If you want to do something fun with your lawn to make it more enticing, you may think that anything that will look amazing will be a lot of hard work. While you will always have to put some thought and time into landscaping lawns, there are some things that are going to be easier than others. Look around at what your neighbors have done and read through magazines for inspiration. Easy landscaping ideas are everywhere and you can pick and choose to find the ones that you think will be best for you, your space, and how much time and money you have to spend on your project.
If you love greenery, some easy landscaping ideas can involved creeping vines and anything that they may wrap or grow around. Some people like to have ivy on their home or growing up on their fences, which would be an idea if you like that look. You can find metal objects in various shapes made just for this reason. You can also use things you may already have like old wheelbarrows or anything else you think would make an interesting lawn ornament once the vines have grown around it.
You can also buy pre-planted set of flowers that are already started and that are put together for a stunning visual effect as easy landscaping ideas. All you have to do is dig where you think they would go best. You can line walkways or driveways, or you can make a path through your lawn with odd shaped, flat rocks and then line that path with the flowers. Simply dig and plant, as the flowers come out with roots intact, pack the earth down. It is that simple. You then just have to make sure they have enough water and you should be good to go.
If you are not sure about flowers, there are other great plants you can put in the same spots as mentioned above that will be green through the spring, summer, and fall. You can go to a nursery or home improvement store and see what they have to offer for easy landscaping ideas. Tell them what you want to do and they can show you the best options. There are some plants that grow a few feet tall, some tall grasses that would look great, or easy to care for small shrubs that may not need any pruning. Look at all of your options and see what you want to do.
There are tons of other easy landscaping ideas out there that you can use. You may find as you go that you love it so much that you want to try a few more complicated things. Many find out if they have a green thumb this way or not. It is simply a matter of deciding how much time you want to spend installing your ideas and how much you are willing to spend on upkeep. Once you know these things, your ideas, easy or not, will come naturally and you can then enjoy the fruits of your labors.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
A Landscaping Business Can Be a Profitable Venture
A good friend of mine runs a successful landscaping business and has done so for the last 15 years. He does good work and has a strong customer base. He is able to pay his employees pretty well and has a couple of loyal work crews that work throughout our area. I once asked him if he would mind sharing with me how much he made, because I noticed that he had a very nice home, a couple of nearly brand-new vehicles and was able to pay his childrens' way through college. I came to find out that he made very good money and that a landscaping business can be quite profitable.
I asked him one time if he ever desired to do anything besides his landscaping business. He did not even have to think about it. He shook his head no, and that was that. I asked him why, and he started out by joking that he was too stupid to do anything else. Then he said that he always knew that he would be good at this and that he could make a good living. He married his high school sweetheart and settled down immediately, and within a few years he had a family and was living in a nice home.
My friend had made it a point to serve his customers well, offer them a reasonable price for his services and to take care of the equipment he used. He also worked hard to make sure that his workers were paid fairly well and took pride in their work, and before he knew it, he had so many customers that he did not know if he would be able to handle them all. One night when we were all visiting, he told me that he had 165 yards that he tended to regularly, and that did not include any businesses. His landscaping business was booming, and it never seemed to go down.
I went to visit him one Saturday and he was doing his books. He invited me into his study and showed me where he was doing payroll, figuring up taxes, paying all business-related expenses and so forth. It all seemed very complicated, but as he informed me, it was all part of running a successful landscaping business, and really any business for that matter. He said that his father had taught him all of that when he was younger as well, and said running his business really came second nature to him.
My friend does a good job running his landscaping business, and I am really proud of him for the effort he has made in that respect. He takes care of my lawn and those of several of our friends, and he has never seemed the slightest bit embarrassed. After seeing how he lives, I understand why!
I asked him one time if he ever desired to do anything besides his landscaping business. He did not even have to think about it. He shook his head no, and that was that. I asked him why, and he started out by joking that he was too stupid to do anything else. Then he said that he always knew that he would be good at this and that he could make a good living. He married his high school sweetheart and settled down immediately, and within a few years he had a family and was living in a nice home.
My friend had made it a point to serve his customers well, offer them a reasonable price for his services and to take care of the equipment he used. He also worked hard to make sure that his workers were paid fairly well and took pride in their work, and before he knew it, he had so many customers that he did not know if he would be able to handle them all. One night when we were all visiting, he told me that he had 165 yards that he tended to regularly, and that did not include any businesses. His landscaping business was booming, and it never seemed to go down.
I went to visit him one Saturday and he was doing his books. He invited me into his study and showed me where he was doing payroll, figuring up taxes, paying all business-related expenses and so forth. It all seemed very complicated, but as he informed me, it was all part of running a successful landscaping business, and really any business for that matter. He said that his father had taught him all of that when he was younger as well, and said running his business really came second nature to him.
My friend does a good job running his landscaping business, and I am really proud of him for the effort he has made in that respect. He takes care of my lawn and those of several of our friends, and he has never seemed the slightest bit embarrassed. After seeing how he lives, I understand why!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Why Don't More People Use Bright and Colorful Decorative Grasses for Landscaping
If you are really on the lookout for a way to set your garden apart from what anyone else on the block has, you could consider the kind of look that decorative grasses for landscaping can bring you. Decorative grasses, you must understand, aren't just low manicured grasses except that they are colored differently. Usually, they are the kind of thing you see only on the Discovery Channel.
What do you do when you want privacy in your home in your back yard? Usually, you spend money on a tall hedge or a fence or some such thing, right? When you use decorative grasses for landscaping around your garden, many of these are tall enough to easily provide a privacy screen all around.
And what a privacy screen! Many of these tall grasses grow in colors you've probably never seen on a plant - with blue, gray and shiny green stems, you could be forgiven for thinking you have stepped into the world of Avatar. In the right season, these grasses stalk up with wildly colorful flowers too.
If you're really particular about your privacy, some of these giant red grasses grow over 10 feet tall. Of course, a good bit of heavy trimming is called for every spring. But these are grasses - they grow quickly.
Decorative grasses for landscaping can help frame other flowering plants in your garden to amazing effect. You find yourself looking at your flower beds in an entirely new light when they are surrounded by very tall otherworldly looking plants.
For instance, if you have lavender and hydrangea in your flower beds, tall fountain grass and miscanthus all around can add an unexpected spray of color and make for such a beautiful effect. You can mix and match your tall grasses for different kinds of flowers. If you have rounded flowers, vertical grasses should really go well there. More exotic flowers will really show up well with mounded grasses.
Many people who love what decorative grasses for landscaping can do for them, like to plant these all around their swimming pool. They just choose non- flowering grasses for such a place. It would be a good idea to plant these near your swimming pool when you're down to your swimming trunks.
You can probably find a kind of decorative grass for every part of your garden. Need something to border your walkways with? Low clumping grasses are great for every kind of bordering task. Blue fescue might be ideal. Feather reed grass, all tall and majestic, would be great around the fence. If you're looking for a decorative effect, blue stem or switch-grass could be shiny and beautiful.
The decorative grasses for landscaping that are usually brought in, are mostly perennial. When the rest of your garden calls it a day at the end of fall, your garden will look all tired in winter. The ornamental and decorative grasses will keep things looking evergreen.
What do you do when you want privacy in your home in your back yard? Usually, you spend money on a tall hedge or a fence or some such thing, right? When you use decorative grasses for landscaping around your garden, many of these are tall enough to easily provide a privacy screen all around.
And what a privacy screen! Many of these tall grasses grow in colors you've probably never seen on a plant - with blue, gray and shiny green stems, you could be forgiven for thinking you have stepped into the world of Avatar. In the right season, these grasses stalk up with wildly colorful flowers too.
If you're really particular about your privacy, some of these giant red grasses grow over 10 feet tall. Of course, a good bit of heavy trimming is called for every spring. But these are grasses - they grow quickly.
Decorative grasses for landscaping can help frame other flowering plants in your garden to amazing effect. You find yourself looking at your flower beds in an entirely new light when they are surrounded by very tall otherworldly looking plants.
For instance, if you have lavender and hydrangea in your flower beds, tall fountain grass and miscanthus all around can add an unexpected spray of color and make for such a beautiful effect. You can mix and match your tall grasses for different kinds of flowers. If you have rounded flowers, vertical grasses should really go well there. More exotic flowers will really show up well with mounded grasses.
Many people who love what decorative grasses for landscaping can do for them, like to plant these all around their swimming pool. They just choose non- flowering grasses for such a place. It would be a good idea to plant these near your swimming pool when you're down to your swimming trunks.
You can probably find a kind of decorative grass for every part of your garden. Need something to border your walkways with? Low clumping grasses are great for every kind of bordering task. Blue fescue might be ideal. Feather reed grass, all tall and majestic, would be great around the fence. If you're looking for a decorative effect, blue stem or switch-grass could be shiny and beautiful.
The decorative grasses for landscaping that are usually brought in, are mostly perennial. When the rest of your garden calls it a day at the end of fall, your garden will look all tired in winter. The ornamental and decorative grasses will keep things looking evergreen.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Natural Native Landscaping Is the Only Way to Go If You Want an Interesting Garden
About 50 years ago, to say that something was "natural" was kind of bad. After centuries of living with the natural, people were excited about having a say. If for instance, your garden was full of exotic plants from Japan and Korea, and if you had to apply all kinds of pesticides and fertilizers to keep them alive, that's when you felt good about it. These days, people are beginning to realize that nature is too big to fight. If you try hard to sustain an exotic garden, you'll pay the price with soil that's rendered poisoned and useless over time. People only want to go along with nature's plan nowadays. These days, wherever you look, native landscaping is what is cool.
Anyone who has an unnaturally sustained garden these days needs to worry about looking quite illiterate. Everyone who comes by is going to wonder why they can't see that poisoning the earth makes no sense. If you could set aside any principles you may have about wanting to go exotic, you'll see that there are lots of positives to going with native landscaping.
It's a simple enough concept, native landscaping is. It's when you decorate your garden with plants that the first Western settlers found naturally growing there already when they first arrived. They are plants that have evolved over thousands of years to take advantage of local conditions.
When you go with native landscaping, certainly you can claim better environmental credentials right away. But there are plenty of other upsides to doing it this way too. Native plants are low-maintenance to begin with. You have to spend less time, money and energy on these things. They just take care of themselves.
Since native plants are adapted to the region, you always have a story to tell your children about each plant. Everything about each plant you see in your garden will have a reason why it forms that way. There is sure to be a particular kind of bird or insect or other fauna that it's evolved to work in partnership with. There are other plants that you need in the area that it will probably have a kind of working relationship with.
There are lots of stories that native plants come with that you can explain to your children. It gets in a working knowledge of how nature works far better than any discovery channel program ever can. When you plant a regular garden full of plants that are just randomly chosen for how some people think they are pretty, there's no story there. It'll just be able to tell your children that it's pretty and it needs plenty of chemicals.
When you have natural native landscaping, you just have the landscaping. Native plants attract local birds and insects. Your garden becomes a little patch of Eden right away. There's a lot more for your children to delight in. And speaking of children, you'll actually be able to let them go and play in the garden with their pets. You'll never have to worry about having anyone be poisoned by fertilizers or pesticides.
Anyone who has an unnaturally sustained garden these days needs to worry about looking quite illiterate. Everyone who comes by is going to wonder why they can't see that poisoning the earth makes no sense. If you could set aside any principles you may have about wanting to go exotic, you'll see that there are lots of positives to going with native landscaping.
It's a simple enough concept, native landscaping is. It's when you decorate your garden with plants that the first Western settlers found naturally growing there already when they first arrived. They are plants that have evolved over thousands of years to take advantage of local conditions.
When you go with native landscaping, certainly you can claim better environmental credentials right away. But there are plenty of other upsides to doing it this way too. Native plants are low-maintenance to begin with. You have to spend less time, money and energy on these things. They just take care of themselves.
Since native plants are adapted to the region, you always have a story to tell your children about each plant. Everything about each plant you see in your garden will have a reason why it forms that way. There is sure to be a particular kind of bird or insect or other fauna that it's evolved to work in partnership with. There are other plants that you need in the area that it will probably have a kind of working relationship with.
There are lots of stories that native plants come with that you can explain to your children. It gets in a working knowledge of how nature works far better than any discovery channel program ever can. When you plant a regular garden full of plants that are just randomly chosen for how some people think they are pretty, there's no story there. It'll just be able to tell your children that it's pretty and it needs plenty of chemicals.
When you have natural native landscaping, you just have the landscaping. Native plants attract local birds and insects. Your garden becomes a little patch of Eden right away. There's a lot more for your children to delight in. And speaking of children, you'll actually be able to let them go and play in the garden with their pets. You'll never have to worry about having anyone be poisoned by fertilizers or pesticides.
It's Time to Stop Buying Non-Smart Garden Watering Systems
When you go down to your local home improvement store to find out what kind of garden watering systems they sell these days, you'll usually see your regular garden-variety offering all over the place - ones that will water your garden at regular intervals whether you are needs that are not - and you'll see a couple of the smart ones too.
Watering your garden like clockwork isn't really the best idea. For instance, what happens when it rains? It would be such a waste to water your lawn even then. What happens when it's really humid weather and the water and the ground from the last watering still hasn't evaporated? Garden watering systems need to be designed to take account of these things. Which is what you get with the new smart variety.
Smart garden watering systems take everything account. They have sensors to measure the temperature, humidity, how much it has rained in a number of other things. If it's an unexpectedly cool day, right away, it doesn't water your lawn like it usually does.
We live in a time when water is not as freely available as it once was. In lots of places in the midwest, the law actually prohibits watering your lawn that the wrong kind. You really need your irrigation system to wise up a little.
Usually, the smartness in an irrigation system comes any control of that's really not very expensive - about $200 or so. If you have an existing irrigation system that takes pipelines all over your garden, just needed by one of these controller simply again. That's it.
Some kinds of models have inbuilt sensors for temperature and humidity and so on. The more sophisticated ones coming to parts. One part merely connects to your irrigation system, and it doesn't know anything. All it does is to wirelessly keep in touch with its counterpart that's inside and connected to your computer.
The computer connected part keeps itself updated on the Internet, reads all the weather reports for your area, and tells the outdoor unit want to do - when to turn the water on. The intelligent two-part system a smart two-part system like this should set you back around $400. But really - that'll save you at least that much in water bills in no more than two years.
This whole water shortage thing in America isn't anything to take lightly. Three out of four states in this country face water shortages or outright drought. California, the state it's usually first in enacting legislation for anything to do with the environment, has come out and banned the sale of garden watering systems that aren't smart. Where California goes, the rest of the country inevitably heads sooner or later.
Watering your garden like clockwork isn't really the best idea. For instance, what happens when it rains? It would be such a waste to water your lawn even then. What happens when it's really humid weather and the water and the ground from the last watering still hasn't evaporated? Garden watering systems need to be designed to take account of these things. Which is what you get with the new smart variety.
Smart garden watering systems take everything account. They have sensors to measure the temperature, humidity, how much it has rained in a number of other things. If it's an unexpectedly cool day, right away, it doesn't water your lawn like it usually does.
We live in a time when water is not as freely available as it once was. In lots of places in the midwest, the law actually prohibits watering your lawn that the wrong kind. You really need your irrigation system to wise up a little.
Usually, the smartness in an irrigation system comes any control of that's really not very expensive - about $200 or so. If you have an existing irrigation system that takes pipelines all over your garden, just needed by one of these controller simply again. That's it.
Some kinds of models have inbuilt sensors for temperature and humidity and so on. The more sophisticated ones coming to parts. One part merely connects to your irrigation system, and it doesn't know anything. All it does is to wirelessly keep in touch with its counterpart that's inside and connected to your computer.
The computer connected part keeps itself updated on the Internet, reads all the weather reports for your area, and tells the outdoor unit want to do - when to turn the water on. The intelligent two-part system a smart two-part system like this should set you back around $400. But really - that'll save you at least that much in water bills in no more than two years.
This whole water shortage thing in America isn't anything to take lightly. Three out of four states in this country face water shortages or outright drought. California, the state it's usually first in enacting legislation for anything to do with the environment, has come out and banned the sale of garden watering systems that aren't smart. Where California goes, the rest of the country inevitably heads sooner or later.
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