Landscaping

This blog is on cheap landscaping ideas. One of the main hassles of a garden is not planting, but weeding. Weeds grow with remarkable speed and can quickly overtake a garden. Using a poison or herbicide like roundup is not recommended as you might kill your plants. I know that the manufactors claim the product breaks down in the soil very quickly but I find with my lawn edges after a second dose of roundup no grass is growing there six months later.
In moving into a new rental property I had a large front garden with a nice quickkerb concrete border to highlight the beautiful weeds. So I began to weed, got sick of it and left it for a month. Big mistake, there were now more weeds than ever. I was going to have to have mulch it or spend everyday in the garden. With the landlord not interested in paying for it it was going to have to come out of my own pocket. Now I don’t mine paying for gardening supplies, plants, etc when its my own place, but I’m certainly not keen on giving my landlord a free ride.
So I needed a cheap mulching option, that would look good, work, but not cost too much.
I chose three basic supplies, newspaper -the local rags free and it doesn’t take long to build up a stock pile of papers, sugar cane mulch – its comes in a big bags and is cheap, and finally a few bags of bark – not so cheap, but as you will see its used to give colour not as a mulch so only a little bit is required.
Step One:-
Prepare the garden, yes this means a huge effort and weed the whole garden by hand. Rake over the soil so its nice and smooth and then apply the newspaper. The thicker the better.
Min. six sheets thick. Spread it out and then with a hose wet it all down so it soaked. The now heavy paper won’t blow around in the wind and will mold better to the grounds surface.

Step Two:-
Next spread out the sugar cane mulch. If you cant access cheap sugar cane mulch, try straw, but ensure it has no seeds in it. Make sure all the paper is covered. It doesn’t have to be deep, just enough to cover all the paper. Once again apply water to damp down the mulch. Once watered it takes on a lovely golden colour.

Step Three:-
Now apply the bark. Just grab handfulls and throw it around. You don’t want to totally cover the yellow mulch, the barks mainly to give colour and to contrase with the mulch.

I have found this to be a very effective mulch. A year later and few weeds can get through. Nutgrass was the only successful one and I pulled those out by hand and even the nutgrass gave up the fight. The beautiful browns and golden colour unfortunately fade under the harsh sun, but by that time you should have plenty of flower to make up for it. Best of all – NO WEEDING, yes.

Whatever the project may be, if it is a big time one or a simple residential landscaping, design is the most important factor that one must consider to be able to lay out a plan and eventually act upon.

Residential Landscaping
In whatever we decide to do in life, there are things to ponder about before coming up with a plan. The same thing is true if you’d like a lawn makeover, there are factors to go through and ideas to think about before actually starting the process.

Why Do You Want to Do It?
If the idea is to give your yard some kind of a renovation through landscaping, then the possibilities as to what you’d like the outcome to be are endless. You call the shots according to what you like at the moment that you want it to be done.

But on the other hand, you have to give the landscaping design a more posh look if you decide to sell the property. This is also a way to be safe, not every potential buyer would want an unfamiliar style, but with being simple and classy, one could never go wrong. It would also be to your advantage because it will add more value to what you’re selling and more people will be enticed to look at it and consider a deal.

What Do You Want to Be Done?
For people who’d like to do their own landscaping, the American Nursery and Landscape Association or ANLA says that it is important for the property’s salability if you choose to maintain large, old trees in it. Those mature trees are said to be of great impact to those who are looking into the land.

In designing for your own landscape, remember the basic elements which are color, form, line, scale and texture.

Look at the project through an artist’s eye. Choose plants that look good when placed together or side by side in terms of their colors. Imagine what other people, especially the would-be buyer of the property would feel upon seeing the colors that you chose for the project.

Form is looking at the plants to be placed in the project in terms of the shape and branching patterns. Such factors should blend in with what one has planned for the whole landscape.

Line is the according to the arrangement of the materials to be used in the design, how you plot them accordingly as well as looking into their borders.

Scale or the size of the plants that you want to use in the landscape design also determines the texture. The placing of each plant depending on its sizes would give one an idea about the texture because this factor is a visual matter.

Who Do You Like to Do It?
You could seek out professional help if you think that you cannot do it yourself. But with vast resources on landscape design, you might want to try browsing through first and challenge yourself if you can do it before shelling out your penny for someone else’s services.

First, you need to observe other people’s backyards. You might also want to ask how they have done it. Or if you see someone else doing such, all you have to do is watch the process and get inspiration from it.

You can also find a wealth of information from landscaping books and magazines, television and, of course, the Web.

Are You Up with the Plan?
Upon having the plan ready for your residential landscaping, you just have to ask yourself if you’re up for it. Consider everything, the budget, the materials, your purpose on doing such and the property itself, before plunging in and starting out the process.

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