Posts Tagged ‘sun’
Container gardens accent your landscape
Containers add interest and highlights. The landscape at this residence is simple, clean-lined, and mainly evergreen. The container plantings are meant to accent the landscape, add seasonal color and interest, and highlights areas of interest throughout the property. A close-up view of the front porch troughs consisting of a semi-permanent container planting of Autumn Fern,…
Read MoreOutdoor living space
Back yard transformed. These homeowners dreamed of adding a pool and outdoor living space to their back yard. They did some research online and provided us with sample photos from Houzz.com. The project was made more difficult because the back yard sloped downhill five feet from the house. By adding the pool with a raised bond beam…
Read MoreOrganic herb garden
Inviting herb garden close to the kitchen. The 460 sq. ft. area that would become an organic herb garden had construction soil full of stones and pieces of concrete. We removed all of the soil to a depth of two feet and built new soil with organic soil amendments, organic local soil, and worm…
Read MoreBig ideas for small spaces
Make your outdoor living space cozy, creative, and connected. You don’t need a big yard to have an inviting space that beckons you and your family outdoors. Think “cozy,” “creative,” and “connected.” Q: What’s the definition of a small space? A: I consider a small space backyard garden to be no bigger than the footprint…
Read MoreGrowing outdoor walls and floors
Vines and groundcovers for the southern garden. When I think about vines and groundcovers, I remember my favorite childhood book — “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It’s the story of Mary Lennox, a not-too-nice orphaned girl who is sent to live with her uncle in England. She discovers an overgrown and neglected garden…
Read MoreSouthern grapes for southern gardens
Choose the best grapes to grow in your garden. Growing up in an Italian family, my mother would reminisce about my grandfather’s grapevines and the annual ritual of stomping on the grapes to make wine in the basement. While this memory always brought to mind a favorite “I Love Lucy” episode with Lucy and Ethel…
Read MoreSpice up your life with herbs
Grow your own herbs for freshness and flavor. If you’ve ever worked in the kitchen of a fine restaurant, you know that professional chefs demand and accept from their suppliers only the freshest fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices available. They recognize that the degree of freshness of these products has a tremendous impact on the…
Read MoreGot shade?
Celebrating the shade in your landscape. Here’s a question for you: Would you rather spend a sweltering hot July afternoon battling weeds in your perennial bed, sweat dripping down your face, or would you prefer to relax in the 10-15 degree cooler shade of dogwood trees, admiring the magnificent foliage of your shade garden? I…
Read MoreWhy ‘design’ your landscape?
Plan and design for success in your landscape. Designing a garden is done either consciously or unconsciously. Even those gardens that seem to be “all over the place” are the result of a series of decisions– planting a tree here, adding a border of flowers there, perhaps placing a water feature somewhere else. The most…
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