Decorate Ideas

How do you take a boring backyard and transform it into something special? Add a water feature. Water features can transform the ordinary into something incredible as well as hide road noise creating a peaceful and tranquil environment. So all you have to decide is what kind of feature you want. Here are some of the options.

Fountains
Garden fountains are one of the easiest water features to add to your yard. Most home improvement stores and garden centers will carry do it yourself kits. Choose from a large variety including stand alone fountains and those that hang on your wall. All you have to do to install it is position the fountain, fill it with water and plug in the fountains pump. If you want to get creative, you could even make your own fountain out of new or old pots, a little bit of plastic tubing and a small water pump.

Ponds
Ponds involve a little more work but are still easy to do in the hands of a competent do it yourselfer. Once again, kits are readily available from your home improvement or garden center. To put in a pond you will have to first dig a hole in a suitable location. Ponds are normally only a few feet deep but it is still a lot of work to dig out all of that soil. Next you will either line the hole with a flexible pond liner or insert a formed hard plastic liner. Then add rocks and a pond filtration system. After treating the water, you can then add plant life and even fish if you so desire.

Waterfalls
If you want more than a basic pond, you could try installing a waterfall. This installation is a little more complicated and you might want to consult a professional landscaper. It does take some experience to plan out the flow of water on a waterfall.

Waterfalls are also an excellent feature to add to an existing swimming pools landscaping. They will make an ordinary pool a sight to behold.
With all of the options, it can be hard to decide what type of water feature to add to your yard. Go over your options and choose the type that best fits your budget and your do it yourself experience level.

For more information on landscaping visit the Lawn Service Directory.

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So you have decided to do some landscaping! It is the end result that counts. You can turn your yard into a very beautiful, comfortable and quiet location or with some disastrous mistakes you can end up with a mess. With the proper planning and some patience, avoiding some common mistakes can make the entire project proceed without many problems and give you the result you have always wanted.

To start, you should come up with a drawing or plan of what you would like your design to look like. This is one of the most important steps of all. Draw up a general idea of what you would like, and ask questions, lots of questions and do your research. Your local garden center would be more that willing to help you with your plans and ideas. Using the internet is another option to most people today.

If you do not have internet access, go to your local library where you can review gardening books or access the internet. Talk to experts who can answer most of your questions before you get started. If you are planning on landscaping a small area, you shouldn’t have any problems doing this small project yourself. But for bigger projects you might want to hire professional landscapers to at least draw out the plans and help you decide how to proceed.

Make sure that you have proper drainage for your landscaping project. Improper drainage can lead to water in your basement, water draining under your driveway, or sitting in pools in your yard. This could lead to even bigger problems with an end result that could cost you thousands of dollars in repairs.

If you need to build a retaining wall to help with drainage, you should first be aware of how your drainage will be affected overall. You will need to know the proper method of installing a retaining wall. And you will need to check with your local municipality to insure you are within the guidelines and laws regarding drainage.

When choosing plants for landscaping make sure you know what planning zone you are in and which plants for that zone are the best for your climate conditions. Some plants will either die from heat or will not be able to survive the harsh cold winters in other zones. Plants can also feed off each other or take away nutrients from each other. Where one hardy plant may grow and flourish, another type plant may be overcome by the more hardy plant.

By the end of summer, beginning of fall, your plants are starting to loose their coloring and are slowly starting to die off for the winter. If you would like to keep some of the color longer it is suggested that you plant some of the following for beautiful fall colors.

- ‘Rudy Haag’ Burning Bush
- Sumac
- Fothergilla
- ‘Tor’ Spirea
- Blackhaw Viburnum
- Bittersweet
- Oakleaf Hydrangea
- Virginia Creeper
- Red Chokeberry
- Viking Black Chokeberry

If you obtain some berry producing plants, you will help feed the birds in the winter time when food is scarce. If you like early blooming flowers and plants in the spring, try to choose plants that can be placed in the fall before the first snow. Try to choose plants that are annuals so they need not be replanted every year.

These are some key points to remember when making important decisions in planning your landscaping ideas. By following the proper guidelines, you landscaping project should be around for a many years. Proper landscaping not only can increase the beauty of your lawn but can increase the value of your property as well.

By following these simply guidelines to you can insure you have few problems during your landscaping projects.

Free landscaping ideas & 2,183 landscaping pictures be sure to visit http://www.landscapingideasonline.com It’s the website landscaping contractors & homeowners use to get landscape design ideas - by Brad Palmer

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Halloween decorating can be a lot of fun for both the creator and the neighborhood. There are a lot of options for those who like to decorate their yard for this be-a-kid day, uh, night. Many different people either go all out or simply hang a paper skeleton on their front window. For those that go all out, the neighbor kids will gravitate to your place, so there will not be a shortage of ghosts, goblins and ghouls stopping by on October 31st.

One extremely fun type of decor is to make your front-yard into a grave yard. One can go completely elaborate with lighting, sound, lots of head-stones and even a mausoleum. However, you can start simple and do lots of grave-stones with very little effort and creativity. Head stones, grave stones and grave markers have been around since the dawn of time and have always been “markers” for the buried. They also can form the creep affect which is paramount on Halloween. If you’re semi-creative or very creative you can have lots of fun making head stones.

To start, head over to your favorite lumber yard or home improvement center. Locate the insulation isle and find the pink or blue sheets of foam insulation. Your best bet is to use either the 1 1/2 or 2 inch sheets. Either size will work and color is irrelevant as you’ll be painting over them anyway.

Once you have your trusty sheet of foam home and in the garage, you’ll need to find some stencils and/or pictures by perusing the web or just about any source where graves are displayed. There are tons of head-stone and grave yard sites that can tickle your idea and imagination bone. If you don’t have a reference, your town probably has a cemetery near by. A digital camera and a nicely lit day work just as well. Of course, the other more creative approach, a favorite, is to completely make up the shapes from memory. Everyone has been to a grave yard at one time or another, so there are plenty of references. Each sheet should yield about 6 to 8 head stones which is usually plenty to get started.

Cutting extruded styrofoam can be very easy and while there are several ways to perform the cutting, a large kitchen knife usually reserved for that large watermelon during the summer will work just fine. Knives tend to leave rough edges and that’s fine for when you want that very old look which is common in grave yards. Other cutting tools that can be used are special styrofoam electric cutters that you can find on the web as well as there are several sites that offer a “How-To” on making your own cutter with a soldering iron and some heavy copper wire.

Now that you’ve cut out your head stone shape, you’ll want to put some kind of writing, eulogy or some kind of markings. Here a wood burning tool works good, a sharp utility knife or a set of those craft knives with a variety of blades. For lettering you can either use some kind of stencil set and or print something from your favorite word processor. Either way, you can either go authentic or funny. Draw an outline of the wording, drawing or date onto the front of the head-stone and cut out the lettering causing an embossing affect. If you have a wood burner and are familiar with it’s use, you can simply melt out the letters. Embossing the wording, lettering or date give it a 3-D affect and an authentic look. Plus, at night, it adds a creepy affect if lighting is involved. For added interest, use a friend or neighbors name to add that extra touch. However, make sure they’re a good friend and not someone you really want to see buried. That could lead to a whole other set of problems.

After all of the prep work is done by cutting your shape, adding your wording or markings, you’ll need to prepare it for presentation. With any type of sandpaper, clean the entire surface and make sure the cut edges are void of any extra pieces hanging where your knife did the cut. Now that it’s clean and ready, you should use a “latex” paint to prime or cover the entire surface. Latex paint creates both a barrier and surface for the final coloring. Use a light or white latex that can be found on the “Oops” shelf at just about any home improvement center.

Let the prime paint dry before going onto the final coat. Once dry, you now have several fine finish choices to wrap up the project. One technique is to spray water on the primed surface and lightly spray a black or gray paint letting it drip down through the cracks and surface of the head-stone. You can also “dry” brush getting the same affect by taking a light gray or darker colored paint and lightly applying it on the corners, in the engraved writing or in cracks. Taking a dry paint brush, lightly swipe in a downward fashion the dark paint until it creates streaks on the lighter surface.

For added affects, you can also add moss found in any hobby shop or where ever dried flowers or model trains are sold. This takes a lot more patience and simply painting should do the trick. For that perfectionist, cracks, additional coloring and the moss affect can really take it to the next level.

Once your first one is done, repeat until you have enough to make your own yard of head-stones. Putting a grave yard in your own front yard for Halloween can be both fun and rewarding if you anticipate lots of trick-er-treaters. Typically, the kids love the added affect and will definitely stop by your house to relieve you of the enormous amount of candy you have at the ready.

Shane Cooper runs Haunting Your Yard and offers advice in HauntedYard Blog on the site. He and his wife have 10 plus years advice on successfully preparing an annual yard haunt.

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