primary problem with balcony seating, however, is often not related to construction costs. Many people complain of feeling like spectators when sitting in a balcony, and balconies often do not provide good visibility of, or easy access to, the altar area. Furthermore, it’s simply difficult to see someone’s face beyond about 65 feet. Since the sight-line is downward, balcony handrails and the person in the row ahead often block the view as well. Problems related to the seats under the balcony may include columns, low ceilings and poor sound or lighting.

Some elements of good design include stairs or stadium seating on the sides with easy access to the main floor, two steps per row for added visibility, high-back pews to alleviate the fear of falling forward, glass or narrow rails in the upper half of balcony walls, and large-screen video monitors or projection screens.

Landscaping

While landscaping can add immensely to the value, beauty and comfort of a church site, most architectural firms do not provide detailed landscaping design in their scope of services unless specifically requested by the owner. Many jurisdictions will require a rudimentary landscaping plan consisting of a site plan indicating the location, type and size of new and existing trees and shrubs, areas of sod and mulch, as well as an erosion control plan. It is now common for permit authorities to require landscaping islands in the parking areas based upon the amount of pavement. These islands are usually located at the ends of parking rows. Landscaping islands, however, can become an impediment to snow removal. In transition yards (a green area separating the church parking lot or buildings from adjoining residential or commercial property) a screen of trees and shrubs is also often required by permit authorities.

Deciduous trees on the south and west of the building will shade and cool the church in summer yet let warming sunlight through the bare branches in winter. The church should select hardy plant types that require little maintenance. Keep in mind that the little shrubs being planted may quickly grow too large for their placement near parking spaces, sidewalks, and buildings.

The church should consider the benefits of good landscaping design. A knowledgeable landscape architect can be hired to develop a master plan for landscaping that can be developed over time as funds become available.…

June 1, 2020 Miracle

General

Sprinkler Systems – Landscaping and Fences Can Provide Challenges Irrigation Installers Can Overcome

Proper planning is a good start to saving time and money. Preparation and planning a lawn irrigation system and landscape design in the right order can save a lot of headaches. Without a good plan, continuous revising and reworking a layout can increase the costs substantially.

For the home owner considering installing a sprinkler system, installation of all the landscaping elements, plants, and fencing first is strongly recommended. There are several reasons for landscaping being the first step. Often landscapes can alter the drainage, reduce the area requiring irrigation, and actually block certain areas.

One of the first landscaping components to be installed, or at least marked out, is the fencing. While a chain link or wire fence will probably not interfere with any sprinkler spray pattern, the same can not be said of a six foot privacy fence or even a picket fence. Many times a home owner will install a fence after the sprinkler system without being aware that the fence is preventing the lawn from receiving the much needed water.

While one or two sprinkler heads can be relocated with some effort in order to accommodate the above scenario, many times the water coverage will still be insufficient. Depending upon the type of water source, adding several sprinkler heads to an already established layout can reduce the efficiency and water pressure thereby reducing the effectiveness of the entire sprinkler system.

The next order of importance is installing the larger shrubs and bushes. These elements can also block a sprinkler spray pattern, if not at the time of installation then after the plant has matured. A good irrigation designer will take into account the future growth pattern and size of the landscaping. Blocking a sprinkler head with bushes not only prevents the lawn from the necessary water, it can also cause injury to the bush by blasting a stream of water into it.

Some residential and commercial irrigation systems already installed are supplied by municipal water sources. A qualified irrigation installer can usually switch this to a well source almost always allowing the home owner to save money on monthly utilities. The cost of the well can range from $1300 to several thousand depending on the region and the type of ground material. Sandy soils are much easier to drill down into than a granite subsurface and therefore less expensive.

Even though there are various models of pumps with different horsepower ratings available, should the property size be on the larger square footage, more than one pump and well may be necessary. Multiple pumps may be able to run off of a single well, but should drought conditions occur and the water table dip near or below the depth of the well bottom, the well will be useless. Damage may befall the pumps as well.

It is always advisable to obtain multiple estimates from a few different irrigation specialists. Asking a lot of questions to each installer will be able to give the home owner a fair idea of the competency and allow the customer to compare one companies services with another. Just because one company undercuts another by a wide margin on price does not mean better quality. Trust in the idiom “you get what you pay for”.…

May 29, 2020 Miracle

General

Tips to Get a Great Looking Space Using Experts in the Field

Many people these days just love to have a garden that is really an extension of the home environment. Having this outside space will allow them to entertain, sit back and enjoy, or have a great place for the kids to run around in a safe environment. Chelsea landscaping will have all the right ideas to make this space into exactly what is needed and by consulting a Chelsea landscaper, the perfect outdoor space is there for the asking.

Of course, it could just be that the yard has become a boring and uninspired place to sit and the homeowner will be hard pressed to know what to do about this predicament. Having something as simple as a brick patio or wooden deck installed may be all that is needed to make the place useful again.

The experts will certainly listen to the needs and aspirations of the homeowner and work out a way to fit as much of these criteria as possible without it being over the top in price or design. Having the expert look at the place will in fact probably save on costs in the long run since the amateur will not take into account things like lighting, irrigation or suitability of plants and seating.

The first thing to be considered in most cases of course is the budget. No matter how tight this is, the expert will be able to say what is available within this guideline and may also suggest a better way of doing something to save on costs. Getting more ‘bang for the buck’ is probable if the right expert is chosen so finding someone with testimonials to look at is very important indeed.

Once the budget has been worked out, it is now time to get down to the business of design and this is where the expert will show himself. Making the most of existing planting, or moving plants and trees to a better suited place is possible but it does take some very careful planning to do this.

Things like water features and seating also have to be taken into consideration and these may take up a lot of the budget but these may well be worth it in the end. Irrigation systems can also be put in at the same time which will save inordinate amounts of time and trouble if the homeowner does not want to be running around with a garden hose at all hours of the day or night.

If the project looks like it may be a big one, it may be a good idea to phase the different aspects of the project in over some time. It is very important in this case to work closely with an expert in gardens to make sure that he fully understands what is needed. The need for continuity and the need to be able to use the garden throughout the transformation are of utmost importance since there may be some unavoidable but necessary hold ups along the way.…

May 25, 2020 Miracle

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DIY Aluminum Fence is Fine, But What About the Landscaping?

Home owners everywhere are trying to figure out the best ways to bring up their property values without spending too much money doing it. These are uncertain times and they are going to remain uncertain (particularly in the housing market) for quite some time; smart choices are necessary and a DIY aluminum fence is a very smart choice. For those of you who are not too familiar with Aluminum fence, I’ll explain below.

DIY aluminum fence is inexpensive to ship, easy to install, and incredibly durable. Because of aluminums light weight it is easy to shape and manipulate during the manufacturing process and even easier to load, ship, and deliver. Being a sturdy metal, despite its light weight, aluminum is a naturally long term investment that will not warp, crack, chip, or rust over time. It is an investment for home owners who wish to add security and elegance to their home while adding something valuable to the property as well.

Once you’ve decided on your fence you’re going to want to modify the existing landscaping to suit. This doesn’t really require much, depending on your fence and property type. If you have a lot of cement/gravel around the perimeter, consider terra cotta pots, decorative urns, or pot hangers. These can often be used effectively to add some green to otherwise desolate looking areas. Grassless lawns are also becoming quite the fad and compliment an aluminum fence of almost any color or style very well. Darker fence colors can be taken advantage of by planting particularly bright coloured plants and flowers; this will draw the garden out and the fence will work as a background enhancement to its beauty. Plants with white flowers, bright foliage, and night bloomers are all ideal; and when you go into your lawn in the moonlight, you’ll get a great glowing surprise!…

May 21, 2020 Miracle

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Landscaping Bark

Fall is the time when it is the most important to prepare your garden and yard for the upcoming spring. The work you do now will have a huge impact on the overall look and function of your garden when the weather finally turns back around. There are many different things that you can do to help give yourself a head start. One of the things that may be a good idea is to lay bark mulch so the soil will be in good condition when you are ready to plant.

There are many different types of bark that should be used for different applications. The first step in determining which type of bark will be best for you is to determine what the space will be used for. Will you be planting flowers or vegetables in the space? Are you just putting down the bark mulch to give a nice finished appearance to an empty planting box? These are a few of the questions that you will have to answer so you don’t find yourself waiting in the nursery waiting for a customer service person to help you with your bark questions.

If you are applying mulch to an area without plants you may want to go with some cheap shredded hardwood mulch. This type of bark is typically used on street plantings and is very cost effective. If you want to go with something that looks a little bit better you can spend a little more money and go with pine mini nuggets or colored bark mulch.

You can also use shredded hardwood bark mulch in an area where you are going to plant vegetation. This type of bark mulch is used widely by landscapers because it is one of the cheapest options and gives very good coverage. It provides a variety of benefits including minimizing weeds, preventing soil erosion and even provides nutrients to the soil.…

May 18, 2020 Miracle

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What to Expect When Hiring a Landscaper

Your landscape is an important part of your home. It is the first thing people see, and it greatly affects the overall value of your property. Therefore, it is important to hire a reliable garden landscaper to ensure effective results and quality service.

When choosing a garden landscaper you should be clear about whether you are looking for an update to your existing landscape or you want to remove everything and start from scratch. Like any typical designer, the contractor must be artistic and original with a good eye for design. If you already have a specific design in mind, a good designer will be able to follow your instructions but at the same time suggest other possible alterations that will make your lawn look better. A garden designer is trained for the job and can prevent stressful experiences while using their extensive knowledge about the plants, including what will fit the climate and soil, what will be low maintenance and what will have a long lasting positive effect on your garden, ultimately saving you the costs of having to plant and re-plant every year. A designer can look at your garden and immediately determine how to use the type of soil, light and other integrated elements to create a meaningful design.

It is very important to be comfortable with the contractor you hire. Most should be able to produce references from previous customers, or show you portfolios of previous work.

Be sure to ask questions. Do they have insurance and are they bonded? If something goes wrong, it will be very important that your landscaper is adequately covered to take on the liability of any loss. Is this landscaping contractor a member of any trade associations? This will ensure that they keep to a high level of quality and professionalism. Will the same people be doing the work each time? How much experience do they have? Can you change the type of service at any time without a penalty? Can you cancel the service without penalty if you are not satisfied? Are materials like fertilizer and sod included or do they charge extra?

Always get quotes from several landscaping companies so you can compare services and costs. A quote should include all fees as well as a description of exactly what work will be performed and at what times or intervals. This will give you the best impression of what you can expect to pay, and value for your money.

Make sure to get a written contract. Without a contract you are not protected. Do not have any work done until you are happy with what you can expect and both parties have signed their agreement to the expectations.…

May 12, 2020 Miracle

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The Christmas Tree Tradition

When setting up your tree this holiday season give thought to how we ever started the tradition. By understanding the history of the Christmas tree, we may then fully appreciate why this staple of Christmas decorum has become so universal.

Egyptian cultures may have been the first to worship evergreens, bringing palm leaves into their homes during the winter solstice as a symbol of life. The Romans, the Druids and the Germans through the Middle Ages celebrated the winter solstice in much the same manner. In fact, German settles are responsible for the introduction of the tradition in the United States in the early 1800s. The traditional size was tabletop and decorated with apples, but those trees were quickly replaced with floor-to-ceiling trees.

The Christmas tradition in the United States experienced steady growth at first. Many Puritans banned Christmas, as it was a pagan holiday. Over time, Christmas became more widely celebrated and tree decorating rose in popularity. In 1851, a farmer named Mark Carr hauled a shipment of evergreens to New York City and sold all of them. Two years later Franklin Pierce brought the Christmas tree to the White House. By the new century the tradition had spread to one in five American homes. Two decades later the tradition was nearly universal and continued to thrive.

The Great Depression of the 1930s launched the Christmas tree market to new heights. Nurserymen who were struggling to sell their harvested trees for landscaping decided to sell their evergreens at Christmas time. Franklin D. Roosevelt was skeptical of the Christmas tree tradition for fear of deforestation, but agreed to develop the evergreen harvest into Christmas tree farms. These cultivated trees were desired over wild ones because of their symmetrical shape.

By the 21st century approximately 25-30 million Christmas Trees are sold each year in the United States alone. The majority of these trees come from tree farms across the country. Scotch pines take the crown for most popular tree with about 40 percent of the tree trade; Douglas Firs are close behind with 35 percent of the market. Other common trees are the noble fir, white pine, balsam fir and white spruce.…

May 9, 2020 Miracle

General

The Benefits of a Home Sprinkler System

Beautifying and protecting your home is a worthwhile endeavor that involves careful planning and a lot of hard work. It is highly recommended that one personally supervise and direct the home sprinkler installations being done by skilled workers or repairmen. This will ensure that proper installations are being performed in your home garden keeping and it is well protected from sun and water damage. In order to have an idea on how these home sprinkler systems really work, one should consult the services of a professional landscaper. Knowing how sprinklers work is helpful in deciding what type of system you need for your home. The benefits derived from a proper home sprinkler system outweighs the costs of its installation.

Having a home sprinkler system will save you time from everyday garden maintenance. You will not be bothered with watering all those plants and flowers decorating the landscape of your garden. You can do a lot more household chores by choosing a reliable system. You will also have more time to relax and do some leisurely things. It will also ensure that everything in your garden will be watered equally and sufficiently.

With a home sprinkler system, a well-manicured green healthy lawn is possible. The grass, plants, and trees will receive sufficient and complete irrigation allowing them to grow healthier and more beautiful. The look of your garden will be more lush and verdant. You will be able to save on the services of professional gardeners if you can manage the operation of a home sprinkler system.

Most systems installed by a professional landscaper come fully-equipped with controlled timers. These controlled timers are very convenient to use. They make sure that your garden is watered at exact and regular times of the day. You can regulate the amount of water and time spent with this controlled timer feature. This will save you time and money too since you can control the frequency and intervals depending on the current weather and the gardening needs of your home.

The installation of a sprinkler system not only adds to the beauty, upkeep, and maintenance of the garden but it also greatly increases the value of your home. In case you decide to sell or lease your house, you can command a better price for it since most people who are looking for houses prefer to have gardens with existing reliable systems. Therefore, the benefits derived from a proper home sprinkler system outweighs the costs of its installation.…

May 4, 2020 Miracle

General

Hiring a Good Roofing Company

The roof is an integral part of any home and should be taken care of whether in terms of repair for an existing roof or when building a new house. This is the one area that defines a house as it not only completes the appearance of the house but also serves as protection for other parts of the house and household items as well.

Some people have fallen victim to “roofing experts” who are not experienced roofers and wound up with shoddy roof work. Some of the roofers will even leave the roofs looking worse than they did before the work began, which is why it is so important to take your time in choosing the right roofing company to work on your home.

The search: When looking for a good roofing company, it is always advisable to conduct research to find the best contractors in the area. It is better to choose a local company that has experience and a good reputation within your area to be sure that you will get what you are looking for in terms of your roofing needs.

References and referrals: The company you choose should be in a position to give you references, which is a list of past customers for whom they have worked. Referrals also means that you need to ask family and friends who have had their roofs worked on recently who did the work or simply ask neighbors whose roofs look stunningly well done which company did the work. You will be headed in the right direction in your endeavor to get a good company to do your work if you follow through with the referrals.

Licensing: It is very important to check to see that the roofing company you hire has its papers in order. It should be licensed and registered to offer the kind of services you require. It is reassuring to know that the people handling your property are well trained and knowledgeable. You can even take the time to research the background of the company to ensure that you have all the information you need.

Communication: Getting the job done does not mean only having your roof fixed. You also need to establish a working relationship with your roofing contractor. You should be able to get along with the professionals handling the work. For instance, they should listen to your needs and have the right answers for your questions and concerns.…

May 1, 2020 Miracle

General

Best Products For Bark Blowing

The most effective way to draw the looks of admiration from visitors is having a beautiful garden. However, decorating the garden and keeping it free from overgrown grass and weeds is a hectic job. One of the best ways to keep the garden tidy, neat and appealing, without spending much on maintenance is bark blowing.

Bark blowing Portland, Oregon is the best way to get high quality results in landscaping. A blower is used to apply the bark mulch uniformly all over the garden. Depending on size of the blower and the bark type, the process can be finished within minutes. Generally bark mulch is used in the playgrounds for kids. Small chips of bark create a unique and stylish surface. Bark can also be used for driveways. These are used in gardens for having a durable surface.

Another important aspect of using this is- growth of weeds is prevented, thereby reducing the cost of maintenance. Bark blowing is very popular in Portland as it gives a uniform application, along with enhancing the aesthetics. It also helps in eliminating unsightly piles of bark. Also it eliminates damage to plants, unlike other methods. Bark mulch applied by blowing method gives a special finished look which cannot be achieved by any other method. Bark mulch applied by blowing method gives a special finished look which no other method can provide. With a stream of high-velocity air, a bark blower applies correct quantity of bark mulch exactly where it is needed.

Best Buy In Town Landscape Supply service comes at incredible competitive prices. By having them blow in your bark, mulch, compost or topsoil blends, you will save money, time, and hard work. Along with the high quality products, they offer you other services that include- compost blowing, bark blowing, mulch blowing, supplying organic material, reducing weed growth, controlling erosion, helping control sediment from runoff, improving soil tilthe, and many more. You can also feel free to call them and get answers to questions about- blower application of bulk materials, power mulch, mushroom compost, pumice, landscape mulching, mud control topdressing, lawn renovation, over seeding, and erosion control mixes and systems. They are committed to serve you with the best. Once you avail their service, you will remain a satisfied and loyal customer for the rest of your life!…

April 29, 2020 Miracle

General

How to Maintain a Beautiful Garden and Landscape

Whenever a person needs to improve the look of their house, it is always advised to have a proper garden design. The landscaping garden ideas may include any form of flowers and plants that can be grown in a systematic and maintained order. This is because, if a garden is left unattended, weeds may grow and it will ruin the garden’s look. Hence garden design is very useful to control how the plants will grow in our backyards. The design is also the easiest way for a gardener or a landowner to help the plants grow the way he wants.

But the processes of garden design and landscaping are not as easy as they sound. It’s not a plant it and forget it type of deal. It involves a lot of hard work and dedication to maintain it. So the main things for both proper garden design and landscaping are planning. The proper space for the garden has to be decided beforehand, and sorted accordingly so there won’t be a huge mess while you’re trying to plant. The shape and size also matters in both the garden design and landscaping. If you have a lot of free open space, you can always plant some green grass to cover a major portion of the space with lawn. This can also be done by planting some small plants and trees and then spreading the lawn around them. This adds to the overall beauty of the garden.

Garden design and landscaping are nothing without proper maintenance. Weeds tend to grow every now and then. So most of the time you’re going to need to use a lawn mower. But keep in mind this needs to be planned also. This is because if proper space is not left between every plant and group of flowers, the lawn mower may not be able to reach those areas, thus getting in the way and causing you extra work. So it’s always a good idea to design the landscaping based on the instruments you use.

Planning softscape and hardscape is also an essential part of fulfilling all of your landscaping ideas for gardens. Hardscape usually means constructing solid bodies to facilitate the ease of growth and maintenance of the garden. This usually includes solid concrete paths for the flow of water, which is vital to the plants growth. Other structures such as stone walls and circular stones around the plants also fall under this category. Lighting for decorations and constructions of permanent solid structures are some of the most widely used hardscape methods. Softscape on the other hand involves the idea of planting lawn and green grass within a certain area.

Since a garden can add quite a bit to the scenic beauty of your house, it’s important that you pay attention to the type of plants you use – depending on the color of the house, the surrounding environment and much more. Careful precautions must also be taken on weed growth and maintaining the height of the plants. Don’t let your plants overgrow, and you should have beautiful, well-groomed garden.…

April 24, 2020 Miracle

General

Know the Chainsaw, Then Put It to Work

The new owner of a chainsaw should read the instruction manual that came with the product. The manual tells how to mix the fuel, how to mount the guide bar and chain and how to start it. Some models have a guard for hand holding the saw that also operates a chain brake. This is a safety feature that promptly stops the chain from running when that mechanism is tripped. The operator should be able to shut off the saw instinctively without looking or feeling for the switch. A good idea is to practice shutting it off without looking at the switch. Do this several times until it is a natural thing to do.

Electric-powered chainsaws are best used around a home where storms break off tree branches and often knock over trees, as they are much lighter to handle than a gas powered saw. Also, besides the weight, the pull start is quite difficult to manage for some people. In clearing away debris, it is best to use a folding hand saw for cutting off small branches and it clears the area for visibility when the saw is in use on the larger pieces.

Pruning limbs of standing trees with a chainsaw is best done if the pruner stands on the side of the trunk, away from the limb being pruned. The first cut should be made on the underside of the larger limbs, six inches away from the trunk. Complete the cut on the topside, a little way out on the limb. This will stop the stripping of bark from the tree, especially in the springtime, as that is when the bark begins to grow. Lastly, cut the short stub close to the trunk.

When the use of the chainsaw is mastered, put this machinery to work. It will help to clear lots, remove storm damage, create firewood and allow the building of structures for home, work and play.…

April 20, 2020 Miracle

General

Garden Enhancing Techniques

Use unique looking plants to enhance the look:

You have to fulfill your desire of growing plants in small spaces are huge acres of land are available to a very few only. Rugged mountain landscapes can help in recreating images in small garden spaces. With the availability of unique looking different types of plants you can enhance the look of the garden. An efficient looking rock garden will also allow you to grow the kinds of plants you desire.

Rock garden landscaping is one great idea as this has a kind of an informality best suited for the modern age. To have a rock water features you can add a waterfall, water pools, rock plants etc. which can be placed along with the other garden features.

You can do intensive gardening in small areas too:

As far as water pools are concerned you can make them of concrete. You can also get ready made water pools made of plastic and fiber glass which can be masked with stone and plants. It is an easy job looking after a rock garden. You can fulfill your desire of growing different type of plants in all the space you have in the garden. It is not necessary to have huge spaces to carry out intensive gardening.

You can make space for both tender plants like honeysuckles, and camellias and at the same time grow some decorative plants in the garden depending on your choice. If there is a manhole in the garden you can make use of plants to cover it.

Prostrate conifers help in blanketing the iron work in the garden. Covering up certain areas of the garden with shrubs etc. not only provide shade but also help in masking areas like drain pipes etc. which one does not like to see in a well groomed garden.…

April 16, 2020 Miracle

General

What Makes a Landscaping Project Great?

When entering the world of landscape design, we must approach this task with positivity. Embarking on a new landscaping project is a great way to explore your artistic and creative side, while also adding value to your home. The proper use of plants, trees, shrubs and flowers can draw attention to your property and accentuate parts of your home’s architecture and landscape. By hiring a reputable and experienced landscape company, you can definitely benefit from the expertise they provide and you can also be assured that your landscape can be maintained and is appropriate for your wants and needs.

The first step in starting a landscape project is figuring out your budget. You want to make sure that you can afford the costs of the project itself and you also want to factor in costs of future maintenance. You may find it easier to go ahead and contract your landscaping company to handle maintaining your new landscape, as you will always be assured that your property will look healthy and green throughout the year. When going over the financial obligations, make sure you always keep in mind that a well-groomed landscape actually adds value to your home. If you are planning on ever selling your home, then a manicured lawn and garden is a definite bonus and will show great pride of ownership and will also add significant curb appeal to your property.

Another great element to a landscaping project is that you can choose to add functionality to your home. This can be in the form of outdoor living areas, such as courtyards, walkways, arbors or a gazebo.

Experienced landscape companies will have landscape construction knowledge and can help you design such areas. Outdoor living areas can enhance your quality of life by allowing you to spend time with friends and family outside your home as well as inside, and will come in handy when having social gatherings or parties. Proper lighting and flora can add to this experience to give you a tranquil environment to relax in.

Landscape design is considered an art and should always be approached in this way. A great landscaping company can save you money and time by helping you learn what plants, flowers and trees will thrive in your location and how to properly take care of your landscaping to keep it healthy. Your landscape contractor can also introduce you to new ideas and techniques that you may not have thought of on your own – making a landscaping project enjoyable and educational as well.…

April 11, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping With Roses

When landscaping with roses, the key to a pretty yard design is the right touch of roses. Selecting the right class of rose will give you the design effect that you desire. Some roses are not good for landscaping because they are in a distinctive class. Landscaping with roses require planning. Because of the time of the year they are planted versus the time they start to blossom, you will need to plan for a spring garden of landscaping roses the winter before. You can plan a lay out and decide what it is you would like the roses to bring to your yard to best know how to use them in your landscaping. Roses can provide a beautiful ground cover, or a dramatic back drop for the home. Tree climbing roses can be made to grow up over a trellis or enhance a wall.

Some roses are harder to grow than others and will take some time. Invest that time to research the varieties that are more likely to survive in your climate and area. If you do not have the time to invest in growing the roses, there are easier varieties to grow that are more hardy. Roses play a major role when included in landscaping so they need to be in the best location to get the sunlight they require. They will need to be cared for properly through pruning and watering to maintain their health. Pests and diseases thrive on roses, and these problems can be prevented before you even plant the roses in the ground.

Climate is another thing to consider. In climates that are warmer, the color of the roses planted determines how successful it will be in the landscaping. The darker roses are more vulnerable to heat stress than the lighter ones are. In high heat climate areas the light pink, white and yellow roses will have a better chance of survival. If it is humid, the roses will not open all the way. They will start to ball up and only display brown edged petals. A gardener will want to know the agricultural zone to assist in the right selection of roses for a landscape. Some roses are supposed to be in cooler climates and will need to be planted in cooler garden conditions. Roses for the hot climate will die or freeze during the cold winter. There should be a zone chart at the local nursery that will assist you in the correct zone ratings. Roses can be planted out of zone but they will need extra care to survive.

Planning a garden is fun and exciting when you get to watch your plants grow. Roses are versatile plants but to get the most out of them, you will need to learn the proper care and maintenance you will need to provide for them. Fortunately landscaping with roses is not a hard task. Following the correct procedures will have you blooming perfect roses in no time, and leave you with a beautiful landscape.…

April 9, 2020 Miracle

General

6 Things to Consider Before Hiring Landscapers

Millions of people around the world love to garden and always try to create a beautiful space to enjoy all year long around their home. While most of them enjoy putting together a new garden each year, there are others who would like to invest into their land and create a functional and creative space that can last through the years. The latter can become very time consuming and cost a lot of money if done improperly, which is why many choose to hire professional landscapers to offer their own professional advice, take care of the work that needs to be done to achieve the job and design according to the customer’s specifications and needs.

Before looking through a list of all of the landscapers in your area, there are a few things that you should consider in order to choose the best company for the job. It’s certainly not a quick cheap job that you want, but an important investment done by professionals.

Reputation

First and foremost ask around to see if anyone knows of a good landscaping company or individual contractor. Word of mouth advertising and a good reputation is usually a very good start for a great landscaper. If you find a few companies who advertise in the area, always check their reviews from previous clients by doing a quick search online or with others that may have ties in the business.

License and Credentials

Always check their license and credentials to make sure they really know what they’re talking about. This is especially important to give you the peace of mind knowing professionally trained staff is taking care of your investment and not ripping you off.

Since many people have big landscaping jobs done for their homes, there will be a lot of work that could potentially go wrong or cause a disaster with power and sewage lines if left in inexperienced hands.

Professionalism

When you take the time to talk with some potential landscapers, make a note about their professionalism. Do they take the time to explain everything or try to hurry through with a contract?

Ask a lot of questions and voice any concerns that you may have to see how they respond to them. If they are courteous and informative, rather than pushy or defensive, it will give you a good idea with how their business is run.

Portfolio

Ask landscapers for their portfolio. Every professional landscaping company will have a portfolio of previously done work to show prospective clients what they are capable of doing. This is always a great way to find out if they have the design sense and style that you would like for your property. Even if you don’t have any ideas about the style you would like, looking through their work and asking for their professional advice can certainly help a lot.

If they are new in the business or do not have samples of their work, it’s better to keep looking for someone else who will be able to take care of your investment.

Insurance

One of the most important things to look for when you’re in the final deciding stages of choosing someone from your list of landscapers, is to look out for companies that are not under something like a business liability insurance or have staff who are not under a worker’s compensation insurance policy.

Insurance is very important for your protection to make sure you are not liable if the company damages something or a worker is injured on your property.

Cost

Finally, ask for an estimate on the work that you would like done on your property. Research the type of work you would like along with a list of other landscaping companies and their prices. This is the best way to get the most competitive price and more for your investment.…

April 3, 2020 Miracle

General

Rubber Mulch for Sustainable Landscapes

As environmental awareness increases, more and more programs are being developed to help decrease man’s carbon footprint. Landscapes and gardens have been included in the list as well. One great way of maintaining more sustainable yard or property landscapes is by using rubber mulch. Here are some ways rubber mulch does its part in upholding a future for the coming generations.

Long-lasting Recycled Material

The more rubber mulch we use, the less landfill we have. Rubber mulch comes from old and scrapped tires. It decomposes very slowly and does not fade in color. It lasts longer than other organic mulch products and doesn’t need to be replaced often. This is where the savings come in, since most mulch requires a lot of tending and replacement.

Ground Water Advocate

Rubber mulch is made of permeable material and does not hold water. Rain water, for example, would simply seep downwards. With the proper collection systems installed underneath, the rain will reach ground water instead of just storm drains. This will recharge the ground water, which tends to be neglected due to the existing waterway systems and cement foundations that we have in place.

Weatherproof Crumbs

Since water doesn’t stay on the surface, fields made of rubber mulch do not get muddy. They also do not gather dust. The pieces are heavy enough not get carried by the wind as well. Storm waters don’t stay on the surface either, making it an effective deterrent against floods and river overflows.

Shock Absorbent Matter

The leading reason why rubber mulch is used in athletic fields, playgrounds and horse arenas is its ability to absorb falls. Runners bounce more and feel less stress on each footfall. Parents relax more and worry less about scraped knees or broken bones. Horses run faster as their hooves feel less strain.

Temperature Regulator

Rubber is a good insulator. As mulch, it helps the soil moderate heat. This is especially true of darker colored mulch that absorbs more heat. Be careful in areas notorious for forest fires, though, as this material can accelerate the fire as well as wood chips and hay can.

The use of rubber mulch is one more way of doing your part in saving the environment. Its use can also make the landscape more attractive with the variety of colors that it comes in. Just make sure the vibrant color doesn’t overpower the rest of your lawn, garden or overall landscape.…

March 31, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscape Edging Ideas – Professional Landscaping Software

Landscaping Ideas and Software for Your Garden

The garden of the house reflects homeowner’s personality thus a refreshing garden with stunning design landscape will make them the most unique, admired and talked-about in their neighborhood. Likewise, landscaping your own beautiful garden could be the most rewarding and enjoyable thing you’ll ever do.

Flower gardens, eye catching landscapes and outdoor areas that please the senses and offer a wonderful escape from the daily pressures of life can be enhanced. How? To enhance your garden, landscape designs should follow certain principles and rules to meet your desire. Landscape design must include walls, sitting areas, focal points, ornaments, paths and right plants themselves. Innovation in keeping the garden stylish and how to use the whole landscape are the keys. Today landscapes have changed into extraordinary feats and all in new level.

Whether you desire to create either as small or large scale landscape design you must take the time to plan ahead since this is the starting point to obtain a successfully landscaped yard you’ve always wanted. It should incorporate artistic elements with principles of designs such as uniqueness, balance, transition, proportion, rhythm, repetition and simplicity. Proper planning, analysis and exploiting landscape ideas such as landscape edging ideas and landscaping ideas for slopes lead into functional, harmonious and aesthetically pleasant outdoor living area.

Landscape planning deals with conceptual, scientific and design approaches that emphasize ecological understanding and multi-disciplinary approach to analysis, planning and design. Landscaping ideas should be embraced in landscaping plan as this is a combination of art and science synchronizes aesthetically for better outcomes.

However, Landscaping may encounter problems particularly in houses above street levels such as slopes. Hence landscaping ideas for slope should be employ to get a solution. These ideas suggest using simple cost-effective solutions like ground covers, terracing regarding and retaining walls. Dealing with backyard landscapes, landscape edging ideas plays a vital role. Its purpose is to make a well define line between bed and lawns, and keeps the turf grass, from invading the buds, plus it keeps soil and mulch from spilling over into the lawn.

With so many different types of decorative edging available and looking for the right landscape edging materials is not simple; therefore it would be great if you will use the landscaping software that gives you perfect visual images for your garden. Professional landscaping software is user friendly featuring the architectural graphic symbols. These architectural symbols may include trees and shrubs, outdoor furniture, people, playground sets, vehicles, swimming pools and variety of shapes, materials and colors and many other landscaping decorations. In fact a lot of home owners and garden users use these. It can save your time, money as well as unnecessary work in the long run.

Landscaping ideas either for the slopes or backyards of the garden possess different components of arts and principles. A landscaping architect could help you to implement these best landscaping ideas efficiently to accomplish a great finishing look to your garden effectively.…

March 27, 2020 Miracle

General

Add a Wood Pergola to Your Landscape!

1. Locate. Set The Posts. Once you’ve found the perfect location for your new pergola, you will need to locate and place four posts. You can pick up a post-hole digger at a reasonable price at your local hardware store, or you can make the job easier with an auger. You will want to dig your holes 12″ wide and about 2′ deep. Add some loose rock or gravel to the bottom of each hole for proper drainage. Place your 4×4 posts into each hole, making sure they are completely level all around. Pick up several bags of QuikreteAï¿½, mix with water, and set the posts according to the instructions.

2. Attach Joist Beams. Use 2×10 lumber for your joist beams and cut them to Cut joist beams from 2×10 boards and bridge them across the set posts. You can get creative with the ends of the joist beams by using a jigsaw to cut a decorative pattern in the beam ends. Use your imagination. Clamp the beams in place while you drill out the holes in the joist beams and posts. Finally, attach the beams to the posts with 3″ lag bolts.

3. Cut And Attach The Stringers. Use 2×6 boards to span the posts and overhang the joist beams. Again, you can get creative here by using a jigsaw for a decorative cut and look. Stringers should be evenly spaced with 3″ deck screws (galvanized).

A pergola provides an attractive sanctuary to your home’s landscape. Building a pergola is a nice, weekend DIY project for many homeowners, but be sure to call a professional contractor if the job’s a bit too much for your skillset.…

March 24, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping Your Pool

You’ve done it! You’ve built a pool in your backyard! Whether it’s of the above-ground variety of the in-ground variety, seeing a pool in the backyard is a dream come true for many homeowners. But as big an accomplishment as it is to have the pool in place, the real work is just beginning for you and your family.

Pool landscaping is almost as important a project as installing the pool itself. You want the area surrounding the pool to be as attractive and inviting as that crystal clear blue water. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to enhance the pool and the land around it, no matter how big or small your new pool may be.

If you have a small above-ground pool, landscaping a pool can be as simple as planting plants and putting in some mulch or stone chips around the base. This will provide an attractive sight as your guests walk from the house towards the pool. Mix up the colors of your plants and stone to give the area a rich, kaleidoscope-type look. In addition, building a stone step walkway between the house and the pool will lend an air of elegance and palatial formality.

An in-ground pool certainly provides more landscaping opportunities and choices, many of which will be challengingly complex. You can of course add all sorts of plants and trees around the pool and give yourself some extra shade while in the water. Give your backyard a tropical look with some long ferns or palm frond-type plants, and maybe even a palm tree or two!

Another option, too, is to surround the pool with a walkway made of brick, paving stones or cobblestones. Such a walkway, when juxtaposed against a bright green yard, will make for an eye-catching sight.

Pool landscaping, for an in-ground pool, can get as glamorous and as extravagant as you want. We’re talking waterfalls here! That’s right; you can have a cascading waterfall pouring right into your in-ground pool. Add a rotunda-like entrance and feel like royalty every single time you head out of the house and towards the pool!

There are countless ways to begin landscaping a pool. It’s a good idea to narrow down the possibilities and receive expert guidance from a landscaping professional. By hiring an experienced landscaper, landscaping your pool can be a much more cost-effective and efficient process than trying to do it all yourself. Professional landscapers have years of accumulated knowledge about plant root systems, which plants grow best in sun or shade, and which types of materials give you the most beauty and durability for your dollar. So when you have a plan for landscaping your pool, contact a reliable pool landscaping professional in your area and start enjoying your outdoor spaces.

Remember, with the right professional landscaping team, landscaping a pool can be almost as much fun as choosing to build the pool in the first place. With the spring and warmer temperatures finally here, there is no better time than right now to being planning your pool landscaping projects for this summer. Get going today-and enjoy the process as much as the final result!…

March 18, 2020 Miracle

General

How to Hire a Sustainable Landscaper

Whether you are looking to increase the value of your home or simply create an enhanced outdoor living space for your enjoyment, a sustainable landscape can be a great investment. Sustainable landscaping refers to low-impact and low-maintenance landscaping apt for a particular area and climate. For example, a backyard that utilizes sustainable landscaping may have native, drought-resistant plants which require little watering.

When it comes to hiring a sustainable landscape designer, not all are created equal and companies that assert they are environmentally-friendly and sustainable may not live up to such claims. Here are six tips to help ensure you hire a truly sustainable landscaper:

1. Do your homework! Research as much as possible on prospective designers. Browse through their websites, read their mission statements or frequently asked questions and find out who their preferred vendors are (or who they regularly work or contract with). Furthermore, ask for references of prior clients and inquire if you can see previous work of theirs. Due diligence is essential if you expect to hire a truly sustainable landscaper.

2. Find out what types of products they regularly use and would recommend – everything from eco-friendly landscaping tools to natural herbicides. A truly sustainable landscaper will have no hesitation telling you exactly what they use and why.

3. Have prospective designers detail how they would complete your landscape project from start to finish in a sustainable manner. This will give you a good idea if the landscaper is knowledgeable and skilled in sustainable landscape design and installation.

4. Ask about watering practices and sprinkler installation. Any good, reputable sustainable landscaper will offer a handful of solutions designed to limit water use in their landscape design.

5. Inquire about professional accreditation or membership from sustainable organizations. For example, they might be a member of the Coalition of Organic Landscapers (also known as COOL), which is an organization of professional landscapers committed to organic and sustainable garden design and care.

6. Ask about eco-friendly and organic practices they routinely utilize. For instance, do they offer plants and shrubs that have not been treated with fertilizer or other chemicals? Or do they practice effective erosion and sediment control on every landscape job?…

March 15, 2020 Miracle

General

3 Uses for Leaf Blowers

Leaves

Of course, the most obvious use for leaf blowers is to corral fallen leaves into a pile. Whether the homeowner cleans them up every few days or waits until they are almost finished to put them in a pile is a matter of personal preference. It also depends on how many and what kind of trees are on the property. When leaves are ankle deep or higher, it is time to break out the leaf blower and put them into a section of the yard or a pile. Some municipalities will go through neighborhoods with a machine that sucks them up from curbside. Others leave it up to the homeowner on how to dispose of them. While autumn is the most prolific time of year for leaves to land in the yard, it is not the only time. Some types of trees, like river birches for example, lose their leaves year-round and cause a constant need to blow them away.

Grass Clippings

Weekly lawn maintenance requires mowing, trimming, edging and blowing. As professional landscaping companies have known for years, the yard looks better when all of the grass clippings, hedge trimmings and errant pine cones do not litter the front walk and driveway. Using a leaf blower to clean up the walkways and fence lines gives property a neat, clean and professional appearance. It also keeps the lawn healthy and prevents the debris from blocking sunlight on the grass.

Air Ball

All work and no play makes the outdoors more boring. For a little bit of extra fun when the yard work is done, grab a few neighbors, pull out the leaf blowers and play a game of air ball. Wad up a sheet of newspaper or even use an errant paper cup as a ball. Establish teams, boundaries and goals. Feel free to improvise, using lawn chairs, empty flower pots and bushes as goal posts. Use the leaf blowers to corral the ball between the goal posts, scoring a point for each goal. This is especially fun for landscaping crews, where everyone has a blower and all have skill.…

March 11, 2020 Miracle

General

Backyard Landscaping Designs

Mainly designed for entertainment purposes and for extended living areas, backyard landscaping designs can be as detailed as needed to gain the look desired. Taking time to draw out a design is important. This design should include plans for existing trees and shrubberies, retaining walls, fences and backyard structures. Backyard landscaping designs need to be well thought out and planned. Use and function of the layout should be the first designing step. Privacy issues with neighbors, pet issues, and stray animals need to be addressed when planning the landscape design. Play areas and entertainment areas need to be well planned for.

An ugly fence or chain linked fence can be covered up by a tree line or shrubbery line that will bank against it properly. Use this period of designing to think about planting for noise and privacy reasons. Most landscaping designs flow freely with no set structuring other than being pleasing to the eyes of the beholder. Existing patio areas and pools should be carefully designed around to keep entertainment value high. Crowding plants around in haphazard ways is not an option when it comes to seating arrangements. Boxy seating areas are not as pleasing to the eye as those that curve and curl around a seating area on two sides or more. Every corner should be taken into consideration by the height of plants needed for privacy. Proper walking paths can be scattered with pea gravel or set with occasional stepping stones winding through the landscaping design. Pavers are also ideal path material and can be used, as to avoid having to edge the landscaped area with edging material.

Often, a plant or shrub can be safely moved to be incorporated into the design. Large trees may take more planning. Talking with a local nursery about moving larger planted trees, like fruit trees, is recommended. Planning the move for existing plants should be done when they are in their dormant state to avoid any potential re-rooting problems. The design stage should also include a nearby water source for landscape watering, or a water irrigation design should be added. It is recommended that all waterlines, underground cable lines, electric line, phone lines and gas lines be well marked beforehand. Calling the local utility and power company is a good idea before ever digging up a yard.

Once the backyard landscaping designs are drawn and finished, plants, trees, water structures and pavers or stepping stones need to be bought. Plants, trees and shrubbery should be chosen for their beauty as well as their hardiness. Make sure the plants that are bought for the landscaping project are properly zoned for the area. A local nursery or landscaping magazine will have this information. Native plants should be used, not only for the existing wildlife species, but because invasive species tend to become aggressive and quickly take over the design, often killing off native species.

Water fountains and backyard water ponds lend artistic and architectural value to backyard landscaping designs. Plants that are known water species or tolerate wet soil conditions should be easy to find and establish in and around these water features. If fish are added to the water pond, a good investment would be a pond mesh covering to keep birds from fishing in the pond. Additional features to add around ponds and fountains are beautiful riverbed rocks and small landscaping boulders. Lights that light these features up at night can add even more interest to the landscape. Solar light kits are the most popular and most cost-effective to use.…

March 8, 2020 Miracle

General

Sustainable Landscaping

It would seem like an obvious first step for the sustainability movement, wouldn’t all landscaping companies want to show their green thumb and apply practices that protect the plants and lawns they work so hard to manicure and create? While you might think so it is actually an industry that is riddled with opportunities to apply green technology and sustainable practices, yet with fewer companies than expected jumping on board.

Perhaps it is the history of landscaping which is anchored by a strong need for gas powered engines to run everything from leaf blowers to lawn mowers. Perhaps it is the need to quickly and effectively work through a high quantity of jobs to maintain a consistent profit margin and stay in business. Or perhaps it is simply old habits keeping the adoption of newer practices from obtaining mainstream use… It is a new topic for many groundskeepers, landscapers and small business owners and many might be hesitant to adopt new practices and buy sometimes expensive equipment, not sure if it will work with the same efficiency expected.

Even simple and inexpensive practices such as planting native plants over imported or utilizing proper tree location to shade and allow heat to a house during the summer and winter months, though common knowledge to most, is not even always applied. One of the keys is simply the economics of the landscaping business, it is one in which high volume and low profit margins, thus quantity will win over quality more often than not. Now this is not to say that landscaping companies do not do good work or do not care about quality, they certainly do to still be in business. What it means is that with small profit margins per job they are forced to make cost saving decisions in order to profit on the job and give the client what they desire, which is a green lawn that the neighbors will be jealous of.

One of the largest areas for growth in the green and sustainable landscaping business will be pairing up with home energy auditors and providing an all-in-one service that incorporates the total home energy picture as whole and not just as many separate parts. As the energy auditor notices that one side of the house is heating up far more during certain winter months than the other side due to the trajectory of the sun in the sky, a landscaping specialist can be recommending tree types and planting locations that will maximize the amount of energy that nature already provides the homeowner.

This can go as far as to think of the house and yard as one and not as two separate entities as is commonly thought among appraisers. If the energy systems of the house are optimized to work best with the landscape of the yard around it we move one step closer to sustainability as we find a better balance with nature.

This is just one way in which sustainability and advances in green technology could be applied along the best basic of levels to obtain a meaningful and lasting impact on our world, one household at a time.…

March 5, 2020 Miracle

General

Why You Need Concrete Landscaping And Stone Walls

When you hear the phrase concrete you might not believe that it would be something you desire in your garden but as a matter of fact, concrete landscaping has come along way in the last decade or so. Today concrete landscaping is all the rage and it is really pretty as well.

Stone walls are a favourable type of concrete landscaping that’s actually caught on like wildfire. The walls are what will border your whole garden. They can be built to a very high standard and steel railings could be used on top to add more beauty. There are several additional reasons why you should have concrete landscaping such as walls as well. These walls are ideal for preventing your pet from leaving your garden. If your dog is prone to head for the hills then check out these sort of landscaping. These walls are in addition to really good for keeping out intruders. The more difficult your house is to enter the less likely burglars will beAï¿½ bothering you. So check up on these type of landscaping and speak to a professional person about them.

Also you will be able to use concrete to hold your soil in place. If there is a region of your backyard that your are inclined to slipping on then you’ll be able to build a retention wall explicitly for this purpose. The greatest thing about concrete is that whilst it may be functional you are able to make it appear as though it is there just for looks. There is indeed very much that you’ll be able to do with concrete because it is easy to work with. You may use concrete landscaping bricks or you can employ concrete slabs or custom made concrete stones.…

March 2, 2020 Miracle

General

The Basics of a Healthy Yard and a Healthy Mind

Not everyone knows the importance of a well landscaped yard. Good landscaping, plays a bigger role in your mental health. It also helps to facilitate social networking in our neighborhoods. Your home is something to be proud of. When you come home to a beautiful yard, the mind gets uplifted and your happiness increases. Your neighbors will see your yard more than they will see you. This makes your yard an important part of your social image. With a well landscaped yard people will respect you more and have a higher opinion of you. Landscaping the yard gives you reason to be outside. In this time neighbors will talk to you and friendships can be formed.

With all the benefits of a well landscaped yard you many be thinking, “How do I achieve such a yard?” Here are some tips to make this reality.

The first step is to start with a good base. It is important to have rich top soil. This is one of the hardest steps. Rich soil is hard to buy. If you have rich soil to start with you are lucky. Good soil takes time but is worth it in the long run. Focus on key areas first, like the flower beds. Mixing compost into the soil gives the best results. For the lawn, have your local landscaper lime and fertilize once a year. It’s also important to plant with good ground-cover that will not remove nutrients from the soil. Although your plant will still grow in poor soil, it will take much longer for it to thrive and become established. However, good top soil will also help weeds, which will mean you’ll have to control the weeds.

The second tip is to keep weeds under control. It will be worth it because your plant will ultimately grow faster and stronger, thus eliminating the bare areas where weeds grow. Weeds that are left to grow will destroy your grass and make your flower beds look mess and wild. Lawn weeds are unsightly and spread to your neighbors lawn. Your neighbors will quickly lose respect for you, if you create more work for them. If your weeds get out of control, landscapers only have to options. Remove the old lawn and reseed or spend hours removing weeds manually. All this trouble can be avoided by taking a little time each week and remove weeds the show up.

The most important tip is to have a landscaper you can trust. Having someone to help with the big landscaping projects can take your yard to the next level of perfection.…

February 27, 2020 Miracle

General

Great Ideas For Gorgeous Landscaping

A wonderful landscape will leave all of the homeowner’s neighbors jealous of the rich scenery. In order to make the outward appearance of a home more pleasant, there are a handful of steps someone can take.

When a person first begins living in a new home, oftentimes there is already some basic yard work completed. While the design may not be exactly what the resident has in mind, some of it may be able to be used in his or her design. Usually, some of a previous landscape has the ability to be used as a basis of the new owner’s layout. Because of this, leaving the previous shrubbery in the initial stages may save money in the long run.

For yards with a substantial amount of space, it is a good idea to divide the planting into several different components. The average gardener may feel incredible overcome with the grand amount of area. Taking a project, no matter how large or small, into smaller sections will make the entire undertaking a lot less stressful. Also, larger yards will require more plants, thus taking everything one section at a time will be easier on a budget.

The time of the year in which every plant will bloom is more important than one might think. If Section A has plants which all bloom during fall, and Section B has plants which only bloom in the spring, then the entire yard will be constantly off balance. Providing seasonal continuity throughout the yard will make it much more beautiful.

Hard, stone or concrete foundations, such as walkways and rocks, must always be protected from roots. If these begin to plague surfaces, your garden will quickly become overran. In order to avoid this from happening, keep all trees at far intervals from such places.

Many gardens have an abundance of accessories such as bricks and stones. While these are typically expensive at the store, many demolition sites are overflowing with such things. Oftentimes, the site owners will give these to gardeners without charge.

If the homeowner has enough time on his or her hands, then he or she can do the gardening instead of hiring a landscaper. When working with professionals, everything, including the herbs, are much more expensive. Doing the gardening alone saves money.

The ability to be creative is essential to gorgeous landscaping. A beautiful product can only occur when the planter allows his or her personality to shimmer through the entire estate. With the time a gardener spends in the heat sowing the seeds, a piece of them is left behind which glistens throughout the yard.…

February 24, 2020 Miracle

General

9 Tips You Must Know Before You Start Your Garden Landscaping Project

Nowadays, everyone wishes to spend his/her precious time with the beauty of nature. For this, most of the individuals love to have garden in their home. Landscaping and gardening are the two key points which must be considered in mind, if you are thinking to enjoy and entertain yourself with the loveliness of nature’s beauty. The attractiveness of garden can be easily enhanced with the help of landscaping.

Garden landscape design is dependent upon the type of garden you are seeking to create taking into account the person for whom it is required and the effect they seek to portray. There are several tips which must be considered before starting landscaping and gardening. The 9 tips to design a beautiful landscape are as follows:

1.Firstly clean the backyard by mowing the long grass, and then add chemicals or pesticides so as to keep it free from harmful bacteria’s and germs.

2.Grease in the cemented area of garden must be removed; it can be done with the help Lestoil or tri sodium phosphate.

3.The wooden deck in garden must also be cleaned with the help of detergent same as done with cemented area.

4. Planning

One of the most important points of garden landscape design is the planning process. Nothing is more frustrating than embarking upon a project without enough thought or deliberation, when realization creeps in that the desired effect has been overlooked.

5. Originality

Originality is shown by copying ideas from others that can be modified to produce a more personal effect. To duplicate the complete design of a neighbor’s garden shows lack of thought and consideration.

6. Spontaneity

Whereas the theme of your garden should have some form of ord er, arranging flowers or shrubs regimentally does not provide an overall serene effect. This is why spontaneity to some extent is required.

7. Color

Color, not only displayed in plants and shrubs, can also be prominent in accompanying features. For instance, dark stained railway sleepers as steps, terracotta pots strategically placed, stained rustic arches and even colored patio slabs can all enhance the overall effect of what you are attempting to achieve.

8. Balance

An element of balance is necessary, to experience the right feel and theme to be illustrated and in doing so, obtains an element of peace and tranquility enabling the daily rigors of life to be overcome. Similarly, there is no better feeling than being close to nature in the environment that has been designed and created by you.

9. Privacy

Although some people may not mind being overlooked, for the majority, privacy is of the utmost importance and is usually one of the most essential features of garden landscape design.…

February 20, 2020 Miracle

General

Outdoor Garden Statues – Yard Decoration 101

A beautiful garden in the backyard adds so much enjoyment to a home life. You can relax walking leisurely on a soft path, smell the gentle and heady fragrances of various herbs and flowers, see a thousand different shades of green colors of the leaves, or hear the tranquil sound of a water fountain, or watch various birds flying in and out of a birdhouse or around a bird feeder. And of course you can decorate it with outdoor garden statues, which bring art form into a peaceful nature setting.

Statue Themes

Big hardware stores sell outdoor statues in the garden department. The selections may be limited. But they will give you ideas. For example, frog statues blend well in most situations so it’s easy to find a place for them in the garden. Boy or girl statues are popular also. Putting them near a bench will look like the garden has some constant visitors. Gnome statues attract the attention of children endlessly and will add a fairy-tale atmosphere to the garden for them. That is, if the garden is landscaped to have some hidden area like the maze, then it could be an amazing playground for them.

Adding statuary into a garden is an art project, like decorating a room or a house. At first it can be anything that looks interesting. Even a piece of rock can be a statue. You can select a rock that have unusual shape or colors, or just pile several pieces of ordinary rock together to form a pyramid. But it’s hard to make a rock statue look good. In Japan a rock garden is a form of spiritual discipline meant for concentration and reflection.

Start with a few simple and inexpensive outdoor statues and experiment with them. Put them here and there in the garden. Rearrange them. Maybe add a wind chime. Pretty soon you will have a garden with style!…

February 17, 2020 Miracle

General

Want To Increase The Value Of Your Home? Implement A Good Landscape Design

It is said that a greatly executed landscape design adds up to around 20% more value to one’s home. That is why a lot of people nowadays are looking into this to maximize the valuation of their home especially when they are thinking of selling it. However, as a homeowner, you should also be discerning when it comes to hiring a landscape design firm who will do the beautification job for you. Because you can never be too sure for some firms are out just to make money for themselves and not really concerned about the welfare of their clients and their homes.

In order to make sure that your landscape contractor is a legitimate one, check with the your local county to see if they have the necessary permits to operate a business in your area. If their papers are in order, then rest assured that you are dealing with a good one. The next thing you can do is to get feedback from their previous clients regarding the quality of their work. You can also research in online forums wherein people freely discuss the merits and demerits of these kinds of services. Also, make sure that you meet with the contractor personally so that you will be able to assess for yourself if this is indeed the kind of firm that you want to work with.

Getting the right contractor to do your landscape design and overhaul of your garden is important so that you will be able to fully maximize the profits given the additional value it imparts to your home when the project is completed. First of all, the items that they use in your yard should be of high quality standards that will last a long time. In the case of installing a sprinkler system, you may end up paying more for what you paid for because of the amount of water that it wastes. Your contractor should be able to get the right balance of the amount of water to put out so as not to lose it to evaporation because of over spraying. It might be best to check first the water plan your contractor plans to put into place in your garden for there are other methods of distributing water all throughout the entire area like the drip method. Those methods may be more economical for you in the long run.

Another pro point with signing up with the right contractor is that they will know which kind of plants to use given the present conditions of your area including the soil and the temperature and the amount of sunshine the place gets. These professionals don’t just place plants just because they look pretty especially when the blooms are in season. They would know how to utilize each kind of plant that will not just beautify your surroundings but also serve a purpose like repelling insects and other animals. This is important especially when you live in an area where your yard tends to become the playground of wild animals. Also you would be able to save on costs, as they would not be placing expensive plants that they know would not survive in environment that your place has.

These are just some pointers of how to go about in choosing the right landscape design contractor. Remember that getting the right one to work with you on this project will mean more savings and bigger profit. Visit the right industry website to point you to the right direction.…

February 15, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping Maintenance Tips

Landscaping is a creative activity and provides an excellent platform for anyone overflowing with natural artistic juices. It is especially pleasing for those avid gardeners that truly want to display their inner talent and leave friends and family literally green with envy. Filling your garden with your own ideas and preferences can certainly work well after careful consideration and planning.

Magnificent blooms and healthy growth is one of the many rewards that nature provides for the conscientious gardener. A beautiful landscape does require a certain amount of maintenance on a regular basis to keep it looking attractive and inspirational.

The effort put into maintenance work certainly pays off very well. An overgrown garden filled with weeds and grasses is a sight for sore eyes. An unkempt lawn has about the same effect. A garden is in many instances an indication of how well your house is maintained. A lovely, well kept garden can make a visitor feel quite relaxed and at ease.

One of the worst gardening nightmares is to try and remove tough indigenous grass that has firmly established itself in between the flowerbeds, shrubs and groundcovers. Trying to pull them out seems to be a fruitless attempt as they simply grow back. The damage done to the beds in the process can leave one horrified. There is a solution to this problem. By carefully applying weed control solution directly onto the unwanted grass and weeds is the cure. Using rubber gloves dip your fingers into the herbicide and stroke it on to the blades and any other unwanted foliage. It is time consuming but it does work after a few applications done over a short period of time. The added advantage is that none of the good plants will be destroyed in the process and the invaders are well under control.

Lawn maintenance is another area that needs constant attention. One of the most valuable tips on having a luscious lawn is keep the cutting length at around five centimeters. This means that you will have to cut more often but the final outcome will be a healthy, thick stretch. It certainly helps to keep lawnmower blades sharp to prevent disease. Also refrain from cutting during the midday sun as this can do untold damage. Lawns require frequent watering and fertilizer to keep a tip top condition. An appropriate irrigation system complete with timer is a worthwhile investment if you have a large lawn area. It also takes out the guesswork of over or under watering an area.

This also applies to other parts of the garden. As some plants require more moisture than others it would be beneficial to group the thirsty ones together. Water is a valuable commodity and determining and using the required amounts for your garden can contribute to huge savings in the long run.

Using mulch in your beddings during the hot summer months keeps the soil moist. Mulch as well as compost helps the soil to maintain a good organic standard.…

February 11, 2020 Miracle

General

Masonry and Hardscapes – The Path to a Beautiful Yard

While the trellis covered with roses is still a beautiful hardscape for the yard, intricate hardscapes now enhance the appearance of your yard and the curb appeal of your home. Hidden gardens with statues, seating and masonry create interest areas but also places for a peaceful retreat.

Stone and masonry add their own dimension to the colorful surroundings of the yard and garden. If you don’t have a flower garden or blooming bushes, the masonry becomes the accent of color in what would otherwise be a drab appearing yard.

Imagine the peace and tranquility, which comes from sitting in your quiet yard and listening to the sounds made by pond with a waterfall. Water features made with combinations of natural stone and brick create a peaceful environment and take you away from all the troubles you experience throughout the day. The addition of brick pathways to this miniature paradise that’s a pleasure to the eyes, the senses and the spirit add continuity to the focal point of this type of hardscaping.

Masonry patios are not only interesting and add to the beauty of the home, they are functional also. The addition of stone and masonry turns unused space of the backyard into a valuable addition to the worth of your home. An outdoor fireplace or fire pit is not just a focal point for your yard but provides a place where the family gathers and friends feel comfortable.

Another popular item that many backyard patios include is a gourmet kitchen. Outdoor cooking is far more sophisticated than simply bringing out the charcoal grill. It now includes more modern cookware with stone countertops and built-in refrigerator units. These outdoor cooking areas make trips to the kitchen unnecessary. Imagine putting on your food in the oven and sitting back in a comfortable chair soaking in the beauty of Mother Nature and your back yard. These types of outdoor kitchens are now becoming more popular than ever.

Retaining walls and decorative walls not only enhance the focal points of the land but also bring an air of elegance to the entire landscape. You can highlight small garden areas by raising them above the lawn and enclosing them with a retaining wall.

Adding drama to the front yard with a stone or brick walk way and large bricked entryway gives additional value to your home while providing an area to display gardens, potted plants and statuary. It also ensures that the water drains properly away from the home and helps prevent soil erosion as it does.

If you live in a dry warm area, brick walls and heavy masonry create wonderful sun shelters and help absorb the heat as they radiate coolness back toward your home. You’ll find these types of walls help to keep your home cooler when the weather is unbearably hot.

No matter what your weather or location, you’ll find that adding hardscapes to your home improve not only the value of the house, it improves your enjoyment of it. It helps turn a place to live into your own private retreat.…

February 6, 2020 Miracle

General

Tools of the Trade – The Art of Landscaping

Tools are important to any artist who is aiming to create a work of art. A painter needs his canvass and paintbrush, and a blacksmith needs a hammer and anvil. In the same way, any landscaper (or enthusiastic amateur aiming to beautify his garden or lawn) needs important tools to be able to make a beautiful lawn. For any landscaper who is serious in his calling, he will need the following tools.

SHOVEL – The shovel is the basic tool in any landscaping job. In order to mold the soil, dig holes to plant flowers and trees in, or to remove rocks and debris from your garden, the shovel is your best friend. Whether it is the shovel (large one) for bigger jobs, such as loosening a large patch of soil or clearing away debris, or a small shovel for digging around planted materials, cleaning away small rocks or any other more refining jobs around the garden, make sure never to attempt any landscaping without it!

WHEELBARROW – If there is salt and pepper, and bacon and eggs, then you can be sure that the perfect landscaping tool partner is the shovel and the wheelbarrow. Use a wheelbarrow to be able to transport tools and planting materials faster and easier around your garden.

CUTTERS/PRUNERS – This wide range of sharp tools (shears, saws, mowers, clippers, etc) is perfect for trimming, pruning and cutting away unwanted plant parts from your garden. They allow for a cleaner look to your garden, and even help plants grow quicker and healthier because they cut away parts that are diseased, dead or not blooming. Usually trimmers and shears are used for smaller jobs, while saws and clippers are used for larger ones.

RAKES – For cleaning up plant debris (loose and dead leaves, uprooted weeds, etc), the rake is your best bet. Not only is it clean and quiet, it allows for easy storage. It can also help in spreading mulch around flowerbeds and vegetable patches. However, the best use for rakes is to allow a person to collect a leaf pile big enough to jump in!

WATERING IMPLEMENTS – If you have a small garden, then it is more practical to use a watering can. You will be able to control the amount and flow of the water that you will be using. However, for larger gardens, you will want to use a watering hose to be able to reach all of the plants with less effort and hassle.

LAWN SEEDERS – While not a very essential tool, it can help you if you want to plant a lot of seeds at one time. The lawn seeder can help save a lot of time and effort when putting in planting materials.

So for those who want to embark on a landscaping project, make sure that you have at least the first five tools mentioned above to make all your moving, digging, cutting and watering work easier. If you have these five tools, you will be able to make your dream garden a reality in no time!…

February 1, 2020 Miracle

General

How to Start Your Own Landscaping Business

If you love the outdoors, then lawn care is a great business to be in. It allows you to be outside and enjoy nature and make money at the same time. It will also allow you to meet other people who share your love of the outdoors. Working at a lawn care company may seem like a dead end job, but the sky is the limit when you own your own business. When you start working for a company, try to learn everything you can about everything. It’s also important to start saving money as soon as you can. You will need money to buy a lawn mower, weed eater, and leaf blower. Later on, you will need edgers, and many other pieces of equipment. Also, a pick up truck or a box truck can be very helpful.

Transitioning into landscaping from lawn care is rather easy. There is a lot to learn, so it’s good to get a few years of experience mowing lawns and pruning before you decide to expand. Cutting grass (lawn care) is a good place to start, but landscaping is far more profitable. Depending on your area, you can make twenty to thirty times more doing landscaping. You can learn almost everything you need to know from experience or low-priced ebooks online.

With every lawn care customer, you should begin dropping hints as soon as possible. Make suggestions about how things could be improved. Make suggestions about what plants can be planted and what other things can be installed. Also, search for what plants can be replaced.

This industry has a lot of job security. You have to understand that landscaping is a necessary evil. not be scared to charge high prices for your service. Many people have high paying jobs that only give them a little time off every week. Maybe they don’t want to cut the grass and prune the bushes every weekend. Their time is more valuable to them than the amount of money they would pay to have someone else do the work. And, many upper class neighborhoods have home owner’s associations that require every house to be landscaped properly. You don’t want to violate a city code by not upkeeping your yard. An unkempt property can lower the value of the properties around it, so this is understandable.

Believe in yourself and you can do it. With a little hard work, you can hire employees to do the mowing while you stay in the office and schedule more appointments.…

January 29, 2020 Miracle

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How To Start Your Own Gardening Business

Gardening is one of those things that some people feel really passionate about and get lots of pleasure from and so many people probably think about turning their hobby into a cash making machine by starting their own company. But doing this for a job is very, very different indeed from doing gardening in your own small garden at home, so if you are thinking about this please do make sure that you are making the right choice. I would not recommend anyone to try to start up on their own doing this unless they had plenty of experience working in this area for another company.

But having got the disclaimer out of the way, this can also be a very nice way to make good money. Of course everyone would dream of taking on the grand landscaping jobs and spending much of their time doing design work and so on. For some people that may happen, but when you are first starting out as a new business you need to take whatever work that you can get and that often means lots of simple but labour intensive work that might not be very exciting.

One example of this would be lawn care – not too glamorous but it is a good way to get enough work coming in for you to make a living from and it is not difficult to do. Even someone with no experience could do this, which as I already said is not the case with landscaping.

The first thing to do is obviously to pick out a good name and get all of the legal stuff and paperwork out of the way. If you do want to do the garden design and landscaping as well as the more routine maintenance type work then you should have something to show the client. Ideally that would obviously include examples of your own work, but to start off with it could just be pictures that show the type of thing you can do and give inspiration. You can look through these with your clients when you first go to meet them and discuss what they want.

When you leave a happy customer one good tip is to leave them with a few business cards and ask them if they could pass them on to any friends who might need work done in the future.

If you do good work, and put in the effort behind the scenes to keep your company running, then you stand an excellent chance of being successful.…

January 25, 2020 Miracle

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Do it Yourself Landscaping Ideas – For Those Who Would Rather Do Things on Their Own

It’s nice to know that people are becoming wiser these days, especially when it concerns their finances. Instead of opting for someone to do the job, people are now realizing the need to do the whole thing on their own because this is their best way to save their cash and to get the look that they personally would like to achieve. Now, for your do it yourself landscaping ideas, this article will guide you through the process for you to be able to jump into the whole thing with ease.

Nevertheless, before you go any further in knowing your DIY options, it is worth knowing what landscaping actually means. Well, this is the art of arranging the features of the grounds within the house in order to improve the property.

In planning some landscaping ideas that you can use, it is vital that you consider some factors first. Above anything else, comprehend the manner that your yard will be used. Do you have pets that can ruin your designs or are you living with kids who can get hurt by not-so-kids-friendly option? By thinking about these factors, you can help to narrow the list of possible designs which you can opt for. Considering the manner on how the yard will be used can make your space more personalize. If ever you desire to spend your time with family and friends on your yard to share a good barbecue and laugh, choose a landscape design that will give you the space to move around with ease.

Basically, discussing do it yourself landscaping ideas here is a very complex topic which will take lots of page in this article. But if there is something that you must consider is the factor which is written above, in which you are asked to consider the purpose of the place that you intend to decorate. Here are some of your options in different conditions:

1. Designing with Kids- In case your kids will roam around the place where you put your landscaping prowess, be sure that you will not use sharp object that may hurt your little bundle of joy. Consider as well that you will not place any poisonous plants and flowers because kids may pick them out, put into their mouths, and you can figure what will happen next.

2. Pets Trouble- When you have pets to consider in your landscaping idea, be reminded that animals can be too playful sometimes thus you may want to get away from using fragile tools or you’ll suffer from having them broken. Also, be sure that the landscapes are sturdy enough so as not to be destroyed by any outside pressure.

3. Pissed by the Season- The seasons in your place is another consideration when picking that garden design you can opt for. In case you are living in an area that usually rains, be sure that your landscape can go with the demands of time. This way, you can prevent yourself from doing untimely fixes.…

January 21, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping Tips For Your Swimming Pool

When you think of a backyard swimming pool, what picture comes to mind? Do you imagine a simple, rectangular pool in the middle of a span of plain concrete? A swimming pool does not need to be merely utilitarian; pools can be as aesthetically interesting as they are fun. The key to an attractive, exciting pool area is to make sure that the pool and the environment surrounding it fully complement each other.

When planning your pool area, there are three key ideas you should keep in mind: beauty, safety and convenience. Here are some ideas on how to achieve all there in your backyard pool area:

Lighting

Outdoor lighting can make your pool area seem festive and inviting. Whether you want tiki torches, string lights, or underwater LED lights, make sure your pool and yard are well-lit. Not only does lighting create ambiance, it is also an important safety feature. Proper lighting reduces the chances of a family member or guest tripping or falling into the pool. You can also accent lighting to draw attention to special design elements, such as statues or water features.

Plants

Plants and rocks are great landscaping elements around a pool. They can help swimming pool truly blend in with its surroundings, almost as if it were a natural space. However, it is very careful to choose your plants carefully. For example, a flowering tree may be very beautiful, but do you really want to have to worry about having to constantly sweep leaves and petals out of your pool? An evergreen, on the other hand, will look nice year-round, with minimal maintenance requirements.

Fencing

Fencing is absolutely necessary for any pool. Not only will it preserve your privacy, it will also prevent any accidents which could arise from neighborhood children visiting your pool unattended.

Gazebos

Not every moment that you spend enjoying your pool environment will actually be spent in the pool itself. Gazebos are not only beautiful; they also add a convenient, shady place for you to relax and enjoy your time outside. Add a table and chairs, and you have the perfect outdoor dining spot.

Masonry & Paving Stones

It’s a good idea to cover the ground around your pool, to avoid muddying the ground and getting dirt and grass into the water; however, plain poured concrete is not your best option for ground cover. Masonry and natural paving stones are beautiful additions to your landscape, and also very practical. For one thing, these materials are generally not the bright white of poured concrete, so they will be less harsh on the eyes in the glaring sunlight of summer. Also, materials with textured surfaces will not become as slippery when wet as a smooth surface would, and will reduce the chances of someone falling.

When it comes to planning the design for your swimming pool area, the possibilities are unlimited. Flip through some design magazines, talk to a landscape designer, and get started on your own personal oasis.…

January 17, 2020 Miracle

General

Why The Romans Got Paving Right

An incredibly smart way of making your property look great is to put in some garden paving. Paving is usually referred to as stone structures which are used as a floor or an external feature. There’s a vast range of different materials which you can use for garden paving and you can achieve some great effects with them. This can be seen if you visit any British town that was once home to the Romans. The Romans were early adopters of the method of having securely installed bits of paving laying on top of a base aggregate. A number of these roads and paths are still in use across the British Isles so it just goes to show how resilient the technique is. The technique of laying paving hasn’t changed much since the days of the Romans as the method is so effective. Despite this the number of different colours and types of materials that are used in paving has developed over the years.

There are lots of different sorts of hard landscaping materials you can choose from now a days. To have a red brick look on a driveway a lot of people decide to use block paving, that is made up of various coloured bricks placed in patterns across a driveway. You might be more interested in using an aggregate. You can find both resin bonded aggregates and resin bound aggregates that allow you to achieve a gravel look without having to put up with the problems associated with loose gravel. You can get aggregates in a wide range of different colours from the wide variety of stone colours to the more unique sparkling gold and silver effects. If you’d like a truly unique look then you may be intrigued by aggregates that glow in the dark and react to light. For a more traditional garden paving look there are the typical concrete patio slabs that can be laid easily. Some people might be interested in going for a rural look by choosing to have cobbled pathways in their garden.

When making improvements to a property a lot of people tend to focus on the insides of the building as opposed to the exterior. This doesn’t seem very sensible as the outside of a property is the part that people will always see first. Choosing not to make an effort with the exterior of the property and focusing on the interior can often mean that your efforts are pointless, especially if you are making the improvements in an effort to sell the property. Planning and applying some paving to your property can make the exterior of a property look brilliant. It can also help to create a safe environment for children to play in and for your friends and family to enjoy.

Should you be thinking of putting in some paving in your garden or making any other improvements to your property then it is a sensible idea to use the services of a respectable local builder. A decent builder can help you with the planning application to help you find out if you can get planning permission to do the job and will make sure the job is carried out properly. There are a number of ways one can find a good local builder, by asking your mates, looking in the press and by searching on the web.…

January 14, 2020 Miracle

General

Landscaping Companies Offer More Than Landscape Design

People usually contact a landscaping company for the first time when they want their entire yard or garden done over and they know they aren’t qualified or experienced enough to choose the right kinds of plants, shrubs and grasses. If you choose plants that aren’t hardy enough, shrubs that can’t withstand local temperatures, or trees that are difficult to care for, you can waste hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your lawn with nothing to show for it. That’s why hiring a landscape design specialist is always a good idea. They will carefully select trees, shrubs, grasses and flowers that are ideally suited to your locale, the type of soil you have, and the level of care required from you as the homeowner.

All landscaping companies are happy to work closely with you to design your yard, install the plants and even install the hardscaping for patios and pathways, but many disappear once the initial installation is completed. The care and feeding of your yard or garden is up to you from that point on. It can be overwhelming, so be sure you’re working with a landscaper who can offer additional services to keep everything healthy and beautiful all year round. Ask about the following services when choosing your landscaper:

Spring Cleaning

Your garden and yard will be waiting to burst forth with new blooms and soft grasses to tickle your feet, but a long, hard winter and dry conditions can delay new growth by several weeks. Your lawn service should offer a spring cleaning service to loosen the soil and get your yard and flower beds ready for new growth. This may include aerating the soil, adding fertilizers, dethatching grassy areas and more. Your grass will come in greener and be lusher as a result.

Lawn Mowing And Maintenance

Having a lovely lawn is nice, but if you have to spend all your free time on mowing and maintenance, you won’t be able to enjoy its beauty. A lawn service can take care of everything, including aerating the soil, mulching, trimming and, of course, lawn mowing. Just imagine not having to worry about taking care of your lawn every weekend! And the best part is that your yard will be cleaner and greener than it’s ever been.

Trees And Shrubs

It can be tempting to simply lop off branches that are overhanging your house, but you’ll end up with an ugly tree that may not heal properly. Over-pruning or incorrect trimming are two problems you won’t have if you let a lawn service take care of your trees and shrubs. They will carefully prune larger plants and trees in order to optimize their health and stability. While trimming your trees, they can also check for disease or other potential problems and stop small problems before they grow into large ones.

Hardscaping

Hardscaping is the installation of outdoor patios, retaining walls and paths using flagstones, bricks, timber or decorative stone. Not all landscaping companies also handle hardscape projects, so be sure to ask. Ideally, you should hire a landscape design firm that can install your patio and other features so that the design is a cohesive whole where the hardscaping and landscaping complement each other beautifully.

When you’re ready to overhaul your yard or garden, be sure to choose a landscaping company that also offers complete lawn service for results you’ll enjoy all year round.…

January 11, 2020 Miracle

General

Patios: 5 Practical Steps For Designing

The flux of innovations and technologies that have broken backyard barriers has brought about an onslaught of patio ideas from creative visionaries. The white picket fences and identical driveways of before have become dull and nightmarish. As homeowners aim for an increase in property value, they push for individuality in elegant yet practical patio designs.

The patios of today have diversified exponentially and choosing a design to fit your home can be overwhelming. The good news is almost anything goes and the sky is the limit when it comes to patio design.

Here are five practical steps to help you design your patio.

1. Set a budget and keep it in mind. Before starting on the design, set a limit. That way, you can let your imagination run wild while keeping your feet on the ground. Regardless of which detail in the patio design you are contemplating on, never lose sight of your budget. If money is tight, remember that an increase in one design aspect will mean a decrease in another. For example, going for the more expensive floor tiles might mean a roofless patio instead.

2. Pick a purpose and theme that complements your house. First, ask yourself what would be the main function of your patio. Accordingly, pick a theme to go with it. Make sure the patio you envisioned would blend in with everything else in the house. You might also want to think of a way to transition from the inside of the house to the patio.

3. Enumerate the parts of your patio. A patio has five main parts: the floor, roof, wall, furniture, and landscape. You don’t have to incorporate all of them into your design though. In fact, a minimalistic look would not only be economical, but elegant as well. Also think about having a centerpiece or highlight to accentuate your patio.

4. Go over the specifics of each part. Go into your local home improvement store and see what is available for each part of your patio design. Don’t forget to check the price range. Also explore swap meets and garage sales for design ideas and good finds for patio furniture. When making decisions, bear in mind the purpose and theme you had chosen for your patio.

5. Draw up the blueprints and plan the construction of your patio. Now that your design is more specific, put your vision onto paper. Start planning your patio’s assembly time frame. If you mean to put the patio together yourself, make sure to get the proper permits from your local building authority before starting. Otherwise, let the contractor handle that as well.

There isn’t really a cut and dry structure for patios and this is the best part about designing it. The most important thing is that you are happy with the outcome and are able to relax and enjoy your patio afterward.…

January 8, 2020 Miracle

General

Six Basics to Keep in Mind When Planning a Landscape Design

Are you trying to find a way to make your yard more beautiful? While mastering the art of landscape design can take several years to complete, there are some basic elements that virtually anyone can implement. Therefore, if you are planning to take on a landscaping project at your home, be sure to keep these simple things in mind.

Create Year-Round Interest

It is easy to get carried away with all of the beautiful flowers that can be grown in the spring and the summer, but you want to be sure to create year-round interest when designing your landscape layout. Remember, your goal is to have perennials as well as flowering shrubs and trees through the spring and summer, but your focus in the fall should be on foliage and your goal in the winter is to provide interest with good structure. One easy way to make certain there is something to see in your garden throughout the year is to include evergreens in your landscape design.

Add Color with Annuals

While perennials are great for providing beauty year after year, the drawback is that they only bloom for a short period of time. Therefore, you should be sure to include annuals in your landscape design in order to ensure bountiful colors throughout the entire blooming season.

Include Hardscape Features

Sure, your flowers, trees and shrubs are the central focus of your garden, but you can add interest while creating a more complete look with the help of a few hardscape featurers as well. Patios and decks, for example, help provide a smooth transition from the indoors to the outdoors. Similarly, fences help provide definition to the landscape.

Install a Water Feature

Water features help create a focal point to your landscape and they aren’t as difficult to install as you might think. In fact, all you need is a plastic liner, a pump, a fountain and some tubing. All of these items can be purchased from a home improvement store and are easier to install than you might think.

Use Layers

Layering your garden will help create interest while also allowing you to enjoy all of the beauty that each of your plants provides. When layering, your goal should be to have your tallest flowers in the back, with the next tallest in the middle and your shortest in the front.

Consider Upkeep

No matter how beautiful your garden is, you may grow to resent it if it requires too much upkeep. Therefore, when planning your design, you should try to select plants that require as little upkeep as possible. The simplest way to do this is to select plants that are native to your area. You might also want to select plants that are drought-tolerant, as they will be much easier to take care of in the summertime when the spring showers cease.

If you keep these basics in mind, you will be sure to create a landscape design that you can easily maintain and that you will be able to enjoy for years to come.…

January 4, 2020 Miracle

Year: 2020

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