Better Landscaping for YOUR Home - Page 2
© Paul Nawrocki - The Wise Gardener
4. Add height, where there is NONE! We live here in South Florida (a reclaimed swamp!) Synonym: flat like a tire without its air! We KNOW flat!! Solution: bring in what nature short-changed us on! It's easy to create mounds, or berms, for interest in your garden. Create these mounds with soil, mulching materials, or small rocks. Plant one (or a group of three shrubs) on this mound as a "focus", or point of interest. This is "eye candy" and is a truly never-fail technique!
5. Speaking of the appropriate number of plants that should comprise a well-designed group of shrubs (or trees on a larger scale), in a garden bed, remember it's better to be ODD! Ones, Threes, Fives, etc. Hard to explain, but it works; take The Wise Gardener's word, and reputation on that. Planting two of anything looks amateurish, indeed. Try it, dear garden friends!
6. Unless a plant you are attracted to is a veritable "knock-out," use much restraint! Buying too many "one's" of anything looks unplanned and very unprofessional!! Just a few "specimen" plants, in a yard go a long way! A plan is much more professional-looking if only a few well-chosen plant types are properly utilized throughout your property! (interspersed here and there with a few gorgeous "specimen" plants.)
7. Water is a treat for the senses! Remember: a beautifully-crafted pond, a waterfall, a stream-bed or brook, an in-ground pool, or lake (natural or manmade!) is a garden asset, indeed! Accent these water features with a few boulders, river stone areas, and a shrubbery and tree "frame", and you've got a magnet that will surely be the "core" of your yard! Everyone will want to take a closer look to admire this enchanted nook. In all water features, (of course, other than in a chlorinated swimming pool!), try you hand at stocking them with several varieties of water plants, ie: lotus, water lilies, papyrus, etc. You might, then, wish to invest in several long-lived "finny friends": goldfish, or Japanese koi! They are life, and you'll want to watch them move about for hours!
There's definitely many topics to cover, but this is course: LANDSCAPE: 101! There will be more to follow in subsequent months of TWG, but these will give you all, dear gardeners, a "good start"! Let me know what you're attempting to change...and the results. My bet is that you'll be pleased by the difference, or my name isn't:
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