Creating an Outdoor Garden

Gardens are so important to the exterior of a house.  They soften the edges and help turn your house into a HOME. Therefore, I felt it was important for me to give you some basic guidelines on planning a garden. When researching, I came across a site called eHow-Home. They had the perfect set of simple steps to take when designing a garden ( by the way this site is great for all kinds of information).

 

 

1.Choose a purpose for your garden. If it's for beauty then pick your preferences of colour, size, and shape; if it's to attract butterflies or humming birds, you will want to choose specific flowering shrubs.

2. Choose a desirable location for your garden where it can grow and be appreciated. Don't plant it near a dog run or too close to the driveway where cars might drive on it.

3  Decide whether you want perennials or annuals remembering that perennials become bigger and thicker each year, and annuals require planting each year.

4 Choose plants that adhere to weather conditions of that placement. If the garden area is windy you want hardy plants that can tolerate wind; if the area is sunny you want plants that require sun and not shade.

5 Choose plants with similar care requirements such as frequency in watering, amount of sun and soil nutrient requirements.

6 Choose colours that compliment each other and give the garden a complete appearance ie: Don't plant white flowers in front of white dogwood. Instead, plant coloured flowers to elicit the colour mixture.

7 Plan your arrangements so that each plant is accentuated ie: Tall plants at the back and graduating down so that low spreading plants are at the front. Or if it's a circle, so that tall plants are in the centre graduating down to short spreaders on the outside.

8 Use the correct mulch, as suggested in your garden catalogue, to keep the soil moist during the hot summer days.

9 Set out appropriate soaker hoses throughout so that the garden can be watered regularly and maintained through the heat spells.

10 Give your plants the proper food nutrients as required and listed in your garden catalogue.

11 Dead head the flowers to allow for more blooms. ( dead head is to snip the dead bloom off the stem)


Here are some before and after landscape pictures from HGTV. Note the impact that landscaping makes on the exterior appearance of these homes.

Before

After

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After

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After

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After

Take Care,
Stacy

For help designing a room that makes you smile, contact me and ask about my design services

Look Whats Popping Up All Around Us

What an absolutely gorgeous day we had  in Baltimore today. It was 83 degrees and I was loving it.  My fresh mulch went in ( I just love how new mulch looks... don't you? ), daffodils are starting to bloom, the grass is turning green, the sun is shining, and its WARM!!!!  It was such a beautiful day I decided to go around my house so everyone could see just what's popping up in my neck of the woods.

I think daffodils are so pretty.

I am sooo excited for my peonies to bloom. Even though they don't last very long at all, they are one of my favorite flowers. I have a couple of areas of peonies in my garden and they make the prettiest arrangements.

Look what a found in one of my holly trees when taking pictures. I think I scared the mother when I was taking a picture of my daffodils so it flew off which is what drew my attention to the holly bush. I hope she comes back. I didn't get to close.

I'm so excited that my rose bush has growth on it.  I put it in last year and wasn't sure it was going to come back. I can't wait to see how it looks this year.

I can't remember the name of the first couple of bushes in this picture but I do know they get a tiny white flower in late spring.  Below them are rhododendron bushes. When I put them in last year they had already bloomed so I am really eager to see what they look like.  I'm sure they will look incredible surrounding the huge oak trees.

Another view of the gardens and stone staircase down to the backyard.

My children's playhouse which houses all of our outdoor furniture in the winter. New mulch does wonders to spruce up a garden bed.  I love just having wide circles of mulch surrounding the tree trunks. It has such a clean look.

I can't remember what this plant is called but it has a wonderful aroma.

These buds open up to an incredibly beautiful and fragrant pink flower. When it blooms I will take a picture to show everyone. (and find out the name....probably should of found out before writing this post. Sorry)

Dark purple lilies are just starting to pop out. Can't wait.

Starting to get the outdoor furniture out in the hopes that the warm weather is here to stay. Lets keep our fingers crossed!

I hope you are enjoying what's popping up in your neck of the woods, I know I am.


Little Note:
Just wanted to let everyone know that Amy, winner of the Spring Giveaway, did get in touch with me and is very excited about winning the bouquet of flowers from Flowers and Fancies.  I am currently working on our next giveaway, so stay tuned... you're going to love it!



Take Care,
Stacy

For help designing a room that makes you smile, contact me and ask about my design services.