Try our simple tips for how to landscape front yards to boost the visual appeal of the most visible part of your garden and home.
Learn which Hosta companion plants will look the best in your yard with lots of shade garden pictures to provide inspiration and ideas.
Add beauty and curb appeal to your front yard with a sidewalk garden. Check out our tips for even the smallest of spaces.
A hosta garden is a great solve for planting in shady spots. Here is how to design a hosta garden and make it thrive.
Learn which Hosta companion plants will look the best in your yard with lots of shade garden pictures to provide inspiration and ideas.
What is dry shade? Nothing that soil amendment, a little bit of hardscaping and special attention to plant placement can't improve.
Transform unattractive areas with soggy soil into stunning beds using these ground cover plants for wet soil that adapt to high moisture.
There’s no better way to make your house a home than improving the land that surrounds it. Having nothing but a flat patch of grass or dirt is rather wasteful considering you paid for that land, so make the most of it. A yard would naturally be the first choice for most homeowners, and for good reason.
The Acacia "Limelight" is famed for its lush, lime green foliage and compact shape, and is the perfect plant if you want to add some wow factor to your garden. This ornamental beauty won the country over after it was introduced to the market by plant gurus "Native Plant Wholesalers" in South Australia.
Create beautiful shade garden pots with easy shade loving plants & flowers. 16 colorful mixed container plant lists & great design ideas for shade gardens!
So you want to have a beautiful yard filled with plants that will add character, but you have no sun because your entire yard is covered with trees? Do you have a back covered patio that’s in need of some refreshing and updating? Well, we at Garden Valley Farmers Market, have got you covered with o
A shot of color can deliver a vibrant lift to your garden whether it's delivered via plants and flowers or some imaginative paint.
Get great garden design tips from renowned Canadian designer Brian Minter.
To ensure a longer flowering period when using flower bulbs, choose bulbs with consecutive flowering periods and plant them at the same site. By planting them at different depths, they can be
Here are some suggestions for xeriscape gardens with drought-tolerant plants, which feature design alternatives to lawns and traditional landscapes.
Who says hydrangeas are just for containers?
Create a bold, dramatic landscape with these tips for designing with colorful flowers and foliage.
Sorting out a multi-level garden with beds sporting vibrant, low-growing plants has made this coastal patch in Torquay a standout.
Because every tiny apartment could use a levitating garden.
30 shade-loving perennials to plant before spring.
While we’ve paid plenty of attention to in our backyard’s design, with new plantings and furnishings, we’ve done very little with our front yard. It’s in need of a makeover, and we’ve decided that this is the year we will tackle it. Our home is a 1964-Streng, a mid-century modern home that resembles the Eichlers […]
Add a vertical touch to your garden by growing climbing plants in pots. These 35 Best Vines for Containers are perfect for both small and big gardens!
Read Fine garden ornament, fountains & planters 2014 by Alex Puddy on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!
Looking for a fuss-free perennial that's attractive, dependable, deer-resistant, multiseasonal and extremely long-lived? Meet baptisia-a prairie native whose beautiful spires are reminiscent of the beloved lupine, minus the maintenance.
The plants at your borders are the most visible part of the garden, Choose plants that attract attention by considering size, color, shape, texture and season of bloom.
Take your garden to a higher dimension by filling your walls with foliage and colour
If you love to have a tropical garden like setup and you live in a cold climate then grow these cold hardy tropical plants to create a tropical garden in a cold climate.
Go big with foliage by planting this layered look as a garden border
Create an impactful outdoor space with these small yard and garden landscaping ideas.
See how to fertilize your clematis this spring, and how it can help it bloom bigger and stronger than ever this year!
Perennials in your cutting garden is a great way to have cut flowers that are low maintenance. A cutting garden does not always have to start from seed.
Get to know this selection of spilling and draping plants. - by Roger Fox
Having a beautiful garden is everyone’s dream. No matter how big the garden you have, the presence of this garden is able to change the atmosphere at home. The presence of the garden benefits the clean, fresh air and beautiful scenery. Not only that the garden is also able to add aesthetics in decoration with their beauty. But, to shape the aesthetic, you have to design your garden to be a beautiful garden and look pleasing. You can do many things to beautify your garden, one of which is to make a flower garden there. If you talk about a […]
Discover eight of the best cosmos combinations.
This post is full of container gardening inspiration beyond summer flowers. These photos will help you to get creative and think outside of ordinary plantings.
Three months ago I started a seemingly innocuous project. "How hard can it be to make a flowerbed?", I said. Well I learned along the way and so I am now going to share what I learned and the steps to make your project easier. The major milestones are: Design the Area Excavate the Area Construct a Border Refill with Good Soil Plant the Flowers Cover with Mulch Required Tools Work Shoes - At several points it stormed and flooded my half-dug bed. After working for just 15 minutes I would have 2 inches of mud on the bottom. Be prepared to throw away your shoes or be stuck with permanent junk shoes. Work Gloves - This pair is actually the 2nd that I used. The first pair is in the trash. I wore through all 10 fingers on the first set. Large Spade - This is the best way to get soil up. I tried a shovel and had no luck. This worked especially well with the black clay that we have. Whatever This Is - Yup, I have no idea what to call it, but it is the best tool for clearing out defined areas. I used it dig out the outline for the bed before I started. Spreader - I used this to spread out the new soil evenly throughout the bed. Small Spade - Most people have this already. You dig holes for the bulbs and flowers with it. Heavy Duty Cart - Now I did not have this wonderful contraption for most of the project. For the first 40 or so bags, I just manually carried them to their locations. This will save your back when hauling a lot of soil. Now you may ask why I am going to all this trouble. Well that is because I have lots of Black Texas Clay underneath my yard. It has the nickname of "Black Gumbo". It soaks up water and swells. This is one of the reasons that so many people have foundation problems in our area of North Texas. Most plants need "Well Drained Soil" which is pretty much the opposite of what I have. So I replaced it. I ended up digging up only about 1 - 1.5 feet down. Others have done more, but I frankly got tired of digging. Here is what I replaced it with: Peat Moss - 10 Bags Top Soil - 20 Bags Manure - 10 Bags of the cheap stuff. They have premium manure... but I can't imagine what that means. Compost - 10 Bags Top Soil - 20 Bags Mulch - 12 Bags So let's take a look at those milestones again. Design the Area - This is probably the most important step. This allows you to put in a lot of effort without having to redo things. My wife gave in to my pleadings and helped measure the back yard space beforehand. The map came out like this: I went online and printed off a grid and then with help of a ruler hand drew the dimensions. Next, we did an initial master plan, or how we want it to look in the end. Our friends, Karson and Sharon, helped in this process. This keeps each sub-project from being vastly different and looking odd in the end. Next, we prioritized the sub-projects and focused on our first bed, outside of our bedroom. We found a plan in a landscaping book tailored to our area and used it as our base: This plan came from Creative Homeowner's Texas Home Landscaping book. I would highly recommend it. We then took our master plan for the backyard and fit the plants that we wanted into it. The end result looks like this: Sp now that you have a good plan, digging in the right spot and building a border is not a game of chance. Excavate the Area - This where all the oomph comes into play. At least 50% of my time on this project was spent digging. I am estimating that I dug out about 3,000 lbs of dirt. So be prepared for this phase to go slower than you thought. The first thing to do is to dig out the border a little bit. This allows you to be reckless inside that border with your spade. I used our hose and snaked it around into the shape that I wanted the bed to be. I then used the yet-to-be-named tool from above to strip the grass along the hose. I then removed the hose and dug a little trench and shaped the border a bit. The rest is just good ole-fashioned hard labor. One thing that I did not consider before starting this phase was where on earth all of this dug up dirt was going to go. Luckily, the lot next door to me is empty right now.Now lifting all of that dirt over the fence was no fun, but at least it is out of my yard. Construct a Border - I used two different kinds of border. We have leftover brick from the house construction and so I turned that into a decorative border: I had enough brick to go vertical and it looks good from the grass side. You can also see that famous black clay with the brick there. The fence did not need anything fancy, so I bought the cheap pliable plastic border from Lowes:Before going to the next step of refilling the area, it is a good idea to consider drainage and watering levels. I have a downspout that was pouring right into the middle of the new bed and would erode my hard work. I got a very cheap solid black tube and extended the drain out of the flower bed:I also had four different sprinkler heads that were designed for a lawn and not a flower bed. I found replacement heads that are gentler and used a simple female-female connector to attach them to the main line: Refill with Good Soil - Now is when all of those bags of 'the good stuff' comes into play. I put the good stuff in quotes because frankly anything was better than my black clay. So when I see a $20 miracle bag and a $1.85 pretty good bag, I choose the cheaper. With the number of bags that I bought, this added up to a lot of savings. I layered Peat Moss, Top Soil, Manure, Compost, and Top Soil. I had a friend recommend a combination similar to this and so far I like it. I used my spreader to evenly mix the dirt around the entire bed. Make sure at this point re-check your drainage. Make sure that it slopes away from the house for instance.In the end, my nasty soil was transformed into this: Plant the Flowers - This is the part that you actually planned for. This is the easiest stage. We planted a bunch of bulbs and using our nifty plan, I knew exactly where to go. This stage is fairly anti-climactic. Cover with Mulch - Protect your plant from moisture, bugs, and weeds with a good mulch. This last step also adds a colorful layer to the top Hopefully this guide can help you. Feel free to post and questions or suggestions. I will be following up in the Spring and beyond with how the plants grow in and look.
A traditional shingled saltbox with a heavy arbor and flowering honeysuckle shadowing the front door looks right at home on Cape Cod. The problem? This hou
For 10 years, I've been developing my shade garden in New Hampshire. Here are my tips for what grows well in shade and lots of pretty flower photos to help you decide what you want to plant.
Plumbago is one of the stars of the summer garden. A perennial down South, an annual up North, this easy to grow flower is always a winner in the garden!
The site: A medieval nobleman's summer retreat, a palace in ruins, in the Piedmontese hills of northern Italy. The challenge: Create a modern garden to com
Create an impactful outdoor space with these small yard and garden landscaping ideas.
At this year's Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, landscape designer Christian Jenkins set himself the challenge of creating a wellness garden with a Japanese influence in support of Beyondblue. The end result is a tranquil oasis with a touch of the surreal, entitled "Find Your Balance."
Astilbes can brighten up your shade garden and are even low-maintenance! Learn what they need to thrive in order to grow in your garden all Summer long!
This Adelaide front garden received a stately new look by after some well placed hedge plants, that added both privacy and functionality to a newly bare entryway.
Create a Mediterranean garden incorporating drought-resistant and low maintenance plants, natural stone and water features for an authentic design
Is anything in the garden more cheerful than a border of blooming agapanthus? Learn how to grow and care for these proud beauties now on Gardener’s Path.
HGTV shares some of the best shrubs for shade gardens, including shade shrubs such as oakleaf hydrangeas, Euonymus, viburnum and elderberries that will add color to your garden with their flowers and foliage.
Add beauty and curb appeal to your front yard with a sidewalk garden. Check out our tips for even the smallest of spaces.
