Public, Service And Private Areas In The Landscape

By Keith Markensen

Down through the ages various nations and races have developed certain styles in gardening largely because of the different climates and topographical features in their particular parts of the world. If you want to do some extra reading on the history of the landscape art, you will find good books on all phases of the subject in public libraries. The important thing concerning the evolution of the landscape art in America is the fact that there has been developed a distinct style which is admirably suited to our modem way of life. Consequently, in professional circles, it is referred to as the "American Style."

Years ago I remember meeting the famed Brazilian landscape design visionary Roberto Burle Marx who's style fascinated me but was of a completely different flavor than American Style.

Public Area

Basically, American Style is built around the theory that for maximum efficiency, privacy, and beauty, the property shall be divided into three distinct sections: the public area, the service area, and the private area.

The public area is, naturally, that part which is generally seen by the public when walking or riding past the front of the property. Many of us are in the habit of calling it the "front yard." This area, although you have paid for it, pay taxes on it, and also maintain it, does not in a sense belong to you; rather, it is more or less a part of the community, since so many people can see it. Therefore, in all fairness to your neighbors, you should attempt to follow certain set rules concerning its design.

Reciprocal Planning

This also works the other way around in as much as you have to look at the public areas of other home owners. These rules, generally speaking work toward a public area that is pleasant to look at and adds to the dignity of the neighborhood as a whole.

Service Area

The service area of a property is that portion set aside or designated for the more utilitarian activities around a home, such as the garage, driveway and turn-court, yard, garbage cans, compost piles, children's play areas, cut-flower gardens, vegetable gardens, etc.

Since this area is important to the efficient functioning of the home, and the remainder of the garden, plan it with the same thoughtful consideration that you have given to the public and private area. You can also add some umbrella tree to highlight it.

All too often, the home gardener is prone to expend his time, money, and effort on areas where the results will be most evident. Since few outside the family will see service area, it may be neglected.

Private Area

The third or private area is perhaps the most important to the true enjoyment of your home property. This is where the landscape is arranged for you and your friends to enjoy while you are actually in the garden, or as you look out at it through windows or doorways of your home. It is an area devoted solely to relaxation, beauty, and meditation. - 30228

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Landscape Symbols And Garden Plans

By Thomas Fryd

Every good garden is the result of a landscape plan. It is just as important for you to have a plan of your proposed garden on paper before you start to work, as it is for carpenters, plumbers, and electricians to have a blueprint of a house they intend to build. Since few of us have ever come in contact with a landscape plan in our everyday lives, it may be necessary for us to discuss in detail the methods of making and using one.

Making a serviceable landscape plan does not require artistic ability. All you need is the right equipment for measuring and drawing, and the mathematical intelligence to uniformly reduce various-sized objects to a fraction of their size.

Drawing Equipment

The equipment needed to make a good landscape plan includes: drawing board (or flat table), T-square, two triangles (45 and 60 degrees), protractor, compass, tape measure, scale (or ruler), pencil, eraser, scotch tape, and tracing paper.

Landscaping Symbols

Landscape symbols are used in making landscaping plans. They are easy to learn, understand, and interpret. They are used in illustrations throughout many landscape design books. Become completely familiar with this landscape shorthand and you will find that understanding and making landscaping plans is not at all difficult.

A few minutes of practicing (you might call it "doodling") will get you to the point where drawing these landscape items becomes easy and enjoyable. The next step is to learn to locate on a simple plan of a piece of property the existing buildings, walks, driveways, established trees, rock formations, gullies, hills, fences, etc., that you might find on it.

Field Notes

This task can be divided into two parts or stages. The first consists in the taking of field notes in the form of rough sketches as well as dimensions and actual descriptions. The second stage consists of transferring your field notes to drawing paper in proper scale and proper relation to each other. What you get is comparable to a thoroughly labeled photograph taken from directly above the site. You must have this top view before you start working on the overall landscape design of the property.

Taking field notes is much simpler if a copy of the blueprints of the house is available. This should be one of the first things you obtain from your architect, or from the builder who sells you the house. If you purchase from a previous owner, ask if he has the blueprints just like having an indoor houseplants pictures in selecting a house plant to buy, for they as well as the house should become your property and you can have an indoor houseplants pictures to where you can put your plants.

You will be still better off if you also obtain an official plan of the property with the location of the house marked in by the surveyor. Always try first to get such a plan; it will save you many hours of field work. If it is not available, the following procedure is offered as a way of cutting this job down to a minimum. It is the result of quite a number of years of practical experience. - 30228

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Solar Christmas Lights for Bright and Low-Cost Christmas Holidays

By John Monsholi

Solar Christmas lights are one of the most low cost Christmas decorations, helping the homeowners to save anywhere from around 100 W per each string of their lights. Another benefit of solar Christmas lights is that they turn on and off on their own, with the aid of a special photo cell making your Christmas even more magical.

Solar Christmas lights do not require an electrical outlet, they do not incur any energy costs, and they get charged in the daytime and turn on automatically in the evening. These lights eliminate the need for dangerous extension cords. These lights are a great and easy way to decorate trees around the house. Since there is no need for sockets, you can decorate any tree, no matter how far away it is from your house.

Solar Christmas lights come with little solar panels, which easily stick into the ground, as well as, they can be placed on a branch. Solar panels include solar cells (usually 4 cells), a rechargeable battery and a light sensor. Solar cells convert the sunlight into electricity, and on a sunny day the sun will give enough energy to completely recharge the battery.

When looking for solar Christmas lights, it is better to opt for the lights equipped with special polycrystalline solar cells, which allow the lights to emit bright light for hours even after being charged for merely a few hours on a rainy, snowy or an overcast day.

How to calculate how long the lights will shine after the sun goes down? It is actually quite easy. Solar Christmas lights will usually stay on for about one hour at night, after being charged for about one hour in the daytime. Therefore, if the area where you live gets about eight hours of sun per day, you will also get about eight hours of shining lights in the evening.

Solar Christmas lights come in different shapes, such as round, teardrop and oval shapes. The lights also come in different colors, such as the yellow, red, green and blue. You can also find a specific type of light, which you would prefer to see on Christmas, starting with a soft light and up to a very bright light.

Many gardeners keep their solar Christmas lights in their gardens even after the Christmas holidays are over. For example, if you have an arch in your garden, you can decorate it with these lights, adding to your garden's ambiance. You can also make use of these lights for birthdays, anniversaries, porch lighting, and pathway lighting.

It is better to opt for solar Christmas lights with a replaceable and rechargeable AA size battery. Such battery will allow you to recharge and to replace the battery yourself in order to continue to get illumination on overcast days. It is better not to opt for lights with lithium batteries, since you will not be able to replace such batteries yourself. Regular AA size batteries can be recharged with a battery charger if they were not fully charged by the sunlight.

You can have as many strings of solar Christmas lights as you want on the trees, and you will never have to worry about running the cords across your yard, never have to worry about turning the lights on and off, and most important, you will never have to worry about paying hundreds of dollars for electricity!

It might be a good idea to watch your yard for at least two or three days before placing your solar lights. The most important thing to note is that the area, where you want to place your solar Christmas lights, does not get a shadow cast. Another important thing to remember is that solar Christmas lights operate best when their solar panel is in direct sun throughout the day. - 30228

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To Build or Buy a Shed

By Jon Weinkle

You may think you know everything there is about sheds in order to make a good decision for your family. While that may be true, the reality is you don't know everything there is to know. Buying the shed is easy but you better know a few things before you start your storage building search.

The two most important things you will have to address is the space you need for the size shed you require and the laws that allow you to put a shed up in the first place. The space is just a matter of going out and doing a little measuring but you will need to call your local codes department to find out what you have to do or have to either build or install a shed on your property.

After you get the legal and practical items out of the way, it is time to start the process of shopping but not buying. I say this because some people get carried away with what they see and get really disappointed by the price or the work that will have to go into such a project. This is the research part. Find the things you like and make a note to come back to it once you have looked at all your options.

Wooden sheds are one of the most popular for a couple of reasons; they look good and you can get them pre-built and delivered on a local basis. While all that is true, wooden sheds also need the most as far as maintenance goes. You will need to treat it for boring insects and water rot and make sure it gets a fresh coat of paint from time to time. As long as you know what it takes to keep this type of shed looking great and are willing to put the work into it you should be good to go.

If maintenance is an issue, you will want to take a look at the plastic sheds on the market today. They are very popular because they come to your home as a kit that is pretty easy to put together. You will need to make arrangements for a foundation on level ground and once that is done the installation normally takes no longer than a day.

These plastic sheds have a very good lifespan with little to no maintenance. You can spray it off as little or as much as you want but most people hose it down once or twice a year and that's it. You will want to make sure it meets the required snow load and wind rating in certain areas of the country but other than that these great little buildings work well.

The last but not least option is the shed made of metal. These come in materials described as tin to steel so make sure you know the gauge you are buying if you go this route. These sheds are normally a little bit cheaper and can be placed on level ground without a foundation so they are a bit more versatile in certain situations.

So to sum it up you will need to know you can have a storage building on your property, figure out the size, decide of the type based on cost, ease of maintenance and strength for snow and wind and make sure you have the ability to build or install it. Once you go through the list you should be good to go and ready to tackle that storage issue! - 30228

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Choosing The Right Outdoor Post Lights

By Patrick Jameson

You can brighten your outdoors and make your family feel safer by installing one or two outdoor posting lights. Not only that, but there are so many choices on store shelves today that you can almost certainly find a style that will work with your lawn.

These lights will bring style to your home plus give you the peace of mind knowing that your family is a little safer from having a well lit yard. Imagine how your home can change just by installing a simple light post at your driveway or an attractive light at your front door.

Choosing a the right light can be a little difficult. You must decide whether you want to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood or whether you would like to make your yard look unique, the neighborhood in which you reside, and any restrictions that you may have on changing the appearance of the exterior of your home before you go about putting up your outdoor post lights..

Additionally, you may want to consider these points before putting any lights up:

1. The brightness of the light: Is your new outdoor post light going to be used primarily for security or for beauty? If you are looking to feel more secure, you will want a brighter light. Otherwise, you will need a softer one.

2.Your neighborhood: Will your new light affect your neighbors? This part is important as you most likely do not want to irritate them with excessively bright lighting.

3. Laws: Some areas or counties have laws pertaining how bright outdoor lighting can be, so do not forget to check.

Outdoor post lights are easily available and can be purchased at just about any hardware or home improvement store. The benefit of going to these stores is that if you are planning to put them up yourself then there will be someone on hand to provide you with advice on the necessary materials that you will need, as well as any safety advisories that you will need to observe while installing your new lighting. If the project ever seems overwhelming, then you may want to get professional assistance

Also, prices will vary as outdoor post lights can cost you as low as sixty dollars all the way to over fifteen hundred dollars for just one light. As you can see prices will vary, which is mostly due to anyone of the following: type, finish, extra, and power usage.

Before finally getting your own outdoor post light, do some research to find out what kind of light you want, what kind of light you need, and what kind of light you are allowed to have - 30228

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Attracting Birds In Your Garden

By Kent Higgins

In the garden where the trumpet-creeper flaunts its showy, deep-cupped flowers, the dazzling ruby-throated hummingbird is almost sure to come, for red is his favorite color and the trumpet-creeper his favorite flower. And in the garden where the sunflower raises its plebeian head above the exclusive dahlias and roses, the American goldfinch most likely will flash his eye-catching black and yellow plumage and sing his canary-like song.

If one would have birds in the garden or on the lawn, it is merely a matter of planting the shrubs and flowers that furnish the seeds and berries for which birds have preference. Fortunately, many of our most decorative plants are on the preferred list of birds.

The goldfinch, which is usually found in waste places where plumy goldenrod and humble sneezeweed have a monopoly on the land, is lured into the garden by the refined relative of the sunflowers of the field and roadside. The cultivated sunflower of today has its place in the flower catalogs and can hold its own with the zinnias, marigolds and daisies.

The goldfinch is a member of the finch family, which are seed-eaters. Some of our most colorful birds and finest songsters are among them. The cardinal of crimson magnificence, the rose-breasted grosbeak, the resplendent indigo bunting, purple finch and tuneful sparrow, are some of the more familiar finches. Those plants that are prolific seed producers invite the colorful and the musical seed-eaters.

From poppies in the spring to cosmos and asters of autumn, many garden favorites flower and seed - the coreopsis, calendula, daisy, sweet william dianthus and all of the compositae family. Coxcomb spreads its rich bloom for all to see, and amaranthus sprawls in a splash of color. Bachelors-buttons and other centaurcas are quieter in color but equally agreeable to birds.

While birds in general are classed as insectivorous or vegetarian, few birds adhere strictly to their preferred diet. The robin that is indefatigable in his search for earthworms on the lawn, delights in the delectable red fruit of the Juneberry; and the rose-breasted grosbeak, whose bill is built especially for the cracking of seeds, is sometimes less euphoniously called the potato-bug bird because of his fondness for them. Indeed, the farmer has no better friend than the grosbeak who arranges his family in a row on the pasture fence and methodically plies them with potato bugs from the neighboring field. - 30228

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What You Need to Know about Own Root Roses and Grafted Roses

By Max Minton

When shopping for roses, you may notice that there are two different types to choose from. You will likely encounter "own root" roses and "grafted" roses. So what is the difference and which one is right for you?

Grafted roses are actually made up of two plants. It will have the stems and flowers of one plant and the root system of another. Horticulturists will typically create these hybrids to take advantage of a strong, weather tough root system of one plant and the beauty and delicateness of another.

You will usually be able to tell whether you have a grafted rose by looking for a bulge or knob low down on the stem of the plant. This is the location where the two type of plants were grafted together.

While the hardiness of the plant may be increased, there is the risk that suckers of the original plant will emerge during the growing process. Also, it is possible that harsh winter or other unfavorable condition will kill the top part of the plant, leaving you with only the underlying root structure of a different plant.

An "own root" rose, on the other hand, is all original. It is not combined with another plant. It is started as a cutting and will have its own root structure. The sellers of "own root" roses will typically brag on the label that the plant is "own root" and you will also not see any signs of grafting like you would on a grafted rose.

Should an own root rose suffer through a harsh winter, as long as the root system is not damaged, it will re-sprout as it's original self, and not some mystery plant. You will also not suffer or experience suckers of a foreign looking plant.

You do lose the benefit of the hardy root structure with own root roses. This may lead to them being less hardy and possibly more susceptible to diseases.

So, which should you choose, grafted or own root roses? This mainly depends upon the conditions that the plants are going to be growing in.

If the environment is not likely to benefit from enhanced strength and disease fighting powers of a mysterious root system, then own root roses will likely be ideal. If, however, you are in an area where you will need the benefits of an enhanced root structure you're likely going to find the grafted rose more suitable for your needs. - 30228

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