How-To Articles ... Design it
Find out how to do your own home garden landscapingLandscaping Posts
Are you just starting on the adventure of creating your own home landscape? Are you looking for fresh ideas and a new perspective to improve your property? There are lots of ideas here for those who answer “yes” to either of those questions. Find home garden landscaping articles, plant information, and “how-to” garden skills that a homeowner needs to make their dream garden a reality.
Landscaping is certainly an art and requires a certain amount of know-how, but it is entirely in the capability of the average homeowner to accomplish a very attractive landscape with only the desire to plan it out and put some effort into it. In many ways it is like that other domain of home ownership: interior decoration.
Yes, many hire professionally trained experts to design and purchase the furnishings, but there are also many of us who enjoy doing the job ourselves.
Landscaping your yard is composed of the same elements of design and color that rooms within the house utilize. With reference to the information you need as you plan and then plant your yard, you will gain your own set of skills and master the art.
And the garden is, thankfully, very forgiving.
Landscape Infographic
Click to enlarge, for a quick visual overview of steps to landscaping your own property.
Landscaping Topics
Germination, What Is It?
Every seed packet gives information on germination times, but what is germination and what are its secrets? From a simple definition to methods of germination, let's take a quick look at this important part of a plants life. Define Germination From Websters: to cause...
Cool Weather Vegetable Plantings
Plant These Vegetables in the Cool Season Some of our favorite vegetables only grow well with cool temperatures. As soon as the weather heats up, they get bitter, go to seed, or melt out. Find out how to grow "salad days" crops. If you think about your favorite salad,...
Heirloom Tomatoes To Treat Your Tastebuds
First of all, what are "heirloom tomatoes"? Why are they a treat to your tastebuds? Without the long version of history, heirloom vegetables are varieties that stood the test of time, often handed down in families of farmers and gardeners. They might have been...
Perennial Plants for Ohio
One of my gardens in Central Ohio A wide range of perennials grow well in Ohio due to its good soils and plentiful rainfall. Perennials for Ohio are chosen for their adaptation to the conditions of this state, rather than what might grow if coddled or given special...
Weeping Cedar and Other Interesting Conifers
Have you ever considered planting a weeping tree? How about a weeping conifer like the Xanthocyparis nootkatensis 'Pendula', better known as Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’ or the Weeping Cedar. When branches gracefully droop, they bring a groundedness...
Victorian Ladies and Their Favorite Flowers
Womanly Pursuits The Flower Arrangement by Otto ScholdererLilacs, Peonies, Roses, and Freesias feature in this painting. In the restricted world of the Victorians, woman had a clearly outlined mode of proper avocations and duties. Thankfully, flowers featured in many...
Learning About Landscape Shrubs in Atlanta
With the idea of moving into the Atlanta area, a task I'm looking forward to is learning about plants for landscaping an urban or suburban yard in Zone 7b. Already familiar with azaleas, it is time to discover the wide range of wonderful plant material that thrives in...
Pruning Lilacs
All lilac bushes benefit from regular attention. The purpose of pruning a lilac is to shape the plant and increase bloom quality. This is all part of regular garden maintenance. It normally consists of removing dead or diseased branches and shaping up the shrub....
Plant Basics
Plants need some basics, they are generally made up of similar parts, and if you learn some of this general knowledge it will help you understand garden skills and timing much better. Get to know the basics about plants Plants Need 3 Main Things Most of the...
Varieties of Lilacs I Grow
(And would like to grow) Do you second guess your garden? I often do. Over the years mine has become more of a shrub garden than the perennial borders it was first planned to be. One of the original shrubs here was the common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. I thereafter...
Vegetable Garden Success Made Simple
…this overview will reduce the steps to a few simple things necessary for vegetable garden success.
Pinching And Dead Heading Plants For Their Own Good
Pinch Your Plants Early This action is very like hand pruning a plant. Pinching is simply using your thumb and forefinger to...
What Does It Mean To Plant Seeds “In Situ”?
Planting seeds in situ literally means "in place" or "on site". That is, in the ground directly rather than starting elsewhere and then transplanting into the garden. The characteristics of a plant dictate which method is best. Many plants suffer from transplanting:...
Bright Ideas For Fall Foliage
Inevitably, as seasons change we see, and lust for, the color focus that picture perfect plantings of fall provide. In Autumn, without a doubt it is the rich pigment of changing foliage that delights our eye. Even the bountiful blooms of chrysanthemums in their...
Blue Mistflower, Eupatorium Coelestinum for Late Summer and Early Fall Bloom
An unfortunate mistake has lead to the writing of this plant profile. From a start my dad had given me, I had early-on grown Hardy Ageratum (AKA Blue Mistflower, recently officially labeled 'Conoclinium coelestinum'). It survived well in a poor area of the garden...
20 Easy Perennials To Multiply By Division
If you need more perennial plants, but must curtail your budget, learning to multiply plants that thrive with division is the answer for you. Many plants are easy to divide, and often require it. Some can be divided into many smaller plants when buying the initial...
Learn From The Experts: Piet Oudolf
Garden Expert About Piet Oudolf "The idea is not to copy nature, but to give a feeling of nature." The Big Picture I like to connect people with the processes of their own lives. What it takes humans a lifetime to experience, a plant will experience in...
Learn From the Experts: Vita Sackville-West
Garden Expert About Vita Sackville-West the strictest formality of design, with the maximum informality in planting English Garden Maven -Rooms and White Gardens If you grow a 'White Garden, 'Moon Garden', or plan on it, you have Sackville-West to thank. Her garden at...
Specie Tulips Are Picture-Perfect in Miniature Gardens
Discover Wildling Tulips The specie tulips have a charm all their own, with the small size, but tough constitution of plants that grow in the wild. Tulipa polychroma is an example of the delicacy of the flower and form of the species class. Grown in pots makes them...
Ornaments in the Garden: Bird Baths
Do You Have Room for a Bird Bath? A birdbath is more than a garden ornament, it is an important accessory for the birds which visit your garden. They need access to water not only for drinking but for cooling off in the summer heat. I don't like to see yard ornaments...
Blue Mistflower, Eupatorium Coelestinum for Late Summer and Early Fall Bloom
An unfortunate mistake has lead to the writing of this plant profile. From a start my dad had given me, I had early-on grown Hardy Ageratum (AKA Blue Mistflower, recently officially labeled 'Conoclinium coelestinum'). It survived well in a poor area of the garden...
Milkweed Makes Mainstream
Once, it was a field plant of waste or fallow ground. A weed of wild and unkempt places which delighted only children who were fascinated b the silky down of the open boat-shaped pods. Now, with the decline of the Monarch butterflies, their favored food source,...
How To Make a Luminous White Garden
Catching Moonlight I think of a white garden as primarily one that is grown in a part shade nook of a garden, but so many beautiful white flowers are full sun lovers. While very lovely during the day, such a garden would really some into its own after dark, catching...
Vibrant Cutting Garden Flowers For A Victorian House
Flower arranging was first recognized as an art form in the Victorian era. Decorating the home with flower arrangements was considered an accomplishment that all young ladies should acquire. It was one of the skills that the mistress of the house acquired for gracious...
Building a Rock Garden, Everything You Wanted to Know
For those who always wanted to create a rockery filled with diminutive plants, here is a primer to get you started. Don’t just dream of a rock garden, start making one
Simplifying Garden Color Theory
Color is basic to the design of a garden. It is usually the first thing we think of when deciding to plant our landscape, although it might take a back seat once the design process is underway. It is never very far from our plans
An All Pink, All Season Flower Garden Plan
There are so many flowers that come in a shade of pink, and because the pinks mix and match in a monochrome scheme, it is easy to create borders of pink flowers.
What Is a Secret Garden?
Have you ever wandered upon the title of something and wondered just what it is? That came about for me long after I had read and re-read the child's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden. As a gardener, I began to want to create my own. The idea of a...
The Butterfly Bush In My Garden
I have had a couple years when the Butterfly bush returned after winter, and one time it seeded itself and bloomed in one spot, but I think this Zone 5 garden with winter wet soils and strong wind is just not good for these plants.
Monochromatic Gardens
Just Choose One Single Color Gardens "...besides my small grey garden, I badly want others, and especially a gold garden, a blue garden, and a green garden" ~ Gertrude Jekyll, 'Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden' To be completely honest, I cannot contain my color...
