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Mediterranean Garden

December 31, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

Med garden - Intro

A handsome, well-structured garden with moderate maintenance and irrigation needs is easily achievable! The Mediterranean garden combines all the above advantages, while entertaining all five senses, and creating an ambience that will make you feel like being on vacation at home all year round…

Elements of a Mediterranean garden

The elements comprising Mediterranean gardens arose out of sheer necessity. The need for food, the dry soil and the shortage of water led to the cultivation of specific plants which are resistant to drought, edible and offer fruits.

An inner courtyard (patio) is one of the most characteristic images of a Mediterranean garden. While in the past it served as a safe area for family gatherings, its most distinguishable feature today is a pergola with climbing vines, bougainvilleas, and other climbers, or a big tree that will offer valuable shade during the long hot hours of its native area.
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Stone is the backbone of these gardens: alleys and terraces, low and dry walls, fountains, ponds, wells and cisterns, waterpaths… On the other hand, prefer smaller paved areas, as a large one would store heat.
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Water, although in shortage, is essential for life and for a hint of freshness in this little-demanding garden. A well, a fountain, a little cistern, even a few water paths, will create a wonderful ambience, where the promise of a cool sip of water will blend with the murmuring of running water, satisfying a number of senses at once.
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Extended plains and prairies are not what you would find in a Mediterranean landscape, so avoid grass lawns which, in addition, have greater water and maintenance needs.
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Another trait of this type of garden is the paved or cobblestone floors, as well as the colorful mosaics. A pathway laid with colored gravel or with compacted soil and gravel, so that good drainage is ensured, can also be interesting, especially if it leads to a charming secluded area or to a fountain.
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Landscape in Mediterranean countries is characterized by terraced slopes for the purpose of increasing the scarce cultivable ground. In your garden, you can build different levels and stairs, features that will contribute to better water management and to the development of different plant species (vegetables, vineyard, fruit trees, etc) according to your needs.
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Perennials (e.g. cypress, olive tree, myrtle, laurel, lentisk, rosemary, lavender, sage) are representative of Mediterranean areas. You can use them repeatedly in tufts.
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Remember that the Mediterranean palette does not include dark green, shiny leaves, or big, impressive flowers. Think of the olive’s green-silver leaves, of the different textures and the nuances of green, of small gracious flowers, of the play of shadow and light upon surfaces.
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Aromatic herbs play a huge role in this type of garden. Just close your eyes and bring to mind the smell of dried oregano, of lavender and thyme, of the beneficial influence of essential oils extracted from Mediterranean plants.

Italian Gardens

Italian garden I Italian garden II

Italian gardens developed during the Renaissance, when rich and powerful monarchs and aristocrats wished to embelish their homes and surroundings in a showy manner. The gardens were geometrical with very well-defined shapes of beds, trees and shrubs.

Here we see two examples of Italian gardens in northern countries (both in the UK): the left one (Trevarno) reminds slightly of Pompeian villas, while the right one (Garnish island) is representative of the more austere, yet pretty elegant Renaissance style.

Greek gardens

Greek garden II

Those of you who have visited the Greek islands may remember the scorching summer heat and the glazing sunlight as two of the main features of the country.

Greek gardens are an enchanting picture of colorful dashes on white or earthern background, pergolas with vines and other climbing trees creating deep shades, as well as raised beds and pots of various sizes and shapes giving home to the arduous plants of the region.

Spanish Gardens

Med, patio de la lindaraja, alhambra Med, Alhambra, fountain

Gardens and landscaping in Spain took off during the Arab occupation of the country. Some excellent samples of this trend can be seen at the gardens of Alhambra, Andalucia.

The outline of the garden is once again geometrical, usually in a cross-like form. Lines are straight and water plays an important role in the composition.

Plant selection for the Mediterranean garden

As we already mentioned, perennials prosper in Mediterranean climate, as very easy to cultivate in dry and poor soil conditions.

A Med garden is, above all, a fragrant garden: sage, thyme, rosemary will please both your smell and your taste buds, as you can use them in the kitchen… They’re not tall plants, and they are perfect for edging strips or in a mini rock garden, on well-drained and not too humid soil. You can also accompany them by succulents, like sedums with their countless varieties, or aeoniums and aloe plants whose beautiful flowers will make a wonderful winter ornament.

Citrus trees: If the climate allows you, dare to plant orange, lemon or tangerine trees – preferably near the house, so as to protect them from the cold winds. Imagine opening your windows and letting the elegant fragrance of orange trees invade your room during blooming season…

Oleanders make glorious fences: they bear lots of flowers in varied colors: from white to fuchsia and everything in-between, plus some more – a magnificent palette at your disposal. An additional advantage is that the blooming season may last up to six months.

The silver-green foliage and the twisted trunk of olive trees is, of course, the trademark of Mediterranean landscape. Despite generally accepted ideas, olive trees can grow virtually anywhere, as some species can withstand temperatures well below zero. One thing to remember: olive trees don’t tolerate stagnant waters; a well-drained, pebbly, light soil, as well as a maximum amount of sunlight, are necessary for their survival. During the first three to five years you must be careful of ice; covering of the roots in the winter is a good precaution in cold climates.
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Image sources:

Beehive urn and lavernder, garden statue, Italian garden (Trevarno),
Italian garden (Garnish island), Mediterranean terrace garden, Cyclades bougainvillea,
Patio de la Lindaraja (Alhambra), fountain in Alhambra gardens, oleander flowers

Filed Under: Garden Types

Retaining Walls

December 25, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

When designing the landscape for our home garden, we are sometimes faced with the problem of how to manage and exploit sloping yards. Leveling the ground in order to make it functional and inviting can prove rather onerous, both in labor and in money.

Slopes offer us a chance to create different ground levels connected with beautiful stairways or other landscaping features, thus lending our garden its own special character.

These levels may serve a dual purpose, functioning both as retaining walls, containing the soil and preventing erosion, and as exterior architecture features, helping us separate the garden into themed areas and create distinct focal points. We can also build raised beds for perennials and flowers alike.

The materials and building techniques are varied. The most common materials used in building a retaining wall are:

stone: preferred for its rustic feel, although it may prove rather expensive. Fitting the stones requires accuracy, while making mortar joints look natural is a job for experienced builders.
brick: it somehow gives a formal and dignified impression; prices tend also to be elevated. It needs a certain skill to achieve that regular, elegant look

timber: this material is relatively cheap and way more manageable than stone and brick, but it can’t be raised very high, unless an engineer helps you with designing it and locating crucial structural elements (e.g. deadmen). Another disadvantage is that timber walls are much more short-lived than other types of retaining walls.
concrete: it is strong and, generally, holds well without failing if the preparatory work (design, backfilling, drainage) is done correctly. However, if a concrete wall gets damaged, patching may not be feasible, and removing it will definitely cost you. Its greatest disadvantage, though, is its visual aspect: few things are less attractive than a plain concrete wall; one way of mitigating the effect is to embed decorative designs.
interlocking concrete blocks: similarly to interlocking concrete pavers, these blocks are mortar-free and easy to assemble. The industry has made great progress during the last decades: their appearance is quite natural, and you can easily find a wide variety of sizes, shapes and colors to fit your special landscaping project. Walls erected with ICBs can be raised up to 20 feet, depending on the type of blocks used.

Important warning

A retaining wall is not a simple fence wall: its construction is more complicated, as there are several factors involved in its design – especially (but not restricted to) if it’s going to be more than three feet high.

Have a structural engineer design your wall: the criteria he will use and the calculations he will make are a science taught in universities for good reason. A careful professional study of the locale, an analysis of the various factors (soil, weather, materials, regulations, desires, etc) will provide all the necessary insight into the actions to be taken.

Retaining walls must be well-designed and well-built according to the rules of the craft, or they risk failing. Failure of the wall will most certainly cost you a bundle, and this is the best scenario. Damages to property or lives are also a probability.

Risks, Considerations, and Coconut Oil?

In the U.S. we have hard water, especially in the Southwestern part of the United States. There’s a solution called 100SS cleaner which is a liquid concentrate with coconut oil that helps maintain polished concrete’s sheen.

Also to consider is the soil contained by a retaining wall exerts very strong horizontal pressure. If the wall is not well-constructed, it may:

Crack
Bulge
Sag
Seep
Lean
Collapse

In fact, a retaining wall does not have to collapse to fail; not performing as expected is enough of a definition for failure. Tearing the wall and rebuilding it may be the only solution in a substantial number of cases.

Some times, the ground itself tends to slide. This risk becomes more serious in the following cases:

After hard and repeated rains
In seismic zones
With clay soils (they swell)
With very high walls

Being aware of the type of soil surrounding the wall, in order to make correct static calculations, is extremely important.

See: Retaining Wall – Types, Planning, Stability, Failures & Recommendations

Causes of Retaining Wall Failure

As it turns out, there are numerous causes for inadequate designing and/or construction of a retaining wall. The presence of even one of the causes listed below is enough to turn a handsome landscaping feature into a death trap (the list is not exhaustive):

Inexisting or ineffective drainage: the most common reason for retaining wall failure, as it makes soil pressure exerted on the wall build up;
Lack of soil analysis / skipping calculations: hazardous design, poor estimate of the wall’s and foundation’s required dimensions;
Lack of rigid foundations;
Poor load bearing capacity of the ground;
Poor compaction: the ground needs to be compacted several times (at the point of excavation, after the gravel base has been added, each time backfill is added);
Insufficient anchoring;
Use of inappropriate materials;
Defective verticality of the wall
Inexisting or insufficient reinforcement (steel reinforcements for concrete walls, geogrid for modular block and stone retaining walls)

Other Considerations

Check your local building codes: approved design may be needed to get a building permit for walls above a certain height.
Call the local utility companies before you dig to have them mark the location of the utility lines: buried lines may not only be dangerous, but they may also prevent you to build the wall where you want.
It is also a good idea to verify the lot lines and inform the neighbors that they will be construction going on.

As with everything, careful planning is the key to a successful landscaping retaining wall construction. Before making any final decisions, before ordering materials, before getting set to work, consult with your local engineer or construction company and ask for a meticulous study of the terrain and environment, in order to avoid ulterior trouble, inflated costs, or an occasional lawsuit.

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Image sources: Stone steps to the beach, Brick steps & pavement, Fieldstone stairs
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Filed Under: Constructions

Basic Soil Types

December 22, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

soil When we embark on a landscaping project, it is essential that we know at least two things: what are the current problems in our garden that we want to improve, and what types of plants we’d like to raise. This is important because the distribution of the ground and the selection of the most appropriate soil for our cultures – whether we expect to eat from our garden or we simply wish to create a handsome and harmonious ensemble – will define the successful outcome of our plans, as plants are living organisms with specific needs.

Trees, shrubs or flowers, that we would never imagine growing and blooming in proximity in nature, may coexist in full glory in a residential garden. A sandy coastal backyard can be transformed into an all-green, highly productive vegetable garden, if we fill in large flower beds with rich loam soil. That piece of land by the fence wall, which used to gather stagnant waters, can host a number of graceful plants and flowers – all that needs be done is to perform a few simple tasks: excavate, lay gravel and/or other permeable materials for the effective drainage of the lot, fill in with soil, voilà!

After installing a good drainage system and after laying the substrate of our garden with materials that will help improve its functionality (e.g. gravel, geotextile, etc), it is time to lay the garden soil level and proceed to planting.

Garden Soil

By ‘garden soil’ we mean the topsoil, down to 24 inches deep, where plants sprout and grow. It is composed mainly of humus and mineral particles: clay (very fine grain), silt (medium-sized grain) and sand (large grain). The content percentage of the above mineral materials varies among different soil types.

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When adding topsoil, don’t just throw it on top of the ground.

Always incorporate some or all of it with the native soil,
or at least create a shallow transition zone between the two.

This way, water will be able to move freely across the newly created ground,
preventing the creation of soggy areas in the garden.

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How to tell apart the various soil types:

The simplest method is to pick up some soil when it’s moist and compress it.

Sandy soils will feel gritty
Loam soils will break apart into loose chunks
Clayey soils will cling together in a ball

Here are some quick, empirical and effective ways to diagnose your soil before proceeding to your landscaping and gardening plans: Soil Types and Testing

In the section below we will examine the most common soil types, their characteristics, how they respond to cultivation, and what we can do to improve them for greener and healthier gardens.

1. Sandy soil

It is light and fluffy, therefore very easy to cultivate, as it allows the soil to break up and be worked for planting. It also helps prevent crusting, which could block seeds from breaking the surface.

As sand is a quite loose material, it allows water, the sun and its beneficial spring warmth, as well as the air and oxygen to permeate more easily and in greater depth than other types of soil.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a very useful
plant for preventing soil erosion due to its
resistance to drought. It also repels bad insects and
attracts good ones, while directly improving the
health of sick plants when grown near them.
Yarrow grows exceptionally well in well-drained
soils: sandy soils are ideal for the growth of this
valuable plant.

Downsides: Sandy soils

are not appropriate for plants with small root system, because their consistency does not allow for good support and the plants remain vulnerable to the force of the winds; furthermore, such plants will suffer during the hot season, when their tiny roots will be struggling to absorb scarce drops of water from a quickly drained ground;
as water and humidity are quickly drained, they carry along all the useful nutrients that get washed away, far from the topsoil where they are most needed.

Remedies:
We can improve our sandy soil significantly by mixing it with clay, manure or humus.

2. Clayey soil

It is very consistent, which makes it exceptionally hard to permeate by water, light and air. It keeps warm during winter, and retains water in the summer, but may crack deeply in high temperatures; when dry, you can feel how heavy and hard this material can be.

Downsides:
Due to its dense, compact nature, the roots of plants penetrate it with great difficulty and may suffocate from inadequate airing. During droughts, when superficial humidity evaporates, the plants cease to grow, sometimes even shrivel.

Remedies:
We can improve clay by mixing in sandy soil, manure or humus.

3. Chalky soil

Echinacea, sought for its valuable properties in curing common colds, thrives in lime-rich soils.

It comes from calcareous (lime-rich) soils and therefore very alkaline.

Downsides:
Most chalky soils are shallow, free-draining and poor in nutrients; however, when clay is present, nutrient levels may be higher and water holding capacity better. On the other hand, the high alkalinity of the ground will still prevent the absorption of iron by the plants.

Remedies:
Mix in sand and/or manure. Avoid limestone and dolomite, as they will increase the soil’s alkaline content.

4. Loam soil

Dark brown or black, it contains almost equal amounts of sand, silt and clay (40-40-20 %). It is outstanding for cultivation, as it is rich in nutrients and humus, retains the necessary amounts of water while at the same time allowing excess water to drain away, and it is easier to till than clayey soils.

Loam soil keeps relatively warm during the harsh winter days, while it doesn’t bake in the fiery summer. It also promotes the growth of beneficial microorganisms which help keep the soil healthy.

Loam soil is the gardener’s friend: a rich, healthy topsoil which, of course, still needs good management, so as not to get depleted and impoverished. Working in organic materials from time to time will keep the soil in good condition. We can also use it to enrich poor soils (clayey, sandy and chalky).

5. Silt soil

It is similar to loam soil, but contains smaller ratios of both sand and clay particles. Silt is the material deposited in river banks and floodplains and, therefore, it is very fertile ground. It holds water, like clayey soils do, yet it drains much better.

The lovely weeping willow’s natural habitat is river and lake banks — silt soils are just right for her.

Downsides:
Silt soils tend to erode easily, as their fine, light particles are blown away by wind and carried down by water streams. They also tend to get compacted easily — avoid walking on flower beds and prefer to use pathways, such as narrow boards, between beds and plots, or build raised beds.

Remedies:
Mix in mulches, sand and/or other drainage assistance materials.

Image sources: Baby seedling, Echinacea, Yarrow, Weeping willow

Filed Under: Gardening/Landscaping Tips Tagged With: soil types

Concrete Pavers

December 12, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

If you need a cost-effective, yet beautifully-looking solution for your walkway, driveway or patio, then you should definitely consider laying a concrete paver.

Don’t let images of neglected urban sidewalks, monotonous concrete slabs and all those things of the past interfere with your decision – concrete pavers have gone a long way from their early, awkward days. The variety of sizes, shapes and colors is tremendous, and you can easily find products offering an old-time, hand-chiseled, natural stone feel that fits in many architectural styles and landscaping needs while adding greatly to the value and character of your residence.

A multicolored paver blends better with its surroundings.
It also allows potential stains to be “lost”
in the multitude of hues and tones.

Benefits of Concrete Pavers

The use of concrete pavers is expanding rapidly, and this is owed to the benefits presented by the material itself:

durability
slip resistant
no need for regular maintenance
can be spot replaced, if necessary, or seamlessly added to at a later time
conserves resources by saving lumber
minimal maintenance

While their initial purchase and installation costs may seem higher than pouring slab concrete (a few dollars or less per square foot), the long-term benefits presented by the reduced repair and replacement needs will be evident in a few years’ time. When properly installed, concrete pavers will embellish your garden for decades without need for additional attention.

Some types of concrete pavers can be further chiseled by hand to create an even more antique, artistic look. You can also mix and match different shapes and colors of pavers, creating smart designs and lively effects, or focusing the view on your preferred spots.

Maintenance needs

Standard maintenance needs are limited to adding sand to the joins every two to three years, or even more for moderate climates.

If damage occurs, then concrete pavers can be individually removed and replaced.

A stable sub-base is absolutely critical for laying your pavers and forgetting all about them. If, however, the installation was not properly made, concrete pavers may settle in spots over time. This can be easily fixed without any noticeable patches: just remove the damaged pavers, re-grade and re-compact the sub-base, and install the new pavers.

Interlocking Concrete Pavers

Interlocking concrete pavers, or segmental pavers, are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to brick, clay, or concrete during the last couple of decades.

What makes interlocking concrete pavers (ICPs) so stable is the fact that each paver can not move independently from the adjacent ones. ICPs are flexible pavements, designed to spread loads imposed on a small area of the pavement surface through a base layer (most usually complemented by a sub-base or even a series of sub-bases, depending on the type and the water-holding capacity of the soil on which the pavement is going to be laid) to a larger area of the soil sub-grade.

This is achieved through the following media:

joint or polymeric sand: this sharp-angled locks together and creates friction that impedes pavers from moving by transferring loads to surrounding units;
perimeter edge restraint: keeps the pavers firmly in place and inhibits them from spreading apart;
proper paver thickness: this should be estimated in relation to load and use;
laying patterns: choosing a pattern that minimizes the length of uninterrupted joint lines will provide extra strength by dispersing forces, especially from moving vehicles.

David R. Smith, director of the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (Sterling, Va.), insists that, when installing an ICP system, 90 per cent of the work involves preparation of the sub-surface: How to Install Concrete Pavers

Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavers

Water is a basic ingredient for all life on Earth. Rain is a blessing for the plants and for the well-being of entire populations. When considering the way human societies tend to develop exponentially, the need for sustainable water management systems that will prevent flooding and water pollution without weighing too much on a homeowner’s budget.

The concrete industry provides a revolutionary product that leads rain waters to be absorbed on-the-spot by replicating the natural environment.

Permeable interlocking concrete pavers (PICPs) are installed on top of an open-graded base and sub-base, an aggregate base that allows water to pass through and be introduced back into the soil.

PICPs are an important low-impact development technique that

allows developers to reduce or eliminate water retention areas
creates more green space
maintains initial hydrologic conditions (runoff flows)
helps reduce demand for additional drainage capacity*
encourages natural groundwater recharge

* which can result in 10-15 per cent savings in construction costs (pipes, reservoirs)

Permeable pavers with storage bed systems provide rainwater quality control through the infiltration process, as well as pretreatment of the runoff — practices that are sometimes imposed by relevant laws and regulations (see: Federal Stormwater Management Requirements)

They are relatively easy to install, but require regular and effective maintenance in order to continue performing.

A usually employed technique is to alternate areas with permeable and conventional paving, the latter being reserved for heavily trafficked corridors. The wide variety of permeable paving systems, combined with the virtually endless array of conventional concrete pavers, is guaranteed to achieve both functional and pleasing designs.

Filed Under: Constructions

The Eco-friendly Garden

December 10, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

We don’t really need to go to the movies or walk into dark alleys at night in order to live moments of horror and agony: a garden can perfectly well make our weekend an unforgettable experience – which is not always pleasant…

Just remember how many times you have seen or heard of a child presenting serious allergy symptoms after rolling on a lawn and coming in touch with recently applied chemical fertilizers, pesticides or insecticides…

This, of course, does not mean that we can’t enjoy a lush, green garden when we have small children roaming around our yard. Turning to a more eco-friendly gardening model will protect the health of our beloved ones, while helping our garden to be and to look healthier.

Gardens, even in their primitive wild condition, were present on Earth long before humans made their first steps on the planet.

After billions of years of evolution, the flora of a place, in combination with the fauna living in it (birds, insects, worms, snails, etc), can form a complete local ecosystem.

Much like a human or animal body, this ecosystem has its own particular workings going on, and a sensitive balance that needs to be maintained, so that it remains healthy and robust.

A garden is an islet of life, a unique orchestration of natural elements (ground, weather) and of the living creatures (fauna, humans) thriving in those very specific conditions.

Nature has its own ways of preventing and of curing diseases, of keeping away harmful species and of expelling anything unfit to live in a given environment – whether you wish to have it embellishing your garden, like that jasmine you like so much (alas! in those chilly Minnesota nights), or you would love to see it vanish from your garden, like that horrid aphid which dries the sap out of your beauties.

Naturally Balanced Landscape Design

The ground contains, naturally, an array of nutritional substances.

Besides being indispensable to the plants themselves, a landscape design which has an exchange of substances, liquids and saps from and within the environment of an ecosystem, such as your garden, is a vital process for the fauna of the area as well. And we all know how insects, earthworms and other useful species perform many necessary functions (pollination, praying upon harmful species, airing and enriching of the ground, etc).

It is important that plants receive the substances appropriate to their own specific nutritional needs and that they avoid soils and adjacency with plants that are not beneficial to them.

If you ever grew a vegetable garden, you must have noticed how green peas hate the company of tomatoes; on the other hand, they are nitrogen-generating plants: your Brussels sprouts, or your ornamental leafy vegetables will be grateful for being planted on a spot previously occupied by green peas. This information can be very useful in the practice of crop rotation.

Even during the life cycle of an individual plant, its nutritional needs may vary according to its reproductive stage: as a general rule, nitrogen helps increase the sprouting of shoots and leaves, while phosphorus assists blooming and fruit-bearing.

The lack of or, on the contrary, the overexposure to a certain nutrient may cause chain reactions, harmful to your plants. For example, the imbalances in calcium supply (an absolutely necessary substance for the delivery of nutrients and for regulating the soil’s acidity (pH), leads to lack of phosphorus – which, as we already saw, assists fruit-bearing.

This will result in a poor crop; additionally, the leaves will take on an auburn hue.

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Tip: Do not place plants with similar nutritional needs together, as they will be constantly rivaling each other.

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Besides absorbing substances from the ground and from their leaves, plants also secrete them. Plants contain essential oils, resins and other kinds of liquids – even in minimal amounts – that may attract or repel animals and other plants. Some examples:

basil, ocimum basilicum, repels flies and cucumber mildew;
wormwood, artemisia absinthium, repels worms, greenflies, ants, cabbage butterfly, and more;
elderberry, sampucus nigra, whose flowers attract bees and fruits attract several bird species;
stinging nettle, urtica dioica and urtica urens, that should be in every garden, as it is needed for the reproductive cycle of more than a hundred different kinds of useful mites, and also boosts production for neighboring plants, while increasing the production of essential oils of the herbs growing next to it;
garlic, allium sativum, a potent anti-fungal which can be planted near or around fruit-bearing trees, rose bushes, and vegetables (except beans, cauliflowers, cabbages, broccoli); it also assists the growth of strawberry plants.

It is important to have a combination of plants mutually profitable for each other: your garden will be much healthier, more balanced, and your plants will grow showing off all the splendor of their natural beauty.

Beneficial Insects

Pest control can rely heavily on the beneficial insects living in your garden: if you care to provide them with appropriate living conditions (the plants from which they harvest pollen and nectar, poison-free environment, a hiding place, such a little pond, a loose stone wall, or a tuft of wild grass) they will multiply unimpeded and they will start their campaign against the larvae and the adult insects that usually attack plants.

Beneficial insects are real predatory warriors that go hunting or ambush a variety of common gardener’s headaches. The best way to attract them to your garden is to designate a space (about 5-10 per cent of the total area) in which you will grow wild and domesticated plants and herbs that beneficials love to visit.

Applied in a larger scale (e.g. a farm) the concept is called farmscaping and it is a scientific method of biological control that will allow nature to regulate itself without the use of detrimental chemical agents.

Ladybugs, praying mantises, and lacewings larvae are some of your best allies in keeping pests under control, and they are really easy to find:

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Images courtesy of: Touching the Tulip, Sunflower, Lavender & Ladybug

Filed Under: Gardening/Landscaping Tips

What Landscaping Can Do For Your Garden

December 6, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

Whatever the size of your garden, an attractive spot for rest and daydreaming amidst your plants is something you deserve to relish.

A preferential part of the garden or, in the contrary, a low-profile corner that nobody ever uses can very easily be transformed to a special place for relaxation and well-being.

Tip: Always draw your landscaping layout after careful examination of the garden’s orientation, the sun’s position throughout the day (and in the course of the year), the winds blowing in the area.

backyard Your garden should look fabulous, but, most of all, you should be able to live in it according to your specific lifestyle.

For example, you wouldn’t want to plant the sensitive mimosas in the path of the wild winter northern winds – and you definitely wouldn’t want to build a swimming pool or a porch that the sun visits no more than a couple of hours every day.

Landscaping design is done according to both aesthetic and rational standards.

Try to include as many environmental and personal factors that you know would influence the design of your garden. Think them over. Then, start drawing.

Small Garden & Medium Sized Garden Ideas Picture Gallery

In the following video, you will see how dull patches in the garden were fashioned into elegant and functional spaces, offering a special tone and a vivid atmosphere to the house:

Landscaping Before and After Pictures

Even if your garden looks absolutely desperate – as the one you will see right away – give your imagination the reigns and let it lead you to its wildest fantasies. Nothing needs to remain as you once knew it. Raise mounds, create ponds, split the area according to your own geography: you are a small god in this portion of land.

We have already talked about the importance of drawing a blueprint of your garden as you want it to look when finished. Not everyone is good with pencil and paper though – or, it may very well be that you would love to do it, but you don’t have the time. A simple, easy-to-use 3D Landscaping software will help you see your vision created on the screen, before you get too deep into actually building it.

Hard Landscaping: Laying the Foundations

One important distinction to make is the one between hard and soft landscaping.

While soft landscaping refers to working with the selection, arrangement, planting and handling of the verdure (something that most garden owners enjoy doing themselves), hard landscaping comprises all the preparatory work, such as

Retaining walls
Foundations for sheds and greenhouses;
Ponds and built-in swimming pools;
Porches, gazebos, decking
Paving, paths, driveways
Stairways, terraces, patios
Drainage and guttering

and it usually requires some prior experience with the digging, trenching and building involved. In certain instances, it may also require special tools and knowledge on the kinds of works performed. Just keep in mind that you’re not a professional, and feel free to ask expert advice at whatever stage of your project you think you may need some.

How to Transform Your Backyard into a Secret Garden

The happy owner in the following video displays a terrific landscaping project that took him four summers to complete. Many people find this sort of exercise fun and rewarding – building your own garden will certainly give you a sense of fulfillment and pride.

Hire a Professional Landscaping Company

Even if you want to relegate the task to a landscaping professional, remember that a garden is a living, evolving entity. The image you will get from your newly-constructed garden will be quite different from the one you’re going to enjoy in one, two or four years’ time.

Filed Under: Landscaping Tagged With: garden landscapes, hard landscaping, hardscaping

Landscaping Elements

December 2, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

Begin by drawing your garden on paper.

Less or more detailed, it is much better to have a draft lay-out plan that will help you get a global perspective on your garden, of the solutions you can give, of the image and the functions that you wish to obtain.

A well-balanced landscape will lend unity and harmony to the garden.

Before even start questioning yourself about the colors you want to see around you, you should first pay attention to shapes.

A garden is, essentially, a portion of land that can be mapped out on paper. Imagine seeing your garden from above. Regular, straight lines, oblong and square segments tend to look overly artificial, are predictable and don’t add the necessary variety.

Try using circles, which will smooth out a long rectangular garden, and diagonals, which can create the illusion of a larger space, by directing the eye both length- and wide-wise. Play with crooked lines or curves, in order to break your garden into smaller areas.

Working with shapes in your garden

Be bold: create focal points.

These may be a round flower bed in the middle of the garden, a little pond, a bench shadowed by trees, a bush with a rich yellow or red color in the midst of an area dominated by shades of green, a small rock garden. Focal points give character and help you avoid monotony; they can even help you exploit dull or difficult corners that you wouldn’t know how to use.

More Elements of Landscape Design

Besides the horizontal plane, of course, a garden also develops vertically: first due to the growing plants, then by possible differences in ground levels and/or by constructions that we can introduce to the ensemble. Pergolas, low walls, decorations, bush fences, sculptures and fountains, garden furniture, sunshades, arcades and arches… combined with a varying heights of the plants and with smart arrangements, they can really show off a garden, as they play with existing space and the impressions created by the volumes of the individual elements.

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Design the landscape of your dreams, without being restricted by thoughts of whether all these plans for a heavenly garden will be immediately materialized.

Rome, they say, wasn’t built in a day. Set up a general working plan, based on the final outcome that you want to achieve, and work on it in proportion to the time and the budget that you can spare at various intervals.

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Now is the time to start working with color. This concerns, at an initial level, the choice of structural and decorative elements, in other words of those more permanent features of the garden which often set the overall tone, at least in certain select areas.

After determining and setting the foundation, on which you’re going to work, you can then fit in the appropriate plants, so that you create a unified ensemble, pleasing to the eye.

Color can also be added, especially in the beginning, when the garden has not yet acquired its final form and image, with flower pots and other decorations and accessories: small sculptures, chairs and other furniture, a bird house, the colors applied to a little cabin, etc.

Texture

Imagine yourself standing a few steps above your garden and looking at it. A large area of flat, trimmed turf stretches beneath your feet.

Why not create an antithesis by inserting a round or oval bed where some dark green underbrush will grow unfolding its wavy leaves?

Or, you can make up for the sharp effect created by a tree with hard, sword-shaped leaves, such as a yucca, with tasseled bushes of various heights and colors surrounding it; a tall vertical plant or structure can be mitigated by a creeper that would graciously climb its trunk or poles.

It’s all up to your imagination.

We should not forget that a garden is a composite structure: the play of hard materials (stone, wood, etc) with soft ones (plants, water) can create very interesting and fanciful combinations.

Furthermore, the ground itself is by no means a neutral element: the earth, the stones, gravel and pebbles, the slates and tiles – they all play an active role in the creation and the final overall image of the garden, and they can be used, properly placed, to help fashion contours, pathways and focal points.

The combination of stone, water and plants offers exquisite effects.

Lighting

Whether your lifestyle compels you to be absent during most of the day, so that you can enjoy your garden mainly during nighttime, or you have the freedom to stay long hours at home, dare to discover the magical moments and the mystic ambiance that appropriate lighting can offer.

Strong, unified lighting is barely advisable.

Little spotlights can set off impressive plants or ornamental structures; small appealing lamps can contribute to the décor during the day and signal the existence of paths and of other points of interest during the night; if your garden has a pond, it would be a good idea to exploit the reflections of light on water and create a dreamscape.

In any case, consult an electrician on how to install the lights and pay special attention to protecting the electrical system from weather and from other damages by using reinforced or armored cables and/or by covering them with wireways buried in the ground.

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Image source: Stock Exchange

Filed Under: Landscaping

How to Create a Rock Garden

November 27, 2012 By Gill Leave a Comment

Although not a very recent concept, stone gardens have gained in popularity over the last few years – not unjustly so, as they feature many qualities that make them an easy-to-apply and really attractive solution for all types of gardens:

they can develop in large areas, or they can accommodate themselves in a tiny corner of your yard, and look equally beautiful in both instances;

Colorful rock garden: Flowering Kurume azaleas in May (Leonardslee Gardens, UK)

they can be built in sites with a lot of moisture and deep shadows or in dry and sunbathed places during most of the year;
their construction presupposes a reworking and reformation of the ground, thus offering an opportunity for very ornamental results;
they can really transform and show off a site which otherwise you wouldn’t know how to exploit.

Rock garden, nature’s tameless child

The most important thing to remember when designing and building a stone garden is that it is basically an imitation of nature, as we might see it in a somehow wild state.

Forget about orderly flower beds, square fences and conventional garden designs following the western standards (like French gardens and Victorian parks, for example). Quite on the contrary, imagine yourself up on a mountain or at a rocky area and try to figure how a landscape like this might have been created — with stones large and small, with pebbles drifted by the waters of dashing winter streams, with plants peeping out through every probable and improbable crack of the rocks and the ground.

There are two basic rock garden landscapes in nature:

Those developing on mountains or in desert areas: the vegetation is low, the plants creep and show a tendency of growing close to the ground. The environmental conditions, the wind and the sun, are harsh and require tough plants, species that will be able to withstand adversities. In this case, you must choose drought-resistant plants, such as agave, Texas lantana, desert willow, lamb’s ears, sedum (or stonecrop), etc;
Those developing in deep-shaded slopes and ravines, perhaps by the edge of a creek or some kind of water stream: these are plants that can grow well without ample sunlight and can tolerate moisture, such as ferns, which are also very decorative and give a forest-like image to your garden.

Water stream in a forest. See how the rocks are randomly heaped, covered by moss, with little tufts of green leaves here and there.

In both instances, you should keep in mind that the water, after being absorbed where it is immediately needed, is quickly lost due to sharp drainage conditions. This plays a huge role in the selection of the plants that you will be using: no plant types that require really damp ground will ever thrive, or even plain survive in a rock garden.

Why choose to build a rock garden

Stone gardens are usually designed in order to exploit sloping sites; in this case, you can easily achieve a striking naturalistic effect. However, you can just as well build one on a perfectly flat site by importing rocks in order to create raised beds, especially when you have to work with more restricted areas. In fact, you can create a miniature rock garden in no more than three square feet and make it look lovely and luscious, a tiny corner of serenity in your yard.

Miniature rock garden with ramonda and lewisia

If you are thinking of building a low wall in your garden, perhaps at the side of a driveway or as a means of containing an elevated bed-ground, you might just as well consider constructing one made of stone. Then you can have various plants grow out of the cracks and crevasses, thus creating a varied, playful effect – definitely more pleasing to the eye, adding character to the whole yard, and offering a beautiful view from your house windows. One more advantage: you don’t have to use any fancy stones for this kind of wall, as the plants sprouting from it will steal the show and make up its real charm.

Finally, rock gardens are ideal for areas suffering from drought during most of the year and especially in the summer. In this case, you will go for a desert or Mediterranean look, with succulents and aromatic herbs, such as thyme, that will thrive in those arid conditions and that will look perfectly acclimatized even during the worst heat waves.

How to design and build a rock garden

Choose a location: The most natural place to consider for the creation of your rock garden is a steep slope. Or, you may choose to exploit a part of your yard where nothing else seems to grow. Whatever the case, you’d want to build it at a spot that will be clearly visible, perhaps close to where you will be sitting, so that you’ll be able to really enjoy it after all the time and effort you’d be putting into its creation.

Clear the ground: Create a clean area on which to work by scraping the weeds and removing all vegetation that is there now.

Improve the drainage: Since rock gardens are usually found high up on the mountains, their natural tendency is to have fairly good drainage.Sandy soil is the best for this type of garden; if, on the other hand, you have to work with a clay soil, you will have to loosen it up. For this purpose, you will mix it with sand – then, you will add some compost to the mixture, because sand is a quite infertile medium.

Be random: A rock garden, as an imitation of nature, is not a strict geometrical creation. Variety is the key here: use varying rock sizes, distributed in random groupings of big ones, with some smaller ones scattered around. Basic geology dictates that a specific area abounds in the same basic type of rock – the difference consists in the sizes, the shapes and the way they are thrown all around the place.

Create a natural look: Partially bury the stones in the ground: from two inches up to one third of the stone. This will make them look as if they are a natural part of the milieu and it will add a deceptively pleasing effect to the composition.

Add coarse texture: Put the final touch by scattering some fine gravel or pebbles around, an imitation of what occurs in nature – somewhat like debris collecting in a valley bottom. The gravel will have the additional advantage of discouraging weeds from growing and making their removal a whole lot easier for you.

Image credits:

Colorful rock garden, Water stream in a forest, Miniature rock garden

Filed Under: Garden Types Tagged With: rock garden