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Landscape Design Plan

November 8th, 2009 No comments

The final decision as to what type of garden you will want is not reached at the snap of a finger, but can be achieved in one of two ways. The first, and most businesslike, is to write down all pertinent facts and figures concerning yourself, your family, the size of your property, the size of your house, its exposure, etc. The other, which is just as workable but perhaps a little more confusing and likely to cause you undue worry, is simply to carry your ideas around in your head and finally try to put them on paper in the form of a plan. These are not solutions of your problem but rather helpful guides.

The more orderly method is to make a check list and to give our thought reality we shall consider the requirements of a family living in a development of identical houses in Central New Jersey. Their check list should be used as a guide in making your own.

Topography – Fairly level Exposure – South ( that is, front of house faces south) Location – Central New Jersey Design of garden – Informal Existing vegetation ( trees and shrubs ) – None Garage – Single, attached Soil – Sandy loam, well drained Neighboring properties – Houses on both sides Age of owners – early 30′s Family – Father, mother, and three young children Parents like to work in garden Parents also like to relax in and enjoy the garden, and plan to entertain extensively out-of-doors. Size of property-75 x 125 feet Budget – calls for an expenditure of $750 a year for 6 years.

Analyzing the List

It is obvious that since this family intends to spend a great deal of time relaxing and entertaining their friends out-of-doors they will need a larger than average private area. The rough sketch will include ovals on the basic plot plan the majority of space in the area behind the house is labeled private.

Since the majority of space is devoted to this area, it is obvious that the service area must necessarily be small, perhaps just large enough to provide a few fresh vegetables and flowers that do not require too much care. The completed plan of a garden should serve our hypothetical family well. It provides them with a vast outdoor living room that will be excellent for entertaining and just enough service area to provide tomatoes, string beans, radishes, and flowers.

Now let us consider a neighboring family in similar circumstances who do not plan extensive outdoor entertainment. In their case the service area could be greatly expanded at the expense of the private area.The service area may occupy better than half the space behind the house is sufficiently large to provide all sorts of fresh vegetables and cut and specimen flowers, while the private area, though small, remains large enough to meet the relaxation needs of the family.

Give a great deal of thought and attention to compiling your own check list. Never fail to consider your future as well as your present requirements; plan your garden in such a way that it will mature to fit all your needs with a, minimum expenditure of time, effort, and money. Just like caring for spider mites on plants.

Since our list has shown us how to determine the relative sizes of the public, private, and service areas, we are now ready to begin developing the individual areas. Your next step is to consider each particular area and proceed to mold it into actuality.

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Viburnums A Bird Magnet

November 3rd, 2009 No comments

To the neat gardener mulberry might be a nuisance with its messy berries dropping on the ground and purple mulberry splashings on the bird bath, but it is a joy to birds. At least fifty-two varieties of birds delight in the fruit of the mulberry, which lasts from June until September.

June is a happy month for birds as well as humans, the month of long sunny days and fragrant nights when the honeysuckle perfumes the night breeze and the song sparrow wakes to sing a sleepy serenade to the summer moon.

And whenever honeysuckle is mentioned one usually thinks of the common Japanese honeysuckle that climbs over porches and fences. This will take the place over unless sternly kept in check. Within the dense growth catbirds or chipping sparrows locate their nests, and in winter the visiting white-throated sparrows make their headquarters in the shelter of the nearly evergreen foliage.

The viburnums, with their flat clusters of flowers which later develop into berries in the fall, attract the birds. Arrow-wood has dark blue fruit, and sheep-berry, also called nanny-berry, has showy flower clusters nearly 5 inches across followed by blue berries that are both sweet and edible.

Handsomest of the viburnums is the cranberry-bush, sometimes referred to as high-bush cranberry. The large clusters of bright red berries among freshly green leaves are a fine sight in autumn. According to old botanical texts the cranberries make an “agreeable jelly,” but to make this jelly one will have to race with the birds, who make them disappear as fast as the dogwood berries.

The leaves of the cranberry-bush seem impervious to frost. Long after other shrubs are dried and shriveled the cranberry-bush is still a summer-like green. Sometimes you think it has forgotten about winter.

Many of our popular shrubs and perennials like hibiscus plants are native plants that have been brought under cultivation. Sometimes the process is reversed and a shrub escapes from the confines of the garden to make its way to the wilds where it leads its own life and gets on in the world without benefit of such items as pruning shears and fertilizer.

Such is the snowberry’s career. From a prim orderly existence in old-fashioned gardens it wandered into the great outdoors, and there it has managed to survive among its less sheltered relatives of the honeysuckle family. The little round white berries, like tiny snowballs or camphor balls, are not eaten by birds as fast as the cranberry or dogwood berries; eventually, however, they too go, especially after they become a little droopy and brown and when more desirable fruit is no longer available to the hungry birds.

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