Category Archives: Yard & Outdoors

Improve The Worth Of Your Home With These Handy Tips

March 18, 2025   Matt

Improve The Worth Of Your Home With These Handy Tips

If you need to do some work on your home but aren’t sure where to begin, this article is for you! Read on to find out what simple, easy steps you can take to embark on a home improvement project for your home! Transform your home easily, keep reading!

When making home improvements, plan for the worst. If you’re working in a basement or bathroom, plan and budget for mold removal. If you’re pulling down the walls in an old house plan to find knob and tube wiring.

Planning landscaping to reduce water usage is not just for homeowners in drought-stricken areas. Between changing weather patterns, rising populations and falling water tables, water for home irrigation is only going to grow more expensive. By selecting plant species that require less water than the usual landscaping standards, a wise homeowner can save a lot of money.

When it comes to home improvement, the lowest bidder for your project will not always translate to be the one who does the best work. Many times, a quote that is too good to be true is just that, due to poor work quality or hidden costs. Be sure to check with any agencies that provide feedback about contractors before hiring them.

Improve the outside of your home by landscaping with plants native to your geographical region. Native plants are proven to do well in your climate, so the long-term results are predictable. You can plan your landscape with confidence that the look you want to achieve will be the look you get. If you choose non-native plants instead, there is a risk that the plants may not thrive in your climate.

When planning a major home renovation project, hire a professional architect or designer to create your plans. Unless you or a family member has professional design training, any plans you create are likely to be all form and no function. Professional designers will be able to create meaningful plans to construct from that also meet all local building restrictions.

If you are installing new flooring, try to find one that has a heating option. This is especially beneficial for colder climates, as heating in the floor will keep your feet warm. There are many kinds of flooring that offer radiant heat options including certain hardwoods, ceramic tiles, linoleum, and bamboo.

Smoke detectors are required for safety in your home. Many homes only put them in certain areas. You can increase the safety in your home, by installing additional detectors in places like bathrooms, kitchens and basements. These areas can sometimes be overlooked, though prone to fires as much or more than the rest of the house.

You should always purchase the materials you need for home improvement projects in the largest possible lots. Building materials have some of the deepest volume discounts you will ever see. By planning ahead you can figure out how much material you are likely to need and buy it all at once. This will cost you much less than making multiple purchases.

Home improvement is an important part of owning a home, and now that you have the tools you need to succeed, you can get started! We hope you enjoyed this article on simple tips and tricks to make improvements, and that it will help you turn your home into something you love.

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Landscaping Designs for Your Home

March 13, 2025   Matt

Landscaping Designs for Your Home

Landscape designs serve as good reference to those who want to make something of their land. There are pictures and articles written about these in magazines while some are posted on the web.

When you are looking at these landscape designs, keep in mind of what can and cannot work for your home or office. This will help you make a shortlist of what lighting, plants and trees you will be using. You may also want to use some metal, rocks and wood since this adds depth to the garden.

After some time, you will surely find a design that you think looks best. If you feel like incorporating everything here, see to it that the size of the work done here is similar to your land size. Otherwise, you will have to make some adjustments just to get most of it in.

You can also discover some more landscape designs by acquiring software that can help you design from scratch. All you have to do is input some information and the program will do the rest.

So it can work on your computer, you have to first check if the system fits the requirements. You can easily check this by looking at the packaging which will let you know immediately if this is compatible with your hardware at home.

It may eat up a lot of memory so be prepared by getting an upgrade for your hard drive or creating space on your current one.

Creating your landscape design using a computer is best if you are able to inject pictures into the program and if it can show a three dimensional perspective of the land you are working on. Not all programs can do this and you need to take a tutorial first to understand the system.

When working on the landscape design using either a pen and paper or the computer, take into account where the sun is and the type of soil you are dealing because these are things you cannot change and you have to adapt to them.

After putting all these things into consideration, you should now be able to transfer this from paper to the actual thing. Since you cannot do this alone, you will probably have to get help by talking to a contractor.

Given that you are not an expert when it comes to landscaping, the contractor should be able to fill in the other blanks. This includes providing proper garden drainage and in some cases, installing a system that will prevent muddy areas in your garden.

If there are steep slopes that make it difficult to retain the topsoil, they will also need to build a retainer wall so the garden is always leveled.

This is something of course that they should be able to input in the plan you have made. They will then be able to tell you how much the entire project will cost. If after doing a background check this company appears to be legit and they happen to be better than the others who have submitted their proposals, it is time to sign the document so work may begin.

No landscaping design appeared out of thin air. It requires planning on your part and then execution with the assistance of a reputable contractor. As a customer, do your share so the professionals will be able to take it from there.

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Summer Garden Pitfalls

March 08, 2025   Matt

Summer Garden Pitfalls

We all love learning great ways to create a summer garden fit to rival them all. What we do not really take the time to check out often enough are the things we should avoid when creating a summer garden. Learning the potential pitfalls of summer gardening can often lead to much better results in the long run while allowing you to learn these sometimes painful lessons from the mistakes of others rather than your own personal gardening flops and nightmares.

One thing that we are all guilty of is landscaping for the neighbor’s enjoyment. If you spend the vast majority of your free time in the great outdoors, this is one thing but if you are like the typical family you spend the vast majority of your time inside your home looking out. For this reason it is wise to plant your summer garden in an area that you can easily view from within the walls of your home rather than in an area that only the neighbors are likely to see on an average day. In other words, garden for your enjoyment and make it so that you actually get to view the benefits of your labor on any given day.

Avoid cluttering your lawn with too much of anything. Keep your summer garden on scale with your lawn. It will look completely out of place if you have too much in garden on a postage stamp lot and will look completely under maintained to have very little landscaping in your summer garden on a lot the size of a grand estate. Try to keep everything in perspective and appropriate to the amount of land available as well as the climate of the area in which you are planning your summer garden.

You should also avoid looking as though you have no plan in your summer garden landscaping and design. Planning is the most important thing you can do for your summer garden. Without a solid plan upon which to build the design of your summer garden your garden is doomed to either fail or look as though it was poorly planned and executed. Invest the largest portion of time and energy towards the planning stage of your summer garden in order to achieve the best possible results.

Another common pitfall when planning and creating summer gardens is failing to consider the long-term implications of the plants and flowers selected for the garden. If you are not interested in heavy maintenance it makes little sense to purchase plants and flowers that are high maintenance by nature. Select plants according to your summer garden needs and not simply because you think they look good in a brochure or on the store shelves.

If you take a little time to make a concerted effort towards properly planning your summer gardens according to your personal tastes and the desired level of maintenance you wish to invest in keeping your garden in top form you will find that you will enjoy your garden much more than if you throw some plants in the ground and hope for the best. One thing to remember is that while there are summer gardens that require a little less maintenance than others there is no such thing as a no maintenance garden. Expect to spend some time and effort keeping your garden looking sharp and in order.

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Landscaping Around Trees

February 11, 2025   Matt

Landscaping Around Trees

Most homes have a few trees in the yard. Since they provide shade when it is too hot outside, it is only right that you landscape around the trees to make part of the beautiful scenery.

So how do you do that? The first thing you have to do is get in touch with arborist, a horticulturist or a forester. This is because planting around trees the wrong way can damaged the roots and kill the tree. Once they have established a protected root zone, you will be able to plant flowers and shrubs without any problems.

Instead of planting these on the ground, you can use planted boxes which does a great job of reducing mower damage. If you do decide to use these, be sure to maintain the soil at the original level and that the installation edging materials do not cut the tree roots.

The water requirement for plants and trees are also different. For instance, grass and plants have to be watered daily or three times a week. While the tree on the other hand only needs one application.

To prevent this from happening, you should also construct an irrigation system that is able to cater to the needs of both. You can make this happen by putting the water lines in one corridor outside the protected root zone.

But if it has to go through, make sure bore a hole only two feet below grade. Again, the improper way of doing this will compromise the tree’s stability and health.

But what if you suspect that something is wrong with tree? For that, you will have to inspect the base of the tree.

All trees have a natural root flare located at the base. If there is no flare and there is an excess fill, this has to be removed in order to save the life of the tree. Some of the work can be done by hand while the rest is done with a machine.

So if you want to landscape around trees, it is best to lay a 2 to 4 inch later of organic mulch at the base of the tree and then extend this outward to the protected root zone. Examples of these include wood chips and shredded bark. They must not be piled up against the tree trunk because this keeps the bark wet that leads to the growth of bacteria and fungi.

You must not also use landscaping fabrics or sheet plastic underneath mulch because they prevent oxygen and water going to the roots of the trees.

It is advised to prone out dead, low and rubbing branches. You must never pull on the healthy ones because this will reduce the tree’s ability to withstand heavy winds.

Irrigation must be done in the absence of precipitation. This should be done regularly during the fall until the ground freezes with periods that allows the soil to dry.

If you follow the tips mentioned, you will soon have a nice yard that surrounds a tree. Of course landscaping around trees is just one way to make your yard look good. But as this case has shown, planting flowers or shrubs into the ground and watering them is not as easy as it looks because you also have to pay attention the needs of the tree so both will be able to live.

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Landscaping in Florida

February 06, 2025   Matt

Landscaping in Florida

Landscaping in Florida is not that different compared to other places in the US. This is because companies who offer their services will still mow the lawn, plant trees and do everything else to keep the garden well maintained.

As a contractor, you should know what plants work best depending on the region and know the best places to put them. Since Florida is prone to hurricanes, you should know how to water them properly and be able to protect it.

You should also be able to attract wildlife to the garden. Some plants that can make this happen include the Gold Lantana and the Dwarf Fire bushes that are known to attract butterflies which add beauty to the surroundings.

Don’t forget to use fertilizers for the garden. In Florida, this is very important because soil is a major problem. Most of the time, you will encounter soil that is too sandy which also lacks the necessary minerals for plant growth.

One tree that will never go out of style in Florida is the Sabal Palm that is native to the area. A lot of people decide to plant one in the front or backyard because this compliments Florida’s landscape which people want a part of even in their homes.

When you plant this, remember that this should be placed a few yards away from the house so that in the event that a super hurricane comes again, it will not cause that much damage to the home.

Since most homes in Florida don’t have walls or a gate, you will also plant palm trees to give the homeowners some privacy. Some say this is more effective than putting up a fence because the leaves provide more coverage.

You can plant shrubs and other smaller plants near the house. These are ideal to hide the air conditioner and other things that may not look very attractive to those who drive by. The general rule of course when planning what flowers to use is to make it go well with the color of the house which shouldn’t be a problem if you use native species that are accustomed to the climate.

For people that like to go organic, you can also make your own vegetable garden. Given that soil is a problem, it is best to build a raise bed and then put a layer of erosion cloth so it can deal better with the water coming from the plants. Some vegetables that are perfect for Florida’s weather include herbs, onions, peppers and tomatoes.

The condition of the soil may be a challenge for contractors who still service clients but those who are able to surpass this will be able to do a lot of business.

Those who are starting out should offer their services first in the neighborhood and then expand this to get more clients. Advertising will be important here so they should post flyers, maybe put an ad in the paper or pay for a print ad.

You will be able to succeed should you decide to open a landscaping business in Florida. Just remember to use the plants and trees native to the area so you don’t have to worry about what other species have to be bought in and wonder if this will be able to withstand the hot climate.

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Decorative Stone Uses For Landscaping

January 22, 2025   Matt

Decorative Stone Uses For Landscaping

One of the benefits resulting from the diminishing rainfall now being experienced Australia wide is the growing realisation by the community that there are alternatives to the vast areas of lawn traditionally found around suburban houses.
The new trend toward smaller property sizes has also caused people to look at more practical uses that could be made of the surrounds to their homes.
One of the fastest growth areas experienced over the past 5 years has been the increased usage of decorative pebbles. Landscapers and homeowners basically have two main sources for these pebbles and stones.
Natural coloured stones can be sourced throughout Australia, under licence, from old river and creek beds where their removal does not harm the ecosystem. These stones are quarried, then tumbled to give a smooth rounded edge which adds a touch of class wherever used. Local decorative pebbles are increasingly being used throughout the landscaping of new display homes to provide a low maintenance, low water requirement home environment. Attractive exterior inorganic mulches like pebbles suppress weeds and retain soil moisture when applied over already moist soil. They don’t break down over time and with the wide range of colours available can look great providing a modern stylish garden appearance.
The alternative source of decorative pebbles is the growing range of colours and sizes available in the imported pebbles. Whilst the initial major source of these was from non enviro-friendly areas of beaches and rivers in India and Indonesia, the recent trend had been to the wide range of natural coloured pebbles which are manufactured particularly in China and Italy. The two types of pebbles sourced are either polished and waxed or are manufactured stone that is tumbled from quarried rock to the desired size.
Polished pebbles are sourced from huge mounds of pebbles produced as a by-product to sand mining operations. Stacks up to 4 metres high and covering areas as large as a football field provide the pebbles that are hand picked for the colour required (usually black). These pebbles are then taken to local villages where they are polished by tumbling, then waxed and bagged.
Imported decorative pebbles are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications including interior and exterior landscaping, roofscaping and the latest trend in decorative concrete – “seeded exposed aggregate”.
One of the many aspects drawing landscape architects and designers to this finish is the complete versatility in design and colour produced by the product. With over 100 different colour oxides available to select from for the concrete colour the wide range of over 40 different colours pebbles available provide a limitless colour combination to work with.
Apart from colour selections, designers can also incorporate exciting features in the project works. Polystyrene cut-outs which are set in the concrete when the initial pour is done can be subsequently removed and replaced with a contrasting feature concrete/pebble combination. Side borders can vary, from the many decorative pavers and bricks available, to hand laid pebble borders using any of the 100+ colours and sizes available.
A particularly popular range of pebbles are sourced from an Italian marble manufacturer who tumbles marble off-cuts to provide a colourful range of smooth edged marble pebbles. These environment friendly pebbles contain all the variations naturally found in marble providing an exceedingly decorative and appealing appearance.

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