Power Access For Your Decorations

When it comes time to decorate for Christmas or any other holiday, having access to plenty of electricity is a main consideration. It’s also the main setback of not being able to decorate the way you want to. While most modern homes have plenty of outlets at the home itself, very few have electricity in the yard. Some Christmas yard decorations and displays can use a lot of electricity and outlets. Having access directly at the point of use is so much better than having extension cords stretched out all over the lawn. So having electrical outlets installed strategically throughout the landscaping is the obvious solution.

It’s best and safest to have a licensed electrician do this project. Regardless of where you are, it’s probably law anyway.

The amount of power you’ll need will depend on the extent of your decorating habit and possible future growth of your displays. And over planning for too much is always better than not enough. Cost wise, there won’t be much difference. Consult with your electricians and they will create the right size power supply and network for your decorations. And have them place outlets where you know you’ll have Christmas yard decorations as well as for other holidays and possibilities.

A possible problem when adding electrical outlets to your yard and landscaping will be the visibility factor. Nothing is worse to a landscaping project than the presence of utilities. Along with others like utility poles, transformers, and meters, outlets can’t be avoided and so creative ways of hiding them or blending them with the landscaping is necessary. Generally, the easiest way to hide outlets is to place them in planting beds nearest to the areas where you’ll have Christmas yard decorations. There are also weatherproof outlet boxes that can be set directly into lawns and flowerbeds as well as artificial landscaping rocks. Regardless of how you do it, hiding the outlets will help keep your landscaping looking clean in the off season when there are no decorations and displays being used.

Whether purchased, found, borrowed, or recycled, personal garden decor can be almost anything. From decorative pots to old bicycles with baskets filled with flowers, it’s simply a matter of meaning, preference, or theme. So while some folks have a clear vision of theme and direction of their gardens, others may still need ideas to decorate. For those folks, we’ve created a directory at garden decor ideas that has pictures and ideas for decorating gardens and landscaping with common elements and antiques.

Generally, garden decor and decoration is more noticeable in small garden ideas than in large landscapes. In most instances it’s not that there is more of it but rather in small areas like patio design and courtyards there is more of a concentration where more pieces of decor can be visible at the same time.

Look through the directory, get some ideas, and be creative. The final touches of decorating your garden or landscaping should be something personal. And the pieces you need may just be laying around.

Sustainable green living has actually been practiced by certain groups and communities for a long long time. It’s remained a way of life for serious organic gardeners and even a few talented farmers. My grandpa’s farm was like that because that’s just the way it was back then. Natural methods did a better job of doing what all the harsh chemicals simply can’t do today.

Just as misunderstood, Xeriscaping or low water use landscaping, is a form of green or sustainable living. Xeriscaping principles are an efficient and conservative use of natural resources as well as natural control of insects, soil diseases, and weeds. And while the word “Xeriscaping” hasn’t been around all that long, the practice has been around for quite some time. Because of its extended use in dry desert climates, Xeriscaping is also often refered to as desert landscaping or Southwest landscaping.

While agriculture, gardening, and landscaping is only a small part of the green and sustainable lifestyle, it’s what comes to the mind of most people when you mention the words green, sustainable, or environmentally responsible. Green gardening and landscaping is a great place for most folks to start to get an understanding of what it’s all about. Green has become an important consideration in landscaping and garden and should be a part of all future design plans.

The “living green” movement is here to stay because the survival of this world depends on it. And while it may seem like a lot of trouble to some, it can actually make life easier and save you some money. And like I said, one of the easiest places to start is in your own landscape and garden so in the coming weeks we’ll look at that and then we’ll look at ways sustainable, green, and environmental responsibility can fit into the rest of our daily lives. See best green blogs and you should start to get an understanding of how big and important this way of life is.

Using fake dry riverbeds in desert landscaping ideas to fill up space and add xeriscape design interest is quite popular in the yards of many Southwest, Santa Fe, and Arizona style homes. Most often for just interest and curb appeal, still many of these dry river beds are actually functional for drainage or water harvesting in times of rain or flooding.

The following pictures show a few examples of using different sizes and colors of gravel to create fake dry rivers in xeriscapes and low water use gardens.

Dry Riverbed Idea
As you’ll see in all the pictures in this post, this xeriscaping idea shows how simple this is to make something beautiful and environmentally friendly with some gravel, rocks, and a few plants.

Fake River Bed
Another angle of the previous picture.

Xeriscaping With Two Color Gravel
Designing and creating designs with different color gravel is also a popular way of dressing up areas that won’t be using any plants or other hardscapes.

This type of design isn’t just limited to xeriscaping. almost any landscaping style can benefit from the different textures, colors, and interest of using two or more types of gravels.

While this example isn’t quite like the others in terms of rock size and definition, it is still suppose to represent a dry riverbed.

Dry River Xeriscape For Drainage
This xeric idea is actually functional for channeling water during heavy rains and flooding.

Landscaping Ideas

Finding landscape and garden design ideas that are perfect for your property shape or exact situation can be a frustrating task for most do it yourselfers. Even with all of the plans, ideas, and pictures available on almost any landscaping or garden design situation, it can still seem impossible. So many times, it’s possible that most folks and even you are looking for the wrong thing.

Whether creating a new landscape or upgrading an existing property, finding the exact complete design you need is highly unlikely. However, finding bits and pieces from different design ideas that will work together is a strong possibility. Besides the entire design, there are a few things to look at in the plans, pictures, and designs you’ll see.

• 1) Look for the elements, principles, placements, and shapes that are repeated and used in different design ideas by different designers.
• 2) Stop trying to find the perfect design. Look for different parts of different landscaping ideas to fit certain areas of your landscape or garden. Even though they may consist of different elements and materials, these can be changed to universal elements to create continuity and consistency when you reach the final stage of the design.

Landscape Design Ideas
Pictures

After several years of being a consultant, designer, and running a few do it yourself sites, I have a good idea of what folks are looking for when they’re searching for design ideas. Pictures, plans, more pictures, and more plans. So along with a lot of good do it yourself information, Landscaping Videos and our main Landscaping Ideas Site are both a majority of pictures.

Because we have some of the largest collections online, let’s start with pictures.

Our first directory of pictures started out on The Landscape Design Site as a list of links pointing to the design portfolios of other professional landscape designers and contractors. However over time, we have added a lot of our own on pictures. See landscaping pictures for a very large list of links and pictures with design explanations.

Our second directory is strictly on-site. See landscaping idea pictures for a large directory of pictures with design ideas and explanations for each photo. And of course, let’s not forget this directory. See landscaping pictures for a huge collection of photos search-able by keyword and style.

Plans – Blueprints

While those last links should keep you busy for hours and possibly days, there is more. Besides a collection of my own plans and completed designs, there is also a directory of over 100 garden plans and design blueprints for you to take advantage of.

My own design plans and ideas are listed on both this site and The Landscape Design Site. On this site, see landscape design plans for a simple list of design layouts and pictures of designs. See landscaping plans for a more detailed list of plans with explanations and pictures of finished designs.

Videos

Last, and the main highlight of this site for getting landscaping ideas is the videos. The collection of videos on this site is hand picked to only include good how to information, tutorials, and ideas. See our landscaping videos collection which cuts out all the worthless videos that teach you nothing and leaves only the best ideas and tutorials for you to use.

With all the landscaping and garden design resources listed here, your chances of finding some good ideas that you can use and put together in your own design are pretty good.

While an unlimited budget would be nice when it comes to doing your own landscaping, a limited budget is usually a main factor in doing it yourself. And so it’s necessary to get the most out of your materials which would include your planting choices as well.

For the folks that are totally horticulturally challenged. And for those who simply don’t want to put the time and study into creating a planting scheme, there are some design aids that may be helpful. Kind of a design in a box sort of thing.

From a designers point of view, the only downside to these plans is not getting the knowledge from creating your own plan. It’s like that saying “give someone a fish and they’ll eat today or teach them to fish and they’ll feed themselves”. From a do it yourselfer point of view – Just give me the easiest and fastest way.

Either way , I’d give them a pretty high mark as a resource that will save you a lot of time and frustration. If you should want to know at least a little about plants and placement, you can learn a lot from article Planting Ideas and theory.

Pre planned gardens aren’t a new thing. I’ve seen them around for a while but I never considered them for any my own designs.

Our first experience with them was through a client who created her own design and wanted us to put it to the ground. I thought her design was pretty cool and was also impressed that she had her entire planting scheme figured out. That part rarely happens.

The plants were good quality and healthy. I’m not use to planting plants that aren’t somewhat more mature than these. But I guess as far as mail order plants which I knew little about, they were actually good size. And as I also figure, that’s not their selling point. The point is that it was easy to figure out and do it yourself.

If you choose to look into these for your landscaping ideas, you can get a little more mileage and economy from them if you “stretch them out a bit”.

The plants that come in these packages are perennials that are regionalized for each individual area. Your area. This means they will seed or divide. Which means that you’ll end up with more free plants that will fill in more area.

Instead of using the plans in the square footage that the vendor recommends, spread them out a little more. The plant choices in these packages are created to compliment and accent each other. So it doesn’t matter if they’re all on top of each other or spread throughout the landscape. Spread out, they’ll actually help create the balance and unity that you may be looking for.

Don’t feel that you have to use them throughout your entire landscape. That could get expensive. You can use one or two plans to create the framework and unity of your design. With that in place, you then have the freedom to experiment with other stuff you get locally without losing balance and unity. And like I stated earlier, you’ll have more free plants next season that will fill more space.

Other than the size of the plants when they arrived, I think they’re a great idea for a lot of applications. They can be used for single areas, to simply spruce things up, or entire landscapes.

You can experiment for your own area and ideas. I think it would be difficult to mess this kind of thing up too bad.

Click For Professional Garden Plans
Professionally designed pre-planned garden designs are some of the greatest tools for do it yourself landscapers and gardeners to come along in a long time. Besides shape, choosing plants and planting ideas is generally the most difficult part of designing and planning landscapes and gardens. And these plans make it so easy.

And For Even More Garden Plans
As my own landscape consulting and websites demand more of my time, pre planned garden plans have become quite an asset to me as well. And especially within the last year as they have become more regionalized to more areas. Once we come up with a few landscaping ideas for clients, I can simply send them to look at two different vendors for their planting schemes.

Professionally Designed Garden Plans

Or…
Professional Landscaping Planting Plans

As I pointed out, LandscapingVideos.com has gone through some changes and major updates to make it one of the top sites for landscaping and landscape design ideas, plans, pictures, and advice. So take time to check out the entire site. Check out swimming pool landscaping ideas as well as the rest of the design ideas on the site.

Vol. 1 $19.97

Amazing landscape transformations is not just another “how to” videos collection that focuses how to do one or two projects. It is a collection of some of the most amazing ideas and designs from professional designer Paul Nordmark. If you live in or around Southern California, I’m sure you’ve heard of him or have seen some of his work.

NOTE: You’ll find these videos at amazon.com for $24.97 each Volume 1 At Amazon, Volume 2 At Amazon. However, you can get them here for $19.97 each and shipping is included in the price.

From totally simple to elaborate, most if not all of the design ideas are do-able for the average do it yourselfer or homeowner. There are design ideas to fit almost any landscaping situation and ideas to address most common problem areas such as slopes, hillsides, and access areas. If your’re planning to landscape a slope or hillside, these videos are a must have.

To call a design idea do-able means they’re created using materials and elements that don’t require you to have a degree in engineering to use. Man made retaining wall blocks, accent rocks, sheets of flagstone, plants, and assorted ground covers make up the majority of materials used. All of these materials are generally available locally and are very easy to handle without heavy equipment. See Vol.1 DVD cover enlarged

Vol. 2 $19.97

As with any design book that I might purchase or offer on my sites, I looked at these videos from the point of view of their value to the do it yourselfer. With all the free pictures and videos online, these would have to offer something valuable. And they do.

Besides being unique, creative and do-able, Paul shows before and after pictures as well as how the designs look over time. These are some of the better examples of how, over time, plants complete the picture of the landscape.

A very important thing that I observe about these videos is how many of the designs are “universal”. What I mean by this is that most of these designs aren’t limited or confined the the landscape they’re created in. They could be used to transform almost any yard or landscape. See Vol. 2 DVD cover enlarged

While an ideas resource like this won’t be the answer for every landscape, the creativity, functionality, do-ability, and versatility of these designs make me feel that most everyone should find at least one idea in these videos that will work for them. And that would make this a valuable and hopefully one of the few investments you’ll have to make in your landscaping.

Vols. 1 and 2 $38.97

Click to play video

Living and landscaping on a slope or hillside lot can be a challenge. And depending on how extreme the slope is, it can be quite a bit more expensive than a flat yard of the same square footage.

The lot in this video is sloped about as extreme as most folks would have to deal with. As it is, most of the usable space has to be created by terracing.

Other than design, drainage is the biggest issue with landscaping on a slope. Especially if the slope is toward your home. Some type of diversion through terracing and chanelling the water. Terracing helps to slow the water so that it can be handled. It also slows erosion from the hillside.

Watering is also an issue with hillside landscaping as water tends to runoff quicker than it can saturate the area. Special steps and considerations need to be taken for watering on a hillside or slope.

Anyway, watch the video. It might give you some ideas and solutions if you’re faced with landscaping on a slope or hillside.