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[I130]Ideas For Your Garden

by Tony Richards, Ton

If you're a real couch potato just looking out of the window can give you that inspiration for next season. Start with your garden structure. Is it lush, berried and scrummy, or can you see the neighbours washing line? No bare fences please, we want to see variegated hollies, Sarcococca and Hellebores complementing the climbing winter clematis Almandii for foliage and flower. That irritating neighbours window can be hidden with an evergreen tree such Quercus ilex (evergreen oak) or softened with the Himalayan Birch Betula jacqmontii.

If you are lucky enough to have a house full of kids, think out of the box about what they want to keep them interested outside. A swing or a slide would be the predictable easy option, while a living woven willow structure becomes Gollom's cave, a crater on the moon and somewhere to get away from Mum and Dad. Try Salix vitellina easily woven into a den, crocodile or animal of your choice.

Grow your own is all the rage, and it's fun to sit down on mass and design your own vegetable garden. Spuds are easy, and if you have sandy soil, root vegetables are a must. Be trendy, experiment with the huge selection of Mediterranean vegetables that come to your table fresh colourful and within ten yards of your back door.

It seems an awful long time off but lose yourself in your colour schemes. Think chocolate with Huchera ‘Chocolate Ruffles' while the wonderfully fiery Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff' burns brightly alongside the ever so hot Crocosmia masoniorum. And if that doesn't warm you up go back to the mulled wine! A prosperous New Year from Tony Richards.

Another area you might want to look at after the winds of February have died down is fencing. We do seem to spend a suprising amount of time replacing fencing that hasn't been around that long. Most companies guarantee there fencing for 25 years and it has been dipped into a medium that prevents all those little bugs having it for breakfast. The only problem is that on the face of it, it doesn't work. Quite often the panel is in perfect nick but the post is rotten through and will snap against the concrete pad and come off in your hand. It is so long ago since the fence was put up no one can quite remember where it was bought, and any accompanying paper work is long since thrown away and so the guarantee is obsolete.How anoying for the client and a waste of good natural resources.

One of the major problems seems to be the fencer cutting the bottom few inches off during installation. It's like taking the lid off the sandwich box in a goat enclosure, the soil microrhiza have a field day and before you know it, all strength has been eaten out of the post. The treatment seal has been broken and the critters get to work.

If you do need to shorten a fence post, put the cut uppermost at the top of the fencing and treat twice with a preservative. You can sleep well in the knowledge that in 25 years time those posts will be going strong.

There are a number of things you want to achieve when installing outdoor landscaping lighting on your property. Effectively, you want the lighting to show your garden off at night time and also be sufficiently bright so that you can have parties and barbecues. It also has to be used for safety and security when using the garden at night. This article will detail the types of outdoor landscape lighting that you can use for these purposes.

I think most outdoor landscape lighting is initially installed for safety and security. This is primarily because the location of the lights is obvious. So, for instance lighting above the garage or carport is useful when you return from work at the end of the day. It can also be placed alongside paths and driveways so that you don't trip over the hosepipe or the toddlers toys. It can be placed around the perimeter of a pool to warn people not to fall in. It can be located in dark areas of the property that thieves might consider a perfect opportunity to break into your home.

Solar outdoor lighting fits the bill in most of these occasions. The major benefit of solar lighting is that they are easy. Easy to set up and easy to locate anywhere in your garden. They do not need to be hooked up to an electrical cable and each light is a separate system. They derive power from the sun during the day and store it in a battery. This charge will last throughout the night until charging begins again next morning. Many even have light sensors so that the light only comes on when the sun goes down.

The other role of outdoor landscaping lighting is to beautify the garden. To make it look good for entertaining and having special occasions at night time. Back lighting should accentuate various features of the garden that you are proud of. The light will bring a new dimension to your favorite old tree or your exotic flowers. The colors will have a different hue if the lights are placed beneath the plants.

There are many different types of lighting that can fit into these roles. For back lighting of plants and garden features, you want a system that will throw light out and thus illuminate the shapes and colors of your garden. For lighting around the patio or decks, you probably want a design that matches the existing style. You also want to make sure that the lighting is powerful enough to illuminate the whole area.

For special occasions you may think about party lights that can decorate trees, bamboo stalk lights can give an exotic feel to an evening's entertaining and can also double as a mosquito repellent. Paper lanterns can also be draped in trees or around various features of the garden to create a special look. Many of these types of outdoor landscaping lighting are quite inexpensive and you can experiment with various types until you get an ideal balance of safety and aesthetic appeal.

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Both Tony Richards & Adrian Fletcher are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Tony Richards has sinced written about articles on various topics from Gardening. . Tony Richards's top article generates over 480 views. Bookmark Tony Richards to your Favourites.

Adrian Fletcher has sinced written about articles on various topics from Information Technology, Cure Anxiety and Home Improvement. Learn more about how outdoor lighting solar can provide your landscape lighting needs and how. Adrian Fletcher's top article generates over 27100 views. Bookmark Adrian Fletcher to your Favourites.