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Making Your Green Thumb a Business
Ever thought how nice it would be if all the hard work you put in to your landscaped gained you something a little more rewarding than the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of your neighbors? Now you can. Follow a few easy tips and make more than you ever bargained for by using your green thumb as a business.
If you’ve spent a fortune on your landscape and it turned out exactly as you wanted it to, you might consider renting it out for television or movie shoots. Hey, at least your landscape would’ve been on TV! You could also consider hosting events on your landscaped area such as small weddings or other important celebrations. Before you attempt at letting strangers in to your landscape though make sure that your insurance covers any liability costs that could occur in order to truly make a profit from your venture.
If you have a more modest landscaped area then you might consider selling the produce you get from it. Grow a little extra fruit, vegetables and maybe try a rare herb that is in demand and sell it in a little stand near you. You’ll be surprised at how fast they will be snatched up by vendors. You could also sell any excess plants that you have to a nearby nursery. They are always looking for less common plants to sell.
A Whimsical Post About Garden Gnomes
Tiny guy, white beard, red pointy hat, usually dressed in worker’s clothes: these ceramic statues have been frolicking around on lawns, in gardens, and all over the yards of suburban cities all over the world. There’s a garden gnome blog, Gnome Town USA. Travelocity uses one for their official mascot. Meanwhile, the website Free the Gnomes! seems to be out to shut down the rampant spread of the little Tolkienesque statues.
Would you believe all this started in the mid-1880s? That was in Thuringia, Germany, where a ceramics-crafter by the name of Philip Griebel made the first terracotta gnomes, which were originally sold along with a folk myth about how they’d help out in the garden at night (for what? scaring away snails?). They spread across Germany to France, and eventually to England, when Sir Charles Isham brought the first set of 12 along with him on his trip to the UK in 1847.
Their whimsy is so infectious that they’re actually the target of a popular prank, which originated in Australia in the 1980s. Known as “gnoming,” it’s the act of stealing a gnome, photographing it at various famous landmarks, and returning it along with the photos of its “vacation,” as if it suddenly got an itchy foot on its own. According to the Regular
Shorts feature of the Sydney Morning Herald on September 24, 1986: “An Eastern suburbs gnome-owner was distressed when she discovered her gnome had been stolen at the weekend. A note was found in its place: “Dear mum, couldn’t stand the solitude any longer. Gone off to see the world. Don’t be worried, I’ll be back soon. Love Bilbo xxx.” (We told you this was Tolkienesque!).
In fact, the resulting prank group, Garden Gnome Liberation Front, got their start this way. Officially headquartered in France, they were the first to popularize the prank with the rest of the world, and legend has it that that’s where Travelocity got it’s inspiration for their ad campaign.
As for our part, we still think they’re just a hybrid between a Hobbit and a bleached Smurf. Make up your minds, will you?
Making Your Garden Look Good on a Low Budget
Unfortunately like most things in the world today, low budget anything equals extra effort. Therefore be prepared to really give your all to your garden in order to help it blossom in to its true potential.
An important low budget gardening tip is substitution. Substitute any chemical substances for organic ones. Though this may decrease the speed of growth, it will still do the job in a slower yet healthier manner. Some ideal organic products are; eggshells, manure and soaked dry leaves.
An essential feature of any garden is usually the flower and plants arrangements. Unfortunately though, fancy pots cost a lot. Therefore a more innovative alternative for this would be a more creative outlook for substitutes such as; tires, wagons, old paint buckets etc. You can even paint them in order to give it a more personalized look.
Substitute saplings with seeds. Seeds are much more cost efficient in comparison with plants and grow the same though only a little slower than an already grown one. A packet of seed will also enable you to grow more plants thereby if you do the math; you can actually plant over thirty plants for the price of buying an already grown one. A good looking garden always has healthy greenery.
No matter how much you cut down on costs for your garden it is important to never ever invest in cheap gardening tools. Gardening tools are liable to breakage and buying an expensive tool of better quality is actually more cost efficient in comparison with a cheaper flimsier tools in the long run.
Sometimes in Gardening, Less is More
We loved this post cautioning against cramming as much as you can into the dirt and calling it ‘gardening’. This does raise an interesting, and often overlooked point.
Many novice gardeners look at their first patch of land to fill and simply keep squeezing in one more row of plants. Eventually you end up with a visual cacophony that would look right in a display at Disneyland, but is just too busy for the landscaping around your home.
What we find naturally pleasing to the eye in a garden is the same kind of thing we find pleasing about nature. And if you take a walk in the woods, you’ll notice that even in nature, grass does not grow right up to the edge of every tree trunk, nor do fifty kinds of flowers sprout in a five-foot plot. Nature is actually kind of sparse. In fact, if you’re having a hard time encouraging plants to grow, this just might be a clue that you’re choking them for air and sunshine.
There’s also the artistic aspect to consider. The blog makes the point “When you go out, do you put on every piece of jewelry that you own or do you select only a few that serve to highlight?” Since we’re on the web, we’ll use an even better metaphor: when you lay out a web page, you’re not supposed to fill it with every widget and doodad you can fit in.
A Touch of Zen With Japanese Landscaping
We stumbled on this photo essay on Japanese gardens and, after basking in the beauty, asked ourselves what it is about the Japanese style that’s so appealing?
Part of it has to do with Japan’s national culture. Japan is an island and for much of its history kept to itself, so they became experts at making a lot of beauty happen in a very small space. Then, too, oriental philosophies emphasize harmony with nature, so they gently coax the Earth to produce it’s own order instead of imposing human order onto nature. And finally, in Japanese aesthetics the emphasis is on tranquility above all else.
Here’s another great link on an important tip on Japanese landscaping by using background scenery. Here is a fantastic write-up on the Japanese gardens of nobility. And a catalog of Zen gardens, just for the inspiration value.
Making the Most of Your Small Garden Space
Do you sometimes wish you had a larger garden? Well, don’t fret. Small gardens too, can be made beautiful; all you need is a little creativity, some know-how and lots of enthusiasm.
As with any garden, irrespective of its size, you need to follow some key guidelines. For instance, site-assessment, planning, designing and of course implementation are the four fundamental features of any well-landscaped garden.
When landscaping a small garden, designing becomes easier, as you can ascertain the entire site in one glance. Here, maximizing space and attention to detail becomes critical, so you must choose plants with especial care. You can have flowering plants, a small vegetable plot or even an herb garden, but remember not to incorporate too many themes in a limited space. Also, too large a plant can overcrowd the limited space you have to work with, but if done cleverly, it can act as a focal point around which other plants are placed.
Small gardens are obviously easier to maintain, and a plant that is not thriving or out-of-place can be attended to, fast. In the case of container gardens, you can manipulate factors such as soil-mix, temperature and exposure to shade, with relative ease.
Most importantly, a small garden can carry your own stamp of individuality, and it can accommodate your changing requirements quite easily too.
Machines Used in Landscaping
There are numerous machines used in landscaping and thank God, they’re all portable. Most landscaping machinery is used to either make or maintain the landscape and is therefore fairly easy to get accommodated with.
The main landscape ‘making’ machine that is generally utilized – trucks that enable large scale movement, depending of course on the size of the project. These are used for building sand traps and transferring large quantities of earth or soil in order to create hills and artificial lakes. Landscape curbing equipments are also essential in landscape making as it helps make pathways in a landscape.
The more mobile landscaping machinery is usually the ones used for maintenance. They are; lawn mowers, lawn tractors, pipes, pumps, spades, rakes, sheers etc. Tractor based equipments, as mentioned, are essential not only to maintain a garden but also to provide electricity for a generator during emergencies or calamities.
There are therefore large landscaping machinery and other smaller landscaping machinery that can do the same job for you. An example of this would be shifting earth with a shovel or with a truck. Therefore utilize the relevant machinery depending on the scale of your landscaping project. Save time, effort and money by making the right choices with your landscaping machinery.
Landscaping Software: Good or Bad?
Landscaping software is a marvelous creation that enables you to make amazingly beautiful landscapes and gardens and actually see how they would look beforehand. Today, many software’s also enable the user to add, remove and shift various landscape features such as waterfalls, plants, pathways and even lighting in order to see what truly suits the landscape best. Landscaping is extremely expensive and therefore using software will not only save you the money for professionals but it will also save you a lot of time and effort of implementing something in your real landscape and then deciding it doesn’t really ‘work for you’ in that location.
Unfortunately though like all good things in this world, there is a downside to using landscaping software as well. Landscaping software too comes at a price. There are some claiming to be absolutely free, though they are usually demo versions that don’t let you alter certain features. Purchasing the full version upgrade is necessary for this. Downloading such software can be time consuming and sometimes house virus’s that could ruin your entire computer system. Some software’s also don’t allow the importation of pictures so make sure that when you consider getting landscaping software that you check if all the required features are present before purchasing it.
Landscaping and Living ‘Green’
At the end of the day, we all want to escape the clamour of our daily lives and enter in to a pure sanctuary of relaxation… and no, this is not an ad for a new resort in the Himalayas. The truth is that an aesthetically accurate landscape design can and will help you achieve this in your very own front yard.
Incorporating flora and fauna in to a landscape is an essential factor. There are many types of plants and trees that can not only help the environment that you reside in but also give you produce that is enough to sustain you and your family. Edible landscaping or the landscaping of trees and plants that bare edible produce is an ideal example of how the plant life in your landscape can sustain you.
The living green of any landscape is also a uniquely refreshing spectacle in comparison with the monotony of steal and cement in any urbanized area. The beautiful splattering of colour on a lush green plain can only be achieved by a successfully implemented landscape design that utilized relevant greenery.
Going wrong with plantation in a landscape ruins the whole balance of the landscape design. Therefore it is essential that you know your plants and where to incorporate it into your landscape. They are an essential part of any landscape and therefore deserve to be put to use in the best possible manner.
Landscaping and Global Warming
As we all know, rising of the earth’s near-surface temperature, is commonly referred to as global warming. Modifying the visual features of a plot of land is called landscaping. So what connection does landscaping have with global warming? – To be honest, a lot more than you think.
Deforestation is thought to be a major cause of global warming. Planting trees would directly contribute to minimize this effect, a thought to keep in mind when landscaping. Also, in hot summer months we all turn on the air-conditioning for our comfort. However, a simple, long term solution would be to grow some trees, if space permits. Trees will give you the much needed shade, but its uses stretch far beyond this, as trees directly help in the process of “evapotranspiration”.
When landscaping, you can consider the possibility of having your own kitchen/herb garden. This way, you can not only consume fresh home-grown vegetables, you can also reduce the need for transportation of items, some which are even brought down by air, thereby saving fuel and oil consumption; which is another indirect way of lessening global warming,
Global dimming too, has played its part in global warming, and one cause of this is pollutants. When landscaping, if you choose plants that are more pest-resistant and use an effective pest management technique, instead of turning to insecticides; you have proven yourself to be environmentally friendly and socially responsible. So hats off to you!
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Perth Landscaping