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What are the Latest Landscaping Trends
Nowadays, people are taking a look at their surroundings and are trying to make their home a desirable place to be year round with an eye toward conservation. Everyone wants to personalize his or her home, and there's not a better way to do it than with a unique landscaping plan. There's a lot to choose from these days, and listening to gardening experts, such as a member of a local Master Gardeners Association, or a Certified Nursery and Landscaping Professional, will help you get on your way without wasting a lot of money and time. Don't be afraid to ask a nursery professional about their background and experience. Also, talk to your friends and neighbors about what has done well for them, and maybe they will give you a few divisions from some interesting perennials they like. Life's too short to make all the mistakes on your own. Container gardening is also big these days. Big containers that are made of attractive and lightweight materials work great, because they don't dry out as fast as the old clay pots. Miniature fruit tree selections that include dwarf citrus cultivars as well as lots of herbs, like thyme and rosemary, and vegetables like patio tomatoes, are great candidates for containers. Under deciduous shade trees, you can create an entire microclimate using containers. Be careful not to compact areas under your oak trees, however. Don't forget trellises and pergolas! A great way to get easy coverage and privacy is with vines. You can plant slow growing perennial vines now, and seed fast growing annual vines around them in the spring to get good coverage the first year. Folks are also trying to make an easy transition between indoors and out by adding state of the art outdoor kitchens, fireplaces and audio equipment. Organic gardening is getting easier as many organic pest controls, fertilizers and soil amendments are readily available at local nurseries. Many of the best organic suppliers will not sell to the big box stores, and are opting to offer their product to small independent plant nurseries in order to create more diversity in the marketplace. Fancy foliage is also in, because it's easier to use plants with unusual foliage in shady areas. Blooming plants just don't do well in the shade. More and more herbs are showing up in gardens because of their toughness and resistance to diseases and insects. Most herbs are attractive and it's so much fun to take your visitors on a "herb tour" of your garden. When putting together your landscape plan, don't worry about clean lines or making it perfect. It's all about you and your landscape should be as individual as you. Don't be afraid to dig up or cut down old mistakes. A beautiful landscape can add thousands of dollars to the value of your home or property. |
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People are beginning to spend more on landscaping than lawn care. This is important because most folks are starting to realize the economic and environmental impact of large areas of turf grass that devour precious water and valuable time. In addition, the amount of polluting fertilizers and pesticides used by homeowners on their lawns far exceeds anything applied by industrial farms and ranches. It's hard to believe, but turf grass is our country's largest crop and is horribly mismanaged. A successful lawn starts with a soil test and putting together a schedule that includes the correct time to fertilize (mid spring, early summer, and early fall if using timed release products,) when to add pre-emergent herbicide (early fall, early spring and late spring) when to add fungicide (late spring and late summer) and when to add pesticides, (late spring and late summe.r) As you can see, managing a perfect lawn is expensive and time consuming. There is not a magic bullet to have a successful crop of turf in our area.
