Landscaping Ideas

Firstly a very warm welcome to Landscaping Ideas! We hope that the landsacping ideas and gardening ideas you will find here will be helpful to you in creating a beautiful and enjoyable home environment.

Whether you have a large garden or a small backyard there are ideas here which will help you.

Enjoy your gardening and enjoy landscaping ideas!

We're going to look at the basics of creating a garden that is perfect for butterflies. You need to plan a garden with the purpose of attracting butterflies, keeping them in your garden, and making the environment friendly for them to breed.

The first thing you need to do is choose several plants that produce nectar for the butterflies and will hopefully provide continuous blooms through the summer. The most important time to have blooms is mid to late summer. This is when most butterflies are most active. Flowers that produce multiple blooms on a single plant and contain a lot of nectar are best.

You probably want to choose a variety of annuals for your garden, because annuals bloom all though the season. This provides butterflies with a continuous supply of nectar, and will keep the butterflies coming to your yard all season.

Some perennials are very good for attracting butterflies. Lilac and asters are favorites for butterfly gardens. Coneflowers are a lovely wildflower that butterflies adore. Herbs such as parley, dill, and mint provide good nectar for butterflies.

You can make homemade butterfly feeders from small jars, such as baby food jars. You just drill a hole in the middle of the lid and stuff it with cotton. Then you fill the jar with a mixture of 1:9 sugar and water. (1 part sugar and 9 parts water.)

Then you can decorate the jar with brightly colored bits of felt to attract the butterflies to it. Hang it somewhere in your garden and the butterflies will come suck the "nectar" out through the cotton in the lid.

In addition to providing plants that will feed the butterflies and their larva, you'll need to be sure your yard is hospitable in other ways. Butterflies need a bit of shelter for their eggs. You'll need to provide some sort of windbreak around your butterfly garden, so the butterflies can lay their eggs in an area where wind won't harm them.

They also need a mud puddle at which to congregate. Butterflies like to gather at the edges of puddles, so you'll need to provide at least one for them. You should also be sure not to use too many pesticides around your garden.

These poisons can kill butterfly larva, and they can also harm the butterflies themselves. It doesn't take a lot of insecticide to kill these delicate creatures. Insecticides can kill delicate caterpillars before they have a chance to grow into butterflies.

They can also kill adult butterflies when they light onto the plants to rest, or when they consume nectar that has been tainted with poison. Before you spray any of your plants, be sure the creatures you're trying to kill are actually damaging pests.

Some butterfly larva can look remarkably similar to common garden pests, and although butterfly larvae do feed on plants, they don't typically eat enough to do any real damage. So be sure your identification is correct before you spray.

Most flowers that are brightly-colored and sweet-smelling should attract butterflies to your garden. You should plant a wide variety of flowers, mostly annuals, if you want to attract the most different types of butterflies. Since different species are attracted to different types of flowers, having a good variety will ensure that you get the most different types of butterflies visiting your garden.

The first thing you need to decide when planning a container garden is whether you'd prefer to grow your plants indoors or outdoors. A lot of people think container gardening is only for indoor growing and patios, but containers can actually be useful for any garden situation.

Containers are great for growing almost any type of plant, because they offer great versatility. If you plant your garden in containers and you need to move it later, it's easy to do it. Not so if you have a traditional garden!

If you're expecting very bad weather, you can temporarily move containers to a safer location, like indoors or into a garage or basement. But there isn't much you can do for a traditional garden.

If you find your plants aren't doing well because the space you chose is too sunny or too shady, there isn't much you can do with a traditional garden, but you can easily move potted plants to a better location.

If you choose to have your container garden outdoors, you need to be sure to choose a good location for it. You'll want to choose a place that has the proper amount of sun for the plants you wish to grow, but it also needs to be a place that's very accessible. It's easy to lose motivation to work on your garden if it's several hundred yards away from the house!

Be sure to locate your plants as far away from streets as you can. Pollution from cars, as well as the dust they kick up, can damage your plants and contaminate them. You don't want to be eating all of that pollution, so locate plants as far away from those roads as possible.

If you have your plants indoors, you'll need to be sure to select a very good spot. Most plants need to be fairly warm, so you'll need to choose the warmest spot in your house if you use air conditioning.

Many plants won't do well in very chilly homes, so you might need to choose a room for your plants and keep the vent closed in that room so it stays warmer there. If you can, choose a sunny room with a lot of natural sunlight.

Plants thrive best with natural light. If you don't have a room with a lot of sunlight, you'll have to use special plant lights for your plants. You can't use just any fluorescent lights, because plants won't thrive.

You need to use lights that are specially designed for growing plants. They contain a broad spectrum of light, which is closer to natural light than standard bulbs. You may also have to adjust the humidity in the room with your plants.

Some plants thrive better in higher humidity, and others do well in lower humidity. You may need to invest in special equipment to adjust the humidity if you're raising very delicate or picky plants. You probably won't have to do this unless you're growing exotic varieties.

Next, you'll need to choose which plants you want to grow. Be careful! Too many people choose to plant far too many varieties, and end up frustrated. Don't grow anything you can easily pick up cheaply at the grocery store!

Stick to growing fruits and vegetables that you really enjoy and have a hard time locating locally, or those you find too expensive or too low quality. Tomatoes are a favorite for home gardeners, because their quality in stores if often very poor.

Finally, decide whether or not you want to grow your plants organically. If you're growing indoors, this will probably be very simple to do. But if you're growing your plants outside, you may find the frustration of dealing with pests is just too much for you. Don't feel guilty if you find organic gardening too difficult. You can always try it after you have more experience.

Edible landscaping is the process of planting edible plants in a landscape, rather than in a traditional garden. There are two major benefits to edible landscaping. First of all, edible landscapes save space, because they combine landscaping and food-growing into a single space.

Secondly, they turn a standard landscape into more than just aesthetics, but into a useful method of growing some of your own food. Edible landscapes don't have to be 100% edible. You can design your edible landscape around any percentage of edible plants you wish.

You might choose to make your landscape 100% edible, or you might only include a single fruit tree. Edible landscaping has actually been around for a very long time. Some of the earliest edible landscapes were found in ancient Persia and in gardens in medieval times.

In some areas of the world, most people plant mostly edible varieties. Some people see no point in planting anything that isn't edible, seeing everything else as a waste of valuable food-growing space.

An important part of planning your edible landscape is knowing what conditions each variety needs. Some plants will need a lot of sun, and some plants require more shade. You need to be sure the soil conditions are suitable.

Be sure to check each and every variety so you know its soil requirements, sunlight requirements, and the nutrient and pH balance needed. Start by planning out your landscape on paper.

Mark off where you want to place certain plants, and be sure those areas are conducive to the varieties you wish to locate there. Use fruit trees in place of shade trees. You can plant hazelnuts and currants wherever you might place a deciduous shrub. You can use herbs in place of low-lying shrubs and ground cover.

Ornamental plants often need very little care. Edible plants do need a little bit more attention than other plants if you want them to produce a good harvest. You might have to water them more often or fertilizer them.

You'll probably have to work a bit harder to control pests than you would for strictly ornamental plants, because insects tend to target edible plants much more often. But the food yield certainly makes it worth a bit of additional work.

One of the most important types of edible plants to add to a landscape is fruit trees or bushes. Fruit trees make excellent shade tree replacements. And berry bushes can be extremely attractive in place of typical shrubs. Blueberry bushes can be quite lovely in front of a home, for example. And apple trees can grow into delightful shade trees!

Instead of planting flowerbeds, you can plant beds of lettuce, herbs, or greens. Many types of mint have lovely blooms. Lettuce and other greens can come in all types of colors. You can get ornamental cabbages and kale in a wide variety of colors, adding a splash of color to any area. Peppers and tomatoes are colorful additions, as well.

Grape arbors are a spectacular addition to a landscape. Grape arbors have been used for many years as a beautiful enhancement to lawns, and the fruit is a wonderful bonus. Remember, many types of flowers are also edible.

Nasturtiums, violas, daylilies, calendula, and borage are all edible, and make wonderful additions to salads and decorations for cakes. So you can still plant some flowers, even if you want to stay 100% edible!

Not every landscape is perfect and having a rock garden can help in many of those areas. You might have an area that is just too shaded and you can't have plants because there just isn't enough sun during the day to help them grow, or you may have an area that has become too dry because you're either going through a drought or rain just won't reach it.

Or, maybe you have too much rain and your land is just too soggy to support good vegetation and has now become very swampy. Rock gardens can help in all of these problem areas and most are very low maintenance.

Good planning can help any novice to rock gardens, but sometimes a professional's opinion can be the difference between ordinary and magnificent. If your land is too rocky, then you can just clear up some of the rock and try to arrange what is left in an aesthetically pleasing pattern.

Adding some shallow rooted plants can help break up a large, rocky area with some green. Or, if the area is too dense with rock, then you could build a border around the area with an artificial border, such as railroad ties - or use small plants to trace around it.

A hilly area on your land will cause your soil to erode. Placing a rock garden in a strategic area of your land will stop the erosion and while adding a good lawn decoration. Bringing in rocks indigenous to your area will give the illusion that the garden is more natural.

An area that is just too dry or maybe has non-fertile soil is another suitable place for a rock garden, and maybe you should even consider a Japanese rock garden. This kind of a garden uses sand and rocks to put patterns into the ground and if you have an extremely dry climate, this will look intentional despite having a bad spot in your yard. Some people will tend to call a Japanese rock garden a "Zen garden" but the two are not the same.

Shady areas can have a rock garden with plants that thrive in the shade. Instead of having plants that are found naturally around rock, you would take plants that do well in the shade and populate your garden with those. It's a great way to expand on the rock garden concept and have a more personalized decoration.

No matter what your land is like you can always benefit from a rock garden. Do you have a lot of land? Let's examine mowing. If you have some of your vast land mass broken up by rock gardens, then it would decrease the amount of mowing you have to do but at the same time would make your land more beautiful.

Breaking up your land doesn't mean you don't care about your land as much if you don't tend to every corner of it, but it does mean that you are able to be more time efficient and give your attention to other parts of your land. You could have other projects for your land such as a waterfall or other type of water feature that would go well with rocks.

Finally, do you remember pointillism from art class? Artists would use tiny dots made with brush strokes to make large pictures, as in Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte by Georges Seruat. He painted with a lot of dots in that painting (and others as well), and you could do the same with a lot of stones. Make your lawn an art gallery of rock garden paintings.

Water gardening requires proper planting conditions, just like any other kind of gardening. You need to be sure to have the correct soil, a good location, and quality plants. But there are special considerations for water gardens that are different from traditional types of gardens.

You'll have to deal with considerations such as the depth of the water, the temperature of the water, and how to keep your plants and animals safe during the winter. Most aquatic plants seem to do better in a heavy, loamy, clay-based soil.

You can't use standard potting mixes, because they are far too light, and they won't hold on to nutrients for very long. The soil you plant your aquatics in should be damp. You'll fill your container about 2/3 full of the soil.

Water lilies should have their rhizomes placed so the growing tip is pointed to the center at a bit of an angle. The growing tip usually has eyes, a bit like a potato. This way, it can grow across the center of the container.

After you have the rhizome place properly, you'll cover it with soil so the tip is just slightly above the soil level. The exception is tropical water lilies, which are planted in the center of the container.

Lotuses are also planted in the center, but their rhizomes are very delicate and should be handled carefully. Emergent and submerged plants should be potted by putting some soil into a pot, centering the plant in the pot, and covering its roots with more soil.

Once they've been potted, you need to cover the soil with about ½ inch of small gravel. This helps keep the soil from clouding the water and also from eroding away. Once you've properly potted your plants, they should be submerged to the correct depth.

You can place bricks underneath containers to help bring them to the correct depth. Check the planting instructions for each plant to see what level the plants should be submerged to. Water lilies generally grow best at a depth of about 12 to 18 inches above the top of their container.

The pot could be placed at a shallower depth at first, and lowered later as the plant grows. The more sun the pond gets, the deeper the container can be placed in the water. Tropical water lilies need to be at 12 inches depth if possible, but they can grow in only 6 to 8 inches if they have to.

Lotus plants only need about 4 to 6 inches of water over the top, and emergent plants generally only need a couple of inches of water over them. You can adjust the height of the various plants by placing bricks or inverted pots underneath.

Be careful not to over-fertilize your water garden. This can lead to an algae problem. You can use slow release tablets or some sort of granular fertilizer. Several different types would be acceptable, including 5-10-5, 12-8-8, 10-6-4, and 20-10-5.

You should fertilize every month from spring until August. Tablet fertilizer is generally the easiest to use. You simply have to push the tablets into the soil. Most aquatic plants won't do very well in cold weather, so they need to be over-wintered.

This means you'll need to take some precautions to ensure your plants aren't killed by ice and freezing temperatures. For very shallow ponds, this will mean the plants need to be brought indoors for the winter.

They need to be kept above freezing, but below 50 degrees so they stay dormant. Be sure to keep the roots very moist at all times until spring. You can also remove rhizomes from their containers and store the plants in moist sphagnum moss inside plastic bags. Tropical water lilies must be stored in an aquarium tank with a lot of light at about 68 degrees.

Raised beds make gardening easier in many ways. They help you solve difficult issues with your soil, they aid in controlling pests, they improve the amount of produce you can harvest in an area, they're great at reducing weeds, and they help conserve water.

Any plants that love well-drained soil can benefit from being grown in raised beds. You don't have to raise just vegetables. You can also easily grow herbs, fruits, and flowers in raised beds and make your job easier.

In raised bed gardening, the soil is usually put into frames that are about three or four feet wide and any length. The soil is generally enriched with compost, and is added to a frame made of wood or other material.

The plants in raised bed gardening are planted much closer together than the plants in a traditional garden. This allows the plants to conserve moisture and also help block the sun from allowing weeds to germinate and grow.

Raised beds can be used to extend the growing season, making it easier to start seeds outdoors earlier, and grow later in the season. This is a great way to get even more produce out of the area in a season.

If you have soil problems in your garden, you can use raised beds and just bypass your own soil completely. If you start with completely fresh soil, it doesn't matter what type of soil you had in your garden to begin with.

Another great benefit of raised bed gardening is the fact that the gardener doesn't walk on the soil in which the plants are growing. This helps prevent the soil from being packed down, so the roots can grow through the soil more readily.

You don't need to till the soil under a raised bed if you don't want to. This is very beneficial for people who can't afford a tiller, or who aren't physically capable of handling a piece of machinery like this.

You won't have to water raised beds as often as you would a traditional garden. The soil in raised beds is designed specifically to hold on to water, so you can water less often and in smaller quantities. This is great for conserving water and saving money.

Frames can be built on top of plywood bases, and then raised to any height. This allows handicapped and elderly people to easily reach their plants to tend to them. For people in wheelchairs, this could be one of the only ways they can garden well.

Diseases and pests are easier to control in raised beds. Since you're starting with fresh soil, it's less likely to be contaminated with diseases that could infect your plants. If your plants do become infected, you can simple dispose of the soil in that bed and start again from scratch.

And pests are easier to control, because plants are in a more confined area. This makes it much easier to spot potential problems, and it also makes it easier to get rid of potential problems before they take over your entire garden.

For most of us, maintaining a garden of any size fills an inherant need of some kind. Whether it's to bring additional beauty to our homes, add some appealing fragrances, or simply fill an ongoing desire to grow and nuture something... we just can't seem to resist this most basic urge. And once we've started of course, we often just keep right on going. In fact, most gardeners tend to start with a small bare patch of ground somewhere around their yard, but eventually they've expanded their efforts into almost every nook and cranny.

Now, even if you don't expect to be landscaping your entire yard anytime soon, it's actually an excellent idea to plan as if you were right from the start. This way even if it takes you ten or twenty years to accomplish everything you'd like, the end result will look like it was professionally designed instead of haphazardly put together on a whim.

Just like the inside of your home has designated areas for specific activities, the outside areas of your home can too. So this is an important thing to consider when you start your garden and landscape planning. If for instance, at some point you'd love to have a covered porch on the front of your home, you might not want to plant a large tree or bush right next to the door. Why? Because if it takes you ten years to actually add the porch, you'll find that removing that tree or bush is needed because it's in the way. And since it has had ten years to really become large and established, moving it might be a major job which requires a contractor.

There are other practical reasons for planning your landscape design too. Some areas of your yard should be designed specificly for kids, playtime, and heavier foot traffic for instance, and you wouldn't want to plant your prize rose bushes right in the area where your kids and pets play the most, right? Try to keep your busiest traffic and play areas planted with everyday grass or hardy ground covers, so it can stay looking nice no matter how much time it is used for play.

Shade trees are usually a great idea to have around or nearby entertainment and barbecue areas, however you also need to consider any utility lines that may be suspended above the property too. If you plant a tree while it's young, you may not realize that there will be problems once it is partially or fully grown. If it becomes large enough, it may intersect with an electric or telephone cable, and this can be quite dangerous.

So before planting trees anywhere in your yard, be sure you know what is above them, plus how large they're supposed to grow once fully matured.

You might want to consider designating some areas of your yard for rainwater runoff too. If you have an area of your yard which seems to naturally collect and pool rain water for example, you might want to consider putting a pretty flower or tropical garden in that area. This way you'll be making use of natural rainfall, saving on your public water bill, and preventing a mudhole mess all at the same time.

There are of course many other things you can do while planning your landscape and garden designs, and one of the most important of course, is to consider how much time you'll have to take care of what you put into place. So stop and think a bit about what you currently have, how you can take advantage of your natural resources, and how much energy you have available - or want to devote. Then start planning your own special landscape and garden areas!