Changing Your Own Landscape

We all worry a little over how good our house looks to the outside eye. Those people on the streets don’t live here, and thus they have no idea of it’s real charm and coziness. That means we take a lot pains in making sure the exterior is cleaned up and has plenty of curb appeal, but that still leaves the entire world of the garden to take care of. Let’s face it, if you own your own house, or you have the bottom floor of the apartment building you live in, there’s quite a big chance you’re also responsible for a garden.

There’s quite a lot you can do in terms of landscaping, which leaves a bit of a creative ebb and flow to be filled. However, a lot of us don’t know what we can do, or where to even try to start. So here’s a few ideas to get you started on the outlook of your dreams. 

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Know Your Boundaries

These are both in terms of the physical and what you can manage, and whereabouts your land ends and what you can do with the space in it. 

If you have a big area to work with, work out what you’re allowed to dabble in before making any of those planned changes. Do you know where the zoning areas in your neighborhood are? Look into those first of all and then see what you can do if the stipulations are a lot harsher than you thought.

The main aim is to frame your house with any of the plots you use, the lawns you cultivate, and the trees and flowers you seed to finish off the perfect picture. It doesn’t have to go beyond this, but if you’re looking for a practical element as well you need to allot for a vegetable garden. If you need to bring in some help for your landscaping needs, whether it be because you don’t know how to grow a tomato or the edging around your pool just isn’t working out, do so. 

What You’ll (Most Likely) Need

For most gardens, a lot of the supplies are similar. You’ll want to use bricks for the paving, and some timber if you’re building yourself a deck. This is always a nice addition so consider it for your budget! 

You may also need to invest in some edging wire or more bricks for this as well, as having a green area in a sea of reds, blues, yellows, and purples, is a wonderful contrast, and leaves a good place to have a picnic or BBQ. If this area is curved, you can use gravel or other shingle materials to make it easier to lay and separate. 

The you have your plants to think about. It’s a good idea to buy the potted variety from the garden centre if you want some faster results, or if you just want ease of planting. Otherwise, be sure to invest in a variety of bulbs, seeds, and cutting. You can design your perfect garden as well as brush up on your gardening skills at the same time. 

Some Common Designs

For the more contemporary among us, geometric shapes are the way forward. Having everything in neat places with a clear walkway around it is good for maximizing on space whilst having a little leeway with your plans. Try bulk planting with a certain flower to increase the impact, and make sure all the bigger flora is kept to the back near fences. 

On the other hand, a cottage garden is popular with the masses. This means planting in small quantities and having lots of plants at once in the same space. Creating a cacophony of color, you’re guaranteed to spend a lot of time out there with all the scents and sights for your time. 

The plants are what brings a garden together, and the whole point of one. Make sure they’re well planted with the right heights and spacing for their needs.

Don’t Limit Yourself, Build in a Garage

This option is for those with the time, money, and property rights to do so. If you have the room for it, you can install yourself the garage of your dreams. Finally, a proper place to store the car and keep all your extraneous storage attached to the ceiling! If that’s not for you, you can even turn the space into your own studio or gaming room, and have mini theatre nights for all the family. 

Remember that adding a bit more of an interesting view to your garden doesn’t only come in the view of pretty flowers and creeper vines up the fence; it can also mean you build up your own mini estate. Visit the The Garage Plan Shop for some detailed plans that range from having loft space to storing more than one car. 

Make Sure You Have Safety Thought Out

If you’re the type of person who loves a bit of DIY, you’re going to need to make sure everything is up to standard or code before you try anything. The main thing is to know what you’re doing, and that can mean taking a few classes, or buying some books to read up on, or even just surfing the web for tips and tricks. 

Of course there’s learning by doing, and that works a lot of the time, however, don’t rely on this for everything. When it comes to something like destroying waste material, you’ll probably need to hire out a machine rather than use a fire, and it’s never a bad idea to hire a professional to take care of a few things for you. 

You don’t have to be a retired older person to be interested in gardening, and it’s a great versatile hobby for anyone to get into. Draw up your own plans and get crafting; it’s good to do a bit of your own creating and hard grafting afterwards, and you can be proud of the finished product. 

Protecting Your Garden From Frost And Bitter Cold

The back garden of our homes is one of the safe havens all family members like to retreat to. We can simply be with our thoughts, get out of a stuffy home that may be too hot for us, or too populated, and we can also share family moments as well. As the colder months are sure to set in and take over the landscape, this is the time of the year, which preparations need to be made just as the animals are doing, making sure life after winter is the same as it was. The frost of midnight is one of the key points that every homeowner should be wary about as it can essentially freeze everything. Even the water inside plants can be frozen to the points that the roots become dry and start to die. Your garden equipment can become brittle and especially if it's something electrical, extra care and protection are needed. 

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Plants 

Nature is a wonderful fighter, but your plants do need help to survive the winter. Of course, flowers and trees will shed, wilt and most of them will in fact die, but if you have plants, you care about, such as vegetable plants you need to take some precautions. Get a metal chicken net made out of wire and wrap it around the plant or you could also get plant wiring if you want. Stuff the edges of the inside, around with hay. This will give the plant dexterity and make sure that water is absorbed slowly, which of course will freeze during the night, hence the extra layer of protection. You can also wrap the plant itself in plastic, which will protect it further from the cold.

Image by Paul Brennan

Garden equipment

If you have your lawn mowers, weed whackers laying around the back of your home, and don’t have a shed to store them in, it's vital you also wrap these in sheets of plastic. The air will become cooler during the night, freezing onto the surfaces, and when midday comes around, will begin to melt. As the water melts it will seep into cracks and thus, ruin your electrical equipment. Winter’s breath can also freeze, contract and eventually crack wires, and then the process previously mentioned is repeated, causing dangerous hazards. It's a good idea to take care of your grill as well, and you should look for something like a heavy duty cover for a Genesis. The extra thickness and the quality of the material will keep the sensitive parts of your summer barbecue grill, away and out of harm’s way of rain and snow. 

Grass 

Overfeeding the grass at this time of year is actually a nominal thing to do. During the day you can feed the grass to helpings of lawn feeder and therefore keep the green, healthy color somewhat alive and kicking. Watering the grass during the daytime is also a good idea if you want the lawn to maintain it’s thickness.

Protecting your garden from the frost and bitterness of winter is something that could end up saving you a lot of money. The maintenance issues are merely temporary as you’ll soon be able to get into a habit of doing things. 

Summer Is Over, But You Can Still Enjoy Your Garden

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Winter may be on its way, but that’s no reason to lock yourself away indoors. You should be able to enjoy your garden all year round. Here are few ways that you can encourage you and your family to get out in the garden during the winter months.

Turn up the heat

The main reason no-one wants to venture outside in winter is because it’s too cold. However, a patio heater or a chiminea could help to provide some heat. Patio heaters will cost more to buy and run, although you can get solar powered ones. They can be excellent for heating up and outdoor space in the winter. Chimineas are cheaper and rely on burning wood. They might not provide as much heat but could still be a solution.

Set up an awning

If you’ve got a patio or decked area, it could be worth putting up some kind of shelter to protect from the rain. These could be something temporary like a gazebo or an umbrella. Alternatively, you may want consider more permanent canopy options such as patio roofs. Permanent roofs may be able to provide shelter from the sun in the heat of summer on top of shelter from the rain.

Add some light on the subject

In winter, the evenings get darker more quickly. Installing some exterior lighting could be handy. Nowadays, you don’t have to invest in mains lighting – solar lighting won’t require you to run cable outside and is far more cost-efficient. You can also light up outside with candles.

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Start growing winter produce

Need an activity to get you outside in the winter? Why not try some organic farming? You can grow many vegetables in the winter including parsnips, onions, garlic and leaks. Why wait until spring?

Have a winter BBQ

You could also consider having a winter barbecue. It’s not the done thing to do but it’s perfectly possible and standing over the barbecue will provide enough warmth. Many winter foods taste great when grilled over a barbecue. Leg of lamb for example can taste delicious seared with some black pepper, sea salt and lemon. You could even grill some sausages and burgers for something a little hearty. Both gas and coal barbecues are effective solutions, but expect it to take a little longer to warm up (you may want a canopy above in case it rains).

Encourage winter wildlife

The winter is also a great time to see some new exciting wildlife. Why not put up a bird-feeder in your garden to help attract robins and chiffchaffs? Many animals will want to hibernate in the winter – woodpiles can be great places for them to nest so be careful when disturbing these. If you’ve got a pond, make sure that it doesn’t freeze over as this could kill off any fish in it. Don’t break the ice by smashing it as this could cause harmful shockwaves that harm the fish. Instead, pour some boiling water on an area of the frozen pond. 

Lessons We Can Learn from Gardening

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Gardening is one of those seemingly eternal pursuits which reconnects us to the ancient days of humanity, where cultivating the land was a way of life for the vast majority of people, and gave rise to the dawn of civilization.

Today, most of us are disconnected from the natural cycles of the world around us and have little if any idea of what it takes to make things grow. In spite of that — or perhaps because of it — gardening is a hobby which everyone can benefit from, sometimes in profound ways.

Here’s a look at some of the life lessons we can learn from gardening.

Gardening teaches us to appreciate cause and effect

Everyone understands cause and effect on some level, from the first time we tried to touch a hot object as a child and scolded ourselves, or did something naughty and got punished.

But while we all understand on an intuitive level that every action has its consequence, we can often drift away from this understanding over the course of our daily lives, as we space out and let things run on autopilot.

It’s often this kind of spaced-out apathy and inattentiveness that results in problem behaviours like impulse buying.

Gardening forces us to confront this primal truth in a visceral way, and serves as a constant reminder of it. Leaving the garden unattended will result in it being overgrown with weeds. Tending to young saplings leads to trees one day rearing up from the earth. 

Gardening is a reminder that creation takes time

It’s been said that it takes years to create something beautiful, and only seconds to destroy it.

In the fast-paced and industrialised world we live in today, we all tend to fall victim to instant-gratification thinking and impatience at one point or another, and lose our reverence for the natural process of creation.

Gardening intimately reconnects us to the understanding that creation takes time, investment of energy and care, and nurture. It teaches us to take pride in our projects and approach them with patience, and not to be overly hasty in our interactions with the world around us.

Gardening reminds us to enjoy life’s simple pleasures

In an increasingly complex world, working a small patch of soil and taking pleasure in making things grow is a great reminder that we can, and should, find joy in the simple things.

With the abundance of well-advertised and ornately packaged and presented gadgets on offer for our amusement, not to mention the enormous range of entertainment media that we have access to at any moment, distraction comes easy.

And with the elaborate world of celebrity culture which makes its way into our awareness through our televisions, magazines and computers on a daily basis — and which sells us the vision of a world of opulence and luxury — it’s easy to become greedy and crave more.

Gardening shows us a way to feed our sense of fulfillment without needing to get lost in the rat race. Even if we invest in the best cordless string trimmers and high-end trowels, we’re still engaged in a fundamentally simple activity.

Time to Invest in Your Garden? Here Are Some Options

Investing in your garden is definitely a good idea. And it’s something that anyone can do. You don’t have to spend a fortune in order to change your garden for the better. Instead, it’s all about spending money in the right ways and knowing which changes are going to have the biggest impact for the lowest overall cost. Here are some ideas to get you started if you think it’s time for you to invest in your garden.

Add Water

Water can bring something entirely new to your garden. But it can mean many things. For those with bigger budgets, going as far as having a pool fitted is an option. However, there are many options on a smaller scale that are worth considering too. A pond full of carp or a fountain at the bottom of your garden can add some tranquility to your garden, and they can be fitted relatively cheaply if you know what you’re doing.

Make it Neater With Better Tools

Investing in the tools you use in your garden can be a really good way to improve the garden in a gradual kind of way. When you have better tools, you’re able to do more and achieve more in your garden every time you carry out some form of gardening. It’s these small changes that can lead to huge improvements in the long-term. You can compare things like chainsaws here. And there are many other types of tools that you might want to make use of in your garden too, so explore all the options.

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Refresh Your Lawn

Your lawn is a part of your garden that needs to look great, so why not invest in it? If it’s starting to look very patchy and tired right now, do something to change that. It could even be worth having it all dug up and replaced with a new lawn. The change this makes to your garden can be huge, and it’s well worth the investment if your lawn is in bad shape right now. Having a new lawn put in place is not too difficult, and you should be able to do it yourself once you have the lawn and the right tools.

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Make it a Social Space

Everyone wants their garden to be a space where they can be social and have fun with friends and family. But most gardens can’t really fulfill that function very well. You need more than a table and some chairs, no matter how much money you spent on those things, if you want your garden to be a truly social space. That’s just the way it is. Think about adding a pergola if you want a dedicated space in your garden for eating, drinking and entertaining. It’s a way of separating that space from the rest of the garden.

As you can see, there are many ways in which you can spend money on your garden. Don’t assume that it’s going to cost you big because all of the ideas above can be implemented in a low-cost kind of way. So, start putting what you’ve learned into action.

How To Ensure Mayhem Doesn't Take Control In Your Magically Natural Garden

Nature is amazing. Nothing beats lush, unbroken expanses. In a world where untouched areas are harder to come by than ever, such natural beauty is revered and loved by all. Poems have even been written about its healing qualities!

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We’re all busy, though, and finding the time to head to nature reserves and beautiful locations isn’t easy. In fact, for most of us, the only contact we have with the nature is our backyard. Yet, instead of creating the untouched natural areas we crave, many of us turn our gardens into manicured spaces. Why? Because it’s the ‘done thing.'. Your neighbors can see your garden, and you wouldn’t want them thinking it’s a mess, would you? 

But, it might be time to reconsider how we approach our yards. If you want to make full use of your outdoor sanctuary, it may be worth letting go of how you think a garden should be. Forget perfectly symmetrical lawns and gardens lacking in greenery. Let nature have its say. 

Of course, it wouldn’t be practical to let things go altogether. As a lawn is an enclosed space, it doesn’t quite have the freedom of open expanses. As such, you do need to keep some control to ensure it’s still a space you can use. So, how do you achieve a balance between majestic nature and wild mayhem?

Know Where You Can’t Compromise

Before you start the journey, it’s important to know where you can’t take your eye off the ball. Some areas will always need your attention. Forgetting about these could undo your efforts to create a more natural space. 

So, where can’t you compromise? The most notable area would be your lawn. Rather than looking beautiful, long grass looks scruffy. Plus, it can make the space less habitable. Who wants to spend time outside when they have to fight through tangles of grass to get there? So, there’s no getting around the fact that you still need to mow the lawn on a regular basis. The good news is, you can do this without disturbing the more natural image you’re working towards. Something like the zero-turn mowers mentioned on this site will ensure you can get close to your flowerbeds without cutting anything you don’t want to. They’ll also take the hassle out of the job to ensure your natural yard remains low maintenance! 

Patio areas also need some attention. As this is a man made area of the garden anyway, letting it run riot wouldn’t look right. There’s nothing beautiful about weeds sprouting between paving stones. Make sure to remove them as soon as they appear to stop things getting out of control. 

Let Your Flowers Run Free, But Only Where You Want Them

Flowers are, of course, the most beautiful aspect of the natural world. As such, you’ll want these to run free in your natural haven. But, how can you let them loose and still keep some control? Raised flower beds are your best option here. They keep the flowers separate from the lawn you want to keep clear and ensure seeds don’t spread. Within the flower beds, those flowers can go as crazy as they want to without looking messy. It’ll be an organized chaos. 

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To ensure these beds look stunning, it might be worth mixing all different types of flowers. Too often, we plant in clumps or stick to color schemes. That’s not how plants would act in the wild, and it looks contrived. Instead, mixing things up is sure to get that wild image you’re aiming for. One thing’s sure; your flowers will create an eye catching display this way. 

Inviting Wildlife Into Your Garden Without Letting It Do Damage

Of course, no natural haven would be complete without an injection of wildlife. Yet when many of us hear wildlife and garden in the same sentence, we shudder with horror. Animals have a way of ruining gardens. They eat plants, dig holes, and make mess. So, most of us do anything we can to keep them away. 

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But, is there a way to invite wildlife without worrying about a ruined garden? We think so. In many ways, those raised flower beds will help here. Applying a fine mesh fence around the edges will ensure animals can’t creep in and eat your flower supply. 

It’s also worth creating some spaces for those animals to live so that they don’t destroy your lawn. Wood piles, quiet corners, and areas of dug up mud should do the trick.