When I recently visited the state forest tree nursery, I learned that the more than sixteen million seedlings grown last season did not nearly meet the demand.

Our towns and cities are growing so fast, they are literally bursting their seams. Real estate developers have to reach far out beyond the suburbs, taking in large areas where there are either no trees to start with or where, in the process of preparing for construction, it is necessary to remove most, if not all, of the trees. Most builders and developers are apparently doing what they can to save the trees, but in many developments most trees ore sacrificed.

Fast-growing trees for the home – Fortunately there are several fast-growing trees well adapted to planting around the Southern home. A lot, after being planted with a few of these trees, will soon lose its bareness and also be considerably shaded from the hot sun.

Mimosa – One of the best is the mimosa, but in some areas it is subject to a wilt that causes the tree to lose its leaves and finally die. There seems to be no cure for the disease. Your only safety is to procure trees grown in a disease-free area.

Chinese parasol-tree – This species, known botanically as Firmiana simplex, is a large-leaved, tropical-looking small tree that grows rapidly to 25 or 30 feet, but then stops at that height. It has large heads of interesting cream-colored flowers, followed by bladder-like seed pods.

Goldenrain-tree – Another fast-growing small tree well suited to the small lot is the goldenrain-tree (Koelreuteria paniculata). Its compound leaves and great profusion of small yellow flowers add to its attractiveness. Unfortunately, neither the Chinese parasol-tree nor the goldenrain-tree is easily had from nurseries, as only a few concerns in the South handle them.

Chinese elm – For the larger lot, where a mature tree 45 feet high would be in scale, the Chinese elm is a good choice. It grows rapidly, thrives in poor soil and endures much dry weather.

Dogwood and redbud – Two native trees that are lovely and fit well into any home landscape or backyard landscape ideas are the dogwood and the redbud. We can hardly have too many of them. Many of the numerous tree-planting projects sponsored by garden and civic clubs have featured these two trees, and as a result tens of thousands of them have been planted in the South during the last five years. In a few years they will transform many of our now-uninteresting streets and roadways into avenues of great beauty.

Red maple – The red maple is another medium-sized tree that is well suited to home-grounds planting in the South.

Pine – The native pines continue in strong demand for planting on home grounds in the South. We did not realize how very rapidly these trees grew until we began growing them under cultivation. A pine’s growth is comparatively slow in the forest, but on the home grounds, where it is fed and watered, it is rather exciting. If you are planting for heavy shade, loblolly pine is preferable to slash or yellow pine.

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No matter what type of garden you have it will make it even nicer if you pay attention to the hardscaping elements of your garden.

Hardscaping ads great beauty to any garden. It can become a defining feature and reflect your personality. Hardscaping simply refers to the non plant portions of your garden design.

Some elements of hardscaping include stepping stones, fencing, statuary and fountains. These will all contribute to the overall look and feel of your garden.

When you are thinking about what kind of non plant items to put in your garden you will want to consider several different things like function and style as well as your own personality.

Hardscaping can be both functional and decorative. Some examples of functional elements are stepping stones that lead you down a path, garden gates, and fences that define a garden. These items should both serve there purpose but also be beautiful.

For instance if you have an Asian inspired garden you may want to consider bamboo fencing and a pergola type arch to continue the theme of the garden. On the other hand if you have a perennial cottage garden than a white picket or wrought iron fence with flagstone stepping stones would be appropriate.

When hardscaping is purely decorative you have a unique opportunity to let your own personality shine. Garden statues and fountains should reflect your interests and tastes.

A lot of times people struggle with where to put their decorative garden items. A good rule to go by is no more than 1 large fountain or statue per garden area or 3 small ones grouped together.

If you want to make your garden truly unique it is always good to pay attention to the hardscaping part of your garden. It is a great way to let your personality shine.

Click here to find out more about hardscaping with garden statuary or click here for Disney garden statues.

Just a few years ago it seemed quite rare to find people lighting their garden in the evening, which may have been due to the limited lighting options available then. Now though there is a huge choice of outdoor lighting available to satisfy most projects and budgets, with outdoor LED lighting emerging as a dominant player in this field.

And it’s easy to see why, since LED garden lighting enables attractive and hitherto unachievable effects that are at the same time simple to install and inexpensive to both purchase and operate. They are also quite safe around delicate plants, animals and children thanks to their very low power consumption and corresponding absence of heat.

LED garden lighting is typically powered the same way as conventional garden lighting, with individual light fittings connected to a 12v DC low voltage power supply cable, fed by a transformer connected to the mains (located indoors). However LED garden lights use only ten percent as much electricity as traditional systems using incandescent bulbs (including halogen lamps).

Traditional incandescent light bulbs operate by burning a filament that turns electricity into mostly heat (about 90%) and some light (up to 10%) whereas LED light bulbs electronically excite electrons which as a result cause photons (visible light) to be emitted. The nice part about such Light Emitting Diodes is that the heat to light ratio is the exact reverse with 90% of the input electricity now converted to light.

What this all means is that LED lights have two important characteristics. Firstly since most of the energy is converted to light not heat they run comparatively cool (you can certainly touch them). Secondly they need ten times less electricity to create the same light levels (a 5w LED will match a 50w incandescent) and accordingly cost ten times less to run. LED lights also have life spans twenty or more times longer thus reducing maintenance overheads.

On the issue of the quality of white light produced by LED lights, the Colour Rendering Index which assesses how faithfully an object is depicted using artificial light rates them highly. The basic color choice for most LED garden lights is white but they also come in a wide selection of other stunningly rich colours too.

The light that is emitted by an LED is a pure color, meaning that it represents just one part of the spectrum rather than being a blend of colors. This tends to give them a somewhat metallic, gem like appearance – think sapphire blue, emerald green, diamond white and ruby red. LED lights are also by nature very directional which makes them ideal for spot lighting, though other effects are easy to create using diffusers and filters.

Nowadays of course you can find LED outdoor lights in all manner of different types: rock lights; floodlights; patio and deck lights; wall wash effects; lanterns; spikes; integrated in garden ornaments; submerged in ponds; pagodas, and bollards. Yet the most enduring style still seems to be the LED spot light.

Finally, a simple checklist of points to consider when buying LED garden lights.

First be aware of the low power needs – even a tiny 1w LED will seem remarkably bright in a dark garden.

Second check how widely spread out narrowly focused the beam angle is and whether that suits your intended purpose.

Third, the electronic circuitry in most LED lights is easily ruined if the outer casing is not robust enough to keep out moisture.

Finally, where LED lights are concerned cost and quality go hand in hand and you will tend to get what you pay for.

The “new look” in building architecture started in Europe, and on this continent in California, early in the 20th century. It did not come to Canada until after the Second World War. Basically, modern architecture is functional rather than decorative. It emphasizes the structural mass in buildings and calls for ordered surroundings.

Garden planning has not developed a modern style to such a clear extent as architecture, since traditional materials and practices have not changed as much in gardening as in building. Gardens cannot be purely practical as their function is largely decorative. Their reasons for existence are to provide beauty, relaxation and a natural setting for the buildings. When we work with complex natural forms, it is difficult to adhere to the plain surfaces characteristic of modern architecture.

Today we arrange plants in new forms to suit the scale and proportions of the new buildings; and we arrange the space in our gardens to suit our changing social habits. The key idea in modern garden planning has been to consider the garden as an outdoor extension of the house for the comfort of the family, rather than as a plant museum. This idea has also led to using more outdoor furniture, lighting, BBQ, screens, shelters, swimming pools and other things for decoration.

The average homeowner wants pleasing surroundings and a place to relax, with little labor and expense. Most of us look after our own gardens with perhaps a little unskilled labor for grass cutting and other regular chores. Unless gardening becomes our hobby, we will have less variety of plants than in the past. Also, there will be more careful planning of space as we become more appreciative of good design.

Because we need privacy, where there is little space we now use screens of closely woven lattice, opaque plastic or broad louvers of plywood to separate our garden from the neighbor’s. The more expensive walls of masonry or boundary plantings of trees and shrubs take up too much room to be used in a small garden.

Plants of rather unusual form are used in front of these flat surfaces to cast interesting and changing shadows not artificial lights. The effect of moving light and shadow is given by the lattice or louvers themselves, or by “egg-crate” beams in the roof overhangs on garden shelters. The interest of this movement is a substitute for variety in planting and artificial light for plants.

Concrete paving blocks and three-dimensional cast figures are taking the place of more expensive stonework and statues. The outdoor barbeque grill, with dad cooking has replaced tray-carrying servants for entertaining.

Because we like to sit and enjoy the garden from one spot, raised masonry planters, decorative pottery or flower beds are used to connect the inside of the house with the garden, when viewed from inside.

In Eastern Canada, the trees that have been used most successfully as street trees are the hard, or sugar, maple, the Norway maple, the European linden and the red and white oaks – though the oaks are rather slow growing. In the north and west, where the climate is more severe, the best street trees are the American elm, hackberry and green ash.

Because trees need to be in scale with the houses, modern homes call for much smaller street trees than the large ones named above. Shingle oak, hornbeam and smaller forms of European linden are excellent. There are also selected forms of Norway and red maple that do not grow as large as the natural species. These are more suitable for modern subdivisions.

Windbreaks and Screens

Exposed home sites, such as farmsteads or suburban properties, often need rows of trees to protect them against wind. Here the need is for rapid, dense growth. The exposed position naturally demands the utmost hardiness and, because the planting is close, the shape of the individual tree does not matter as long as the mass is effective.

The requirements are the same for trees used to shut off the view of unsightly objects, or to form a background for the more colorful displays of the garden. In the country or on suburban properties, poplar, willow, ash, pine and spruce trees make the best windbreaks and screens. In the city, there is not usually room for trees larger than the Chinese elm or the native cedar; on small lots screening is usually done with shrubs or single trees of attractive form.

Framing

Trees on larger properties are used to frame the view of the house. Similarly, the view from the house, of distant objects of interest or portions of the garden, may be framed by trees to create a more pleasing picture. As the view should always be more interesting than the frame, such trees should be chosen for their ability to “play second fiddle” gracefully. Those with average habit of growth and color of foliage are most pleasing.

Specimens

Trees may be used as specimens or as accent points to emphasize the design of the garden. Trees used singly or in groups for these purposes are chosen for their distinctive characters: for example, an unusually attractive habit of growth, as in Camperdown elm, weeping birch, or pyramid cedar, a colorful foliage as in Schwedler’s Norway maple, golden cedar or copper beech; or the particular grace of hemlock or the fall brilliance of the leaves of red maple and red oak. These qualities and the more obvious charm of abundant bloom or fruit, as with Japanese lilac or flowering crabs, make trees worthwhile specimens.

Conifers

The taller-growing conifers and natal mahogany tree are used in all the above ways. All sizes of conifers and natal mahogany are becoming more useful as the knowledge and appreciation of garden design increases. Because of their dense, evergreen, fine-textured foliage and their definite forms, conicrs are the most solid-appearing plants at our disposal. They are the best ones with which to build architectural form into our gardens. They clip well and can’ be held to constant form. Using them as a framework to emphasize divisions and accent points heightens the impression that the garden and house are related.

Conifers may be used to accentuate any sort of architectural line. The classic column is matched by the pyramid cedar or Swedish juniper, and the spreading lines of Savin’s or Pfitzer’s juniper carry out to perfection the lines of a rambling bungalow. The definite lines of good architecture can be brought out by the definite shapes of well-selected conifers planted at strategic positions.

There is, however, a great danger in using them indiscriminately or in too great variety without regard to the architecture of the house. Often deciduous shrubs are much more suitable.

During the longer days of mid summer, it seemed that I could cook and entertain relatively late without worrying about turning on the lights. Safety is a big issue for me, and I like having stairs and pathways of my back yard lit well enough so my friends and family don’t end up in a bush. But now that the days are shorter, I just enjoy turning on the lights so that my evening guests can enjoy the ambiance as much as I do.

I didn’t pay much attention to outdoor lighting design until I bought my own house. Since then, I am all about making a cozy and beautiful space both indoors and out. The backyard is such an easy space to work on. It seems that you can make spectacular changes with just a little hard work, a bit of landscaping, and a combination of some permanent lights and very inexpensive temporary lights. Lighting is often seen as just seasonal, but if you stick with a neutral color (my scheme is generally all white), you can use cheap Christmas lights all year to create a wonderful backyard lighting design.

When you decide to come up with a lighting scheme for your backyard or patio, you will want make sure that you design with safety in mind. People unfamiliar with your outdoor space won’t be expecting changes in surfaces, or won’t be familiar with how many steps from your patio to the backyard. Improper lighting could create safety hazards that are easily avoided with some planning. Consider adding extra lighting at doorways, stairs, and any areas that are main traffic areas.

After ensuring that your main areas have been well lit, you can take care of the interesting part of your backyard lighting design. Wrapping rope lights around the trunks of trees is always a striking effect, as is using spotlights to focus attention on an interesting statue or bush in your garden. For special occasions I have a string of twinkly lights that I’ve placed in the ivy along our neighbours fence. And my favorite effect is always natural light – torches serve double duty as a lovely ambient touch, as well as keeping mosquitoes away by burning citronella oil.

Spending some time to design the lighting scheme of your backyard can be a very rewarding experience. Having guests over to enjoy the outdoor ambiance that you have created is a perfect way to enjoy your outdoor space. Remember that changing the outdoor lighting design is easy and inexpensive, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different placements and types of lighting. You could change your lighting design every year, or your might end up finding the perfect combination, and decide to keep it as a permanent backyard lighting design.

Learn more information on decorating with outdoor lights at outside lights.

Solar powered landscape lighting is a way to decorate and to light up your landscaping without the use of any wiring. More and more garden enthusiasts opt for solar powered landscape lighting instead of other landscape lighting options. Never again will you have to worry about long and unsightly wires in your garden, if you opt for the solar landscape lighting.

Solar powered landscape lighting produces light with the aid of natural free of charge solar energy, making this type of lighting both cost efficient and friendly to the environment.

Solar powered landscape lighting will allow you to safeguard your children and pets from getting an electric shock, while being in your garden. The lighting wires will never get damaged by animals, since there will be no wires. No wires also mean that this type of lighting can be easily relocated throughout your garden in the future.

Why does the number of homeowners, who opted for solar powered landscape lighting, increase day after day?

1. Solar powered landscape lighting provides the homeowners with a wide range of units to choose from for their landscape lighting design, including floodlights, flashlights, bollard lights, step lights, garden lights, light strings, lantern lights, hanging path lights, wall lights and adorable floating pool lights.

2. Solar powered landscape lighting is made from various materials for you to choose from: stainless steel, plastic, copper, copper finish, bronze, black metal, and chrome coated units.

3. Solar powered landscape lighting comes in a wide variety of decorative lights, such as stone lights, crackle glass globes, mosaic orbs, gazing balls, color changing lights, hummingbirds, butterflies, fireflies, dragonflies, mushrooms, flower lights (tulips, lilies) etc.

Solar powered landscape lighting is one of the most beautiful and functional landscape lighting solutions. Solar-powered garden lights are equipped with solar panels, allowing for a battery to gain enough power to feed the LED (Light Emitting Diode) for more than 14 hours on a bright sunny day. Even on a cloudy day the lighting will get charged from the sunlight, however in this case it will emit light for less than14 hours at dusk.

Solar powered landscape lighting is designed for the night-time illumination of the garden, it is ideal for decorative landscape lighting of the garden stairs, paths, alpine slides, flower beds, pools and other landscape areas. Such lighting can be installed in any location where there is enough sunlight to charge the battery. Many models have special brackets to place them on walls. With the onset of night, the light will automatically go on until dawn, and in the morning it will turn off, shifting to the charging mode. An integrated switch allows you to easily turn off your landscape lighting.

Solar powered landscape lighting does not require any maintenance. Such lighting will never burn out, and it does not need regular electricity to shine. Solar powered landscape lighting will eliminate the need of paying for landscape work, since the homeowner can easily set up solar powered landscape lighting on his/her own. There is absolutely no need for wiring, just mount the units wherever you want, whether on the ground, on the walls or on the polls. If you set up your lighting in the beginning of the day, you will see it start shining the same evening. This type of lighting will serve a homeowner for more than 10 years, as well as it is capable of withstanding very cold and very warm temperatures. Solar powered landscape lighting is stylish and autonomous lighting, capable of creating a special beautiful ambiance in any garden.

The weather is improving outside and the garden may be increasingly on your mind. If you want your garden to be the outdoor space you’ve dreamed of, now is the time to make a start!

Due to the relatively poor weather that homeowners experience in the UK, the garden as an outside living space tends to be something that is only considered as the weather warms up in spring and summer. If you have ideas for re-developing your garden then advance planning is the secret. Given the huge cost of moving house, many homeowners are now choosing to spend the money on developing their existing houses and outdoor spaces.

With finances being more of an issue in this climate, outdoor spaces that are both affordable and practical are ever the more important. There are no set rules governing the design of your garden as everyone’s idea of the perfect garden varies.

A Safe Place to Play!

Does the garden provide a stimulating and fun play environment that is safe for the kids? Child proofing the outdoor space spans a whole host of issues such as the review of existing perimeter fencing (how secure is it?); removal of dangerous plants / trees; replacement of chipped / broken pavers; installation of an approved children’s play surface to ensure added safety around fixed play equipment e.g. slides / swings; installation of a year round outdoor play area in the guise of a decked or paved patio.

Think long and hard about the safety measures and remember that toddlers and older children require different safety solutions.

A Driveway to be Proud of!

If you have ever had to drive around the roads adjacent to your house searching for a place to park, then an off street parking space might be just what the doctor ordered. A practical, clean driveway will give you stress free and immediate access to your house.

One interesting legal point is that unless you are working with a permeable driveway product planning permission may be required.

Here Comes the Good Life

Whilst making your dream garden space, be sure not to overlook the need for a “grow your own” zone. Growing your own groceries can be a great deal of fun and extremely economical. You’ll also be reducing your family’s carbon footprint.

Entertaining Outdoors

If you are like me then you’ll enjoy the more informal dinner party that is possible in a garden dinning area. Good lighting, practical access to the kitchen, a nice patio or decked surface and of course a lovely barbecue make this all possible. Consider every aspect of this when going through the planning stage, as it’s way more practical and economical to include this early on in the process than to add it as an after thought.

Once you’ve had a chance to think through the changes you want to make to your outdoor space, it pays to bring in the professionals and seek guidance on a realistic price which should detail all the installation and labour costs, along with an anticipated time frame.

Have you ever thought about installing an outdoor spot light? It is easier than you thought and these lights serve more purposes than originally thought. Most homes or business establishments that have outdoor lighting schemes can benefit from the installation of outdoor spot lights. Outdoor spotlights have a number of different purposes ranging from providing extra security, high-lighting pathways, providing extra safety, and providing a nice form of ambiance. Properly positioned spot lights are a wonderful addition to any outdoor lighting scheme.

Typically when you think of outside spotlights you probably think of outdoor concerts, or outdoor shows where event planners needed to draw your attention to one specific spot (moving or stationary). Or perhaps you have only really seen spotlights lighting up the sign in front of local businesses. These are ideal uses for the spotlight, but you might not realize that there are many places around your own house that you could install a spotlight to great effect. Think of your backyard lighting scheme, do you have a wonderful statue or birdbath that could be lit up at night? Using outdoor spotlights let you focus attention on objects that would normally be lost in the dark, allowing you to create focal points that add extra dimension to your outdoor lighting scheme.

Don’t confuse spot lights with flood lights. Sometimes the names are used interchangeably but these are two very different types of lights. Each light serves different purposes. They do, however, possess some overlapping similarities. The most obvious difference between these two different lights is the focus of illumination. Flood lights disperse the light widely and are intended to light up large areas such as football fields. Spot lights have a more narrow focus of illumination and target a small area of intended illumination such as an athlete. The most obvious similarity between these outdoor lights is that they are in most cases installed at a significant distance from the object they are intended to illuminate.

Many people have discovered the benefit of weather proof spotlights used to great effect for backyard parties. They are simple to install, and a spotlight on a focal point of the party – ie. the bar area, or food table – can add to the ambiance by making these areas easy to see, but still keep other areas more dimly lit to maintain the ambiance. You can even add colored spotlights to the outdoor party scheme and maybe create a whole theme effect by lighting up a few well placed theme items, such as an outdoor elvis statue, or a water fountain.

Motion detector spot lights can be a very effective safety feature at gates and or driveways. Motion detector lights are triggered by motion. These lights are an effective solution for those that want the security of lights but don’t want to waste the expense of having the lights powered full time. Motion detector lights are also a great way of conserving electricity for those people who take an interest in being “green”.

You can use spot lights in so many different ways, both for your home or your business. The cost and ease with which you can install outdoor spotlights make this a valuable addition to any outdoor lighting plan. The final effect will be well worth the effort.

Low voltage outdoor lighting represents a safe and cost-efficient lighting solution. It is quite easy to assemble and install your own low voltage outdoor lighting system, without having to use the services of a professional electrician.

Dangerous regular 120 watt electric current is stepped down to merely 12 V in the low voltage outdoor lighting systems, making it so much safer. Electric in such systems runs through a loop from one end of the transformer to another.

Low voltage outdoor lighting benefits include:

1. A homeowner can set up his/her own low voltage outdoor lighting system hassle free, with the use of a special kit. Such kit usually includes all of the needed components, such as the cable, a transformer and the fixtures. The only needed component that is not included in the kit is the bulbs. However, it would not be prudent to include the bulbs in the kits, since every bulb may have a different wattage.

2. Low voltage outdoor lighting is a very low cost solution, since it can use light bulbs, starting at nearly 4 W. In addition to regular lamps, home owners may choose to use halogen or fluorescent lamps.

3. Most of the low voltage outdoor lighting kits also come with a built-in timer allowing the owner to set it to come on and off every 4, 6, or 8 hours etc., as well as many kits come with a built-in photocell, capable of turning the lighting on and off according to whether there is sun or there isn’t.

4. Low voltage outdoor lighting is very important for security. Many systems come with heat motion sensors, which would notify you about any intruders after dark.

5. Low voltage outdoor lighting is very easy to relocate, since the wires do not have to be buried deeply and permanently in the ground. The wires can be just slightly buried.

6. A transformer for low voltage outdoor lighting can range anywhere from 150 W and up to 900 W. It would probably be a good idea to purchase a transformer with a little more muscle, so that you can expand your lighting system if you decide to start using the bulbs with more watts.

7. In order to pick the correct cable for your low voltage outdoor lighting system, you would need to know the amount of watts that your system will require. The most common size wire is 12ga, which is capable of carrying 300 W. There also are 14 ga. and 16 ga. cables, which respectively can carry 200 W and 150 W.

8. There is a wide variety of schemes based on which you can build your low voltage outdoor lighting system, including in-ground fixtures, spotlights and deck lights for an ultimate convenience while walking in your garden at night.

9. The price of the low voltage outdoor lighting kits varies dramatically, starting from $15 and up to $300. The systems for $300, however, usually have a much higher quality and are much more environment-friendly.

10. In order to find out how many lamps can be used with any given transformer, you would simply have to multiply the total number of light bulbs in your low voltage outdoor lighting system by the total wattage. For instance, if your transformer is 150 W, you can use 30 lights by 5 W each in your setup.

It is important to consider several things before starting to set up your low voltage outdoor lighting:

1. Make sure not to use an extension cord for the transformer. Instead plug it directly in the outlet.

2. The wires of the low voltage outdoor lighting system are more prone to damages if they’re not buried deeply in the ground.

3. When choosing a transformer for your system, try to make sure that the wattage of your transformer is not over one third of your system’s current wattage.

Low voltage outdoor lighting is easy to implement, low cost and a safe way to light up your landscaping. Low voltage outdoor lighting will make any garden safer, and extend the life of the garden into the night.