You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.

They’ll still design and install gardens and will continue to create their art consisting of sculptures, mirrors and paintings. This talented team is creating a smaller garden and gallery at a new Bainbridge Island location.

They’re encouraging us all to visit their current garden at 1941 Wingpoint Way on Bainbridge Island on special open days this summer. The days are without an appointment, just stop by, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 21, July 12, July 13 and Aug. 6. July 26 is a special open day through the Garden Conservancy for $5 admission. All other open days are free. In addition, clients wishing to purchase or commission sculpture can still make individual appointments for Thursdays through Sundays by calling (206) 842-8327 or e-mailing info@littleandlewis.com.

Little and Lewis have been sharing their talents and garden with visitors from all over the world for more than 16 years.

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Landscaping a garden is

 

rather an ominous task which takes a lot of time and energy. However, before you rush off to employ a professional and pay him thousands of dollars, you should take a watch at these three tips which will be able to save you both time and money.Landscaping a garden tips:

• Make sure you spend ample time visualizing and drawing exactly how you

 

look for your garden to be on the look after the landscaping is over. Here you may undergo imagine about the style and function. Do you want to keep an district for entertaining? An area for barbecue? Or an area at which your kids can play? Also bringing about a thought to the types of plants you want in your garden is planning to help you. The best place to begin is at which you spend most of your time.• Before

 

flooding off to hire a landscape designer concur up all the free resources Internet can provide you. You can easily entrance cost free designs and plans either on the Internet or the local nursery. Hiring a professional suggests spending over a hundred dollars of dollars. However, if your patch of garden is awkward or has serious problems, a specialized might be helpful so the current you can avoid costly mistakes.• When landscaping a garden, the style of the home should be

 

presistently taken into account. After all a garden is an extension of a home. If you own a cottage, a formal garden serves to unquestionably check strange. Also give ample underlying thought to plant maintenance. If you are the type who prefers spending cycle out of home, then you should opt for an easy attention garden and landscape.Some popular landscaping designs are formal, informal, English garden, Oriental and Woodland. You can choose any one of

 

these types of to suit your home’s architecture and your lifestyle.

Still-life paintings aside, garden-variety veggies usually don’t evoke the decorative appeal that flowers can impart to your home landscaping.

But there’s good news: with a little know-how and imagination, you can lavish your yard this spring with flowers that are both beautiful and edible.

Pansies and johnny jump-ups, roses and lilacs, there’s no shortage of ways to decorate your garden with a profusion of edible delights.

Christopher Robin Healy, an area permaculturalist and co-owner of Cloudburst Cultivated Ecology in Glens Falls, N.Y., says edible flowers extend beyond simple garnishing and can be used in beverages, entrees and desserts.

He cites Rosalind Creasy’s books, The Edible Flower Garden and The Edible French Garden as excellent resources for using flowers and herbs as edibles.

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Question: I have begun gardening again after a few years of not having any gardening space. I did a minimal amount of container gardening. I would like to mulch around some of my plants like cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, etc., but I want mulch that is not treated with any chemicals. Do you know of any products like this? – Sioux Falls

Answer: A lot of people use grass clippings that haven’t been treated with an herbicide. Straw and shredded leaves also are good alternatives, and they improve the soil.

Q: What plants can be divided right now?- Brandon

A: Some flowers can be divided anytime, but as a general rule of thumb divide spring and summer bloomers in the fall and fall bloomers in the spring. Right now, it’s OK to divide asters, mums, tall sedum, wormwood (artimesia), blanket flower and bleeding heart.

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In order to save on taxes, I want to buy a home or condo. I know that the mortgage payment is tax-deductible. But I’m not sure whether I should buy a condo or look for a townhome.

How do I know if it makes more sense to rent rather than buying my own home? I’d greatly appreciate your guidance.

A: I don’t think it’s a good idea to buy a place just because you’ll save on taxes. You may save something, but you may end up spending more by owning than you’ll save, so it’s hardly a savings. Here are some of the best reasons I know to buy property:

1. You really want to own your own home and you’re ready to take on that responsibility. You’ve found the neighborhood you want to live in and believe that living there will be better for you and your family than living in a rental home or in an area comprised mainly of rentals.

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Since scanning the children’s book “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, haven’t you viable your
own secret garden? Perhaps its your vision of Paradise on earth. Perhaps your answer garden comes with
nice big bushes of Common Box or English Box, select honeysuckle or rose talked about arbor through a nice
comfortable teak seat to spend many lazy summer afternoons without leaving the confines of the home
garden.

Surely contemporary Garden design has a myriad of ways to hardscape and plant you secret garden with
shrubs, vines, and trees, and to accessorize with contemporary garden decor and objects.

Perhaps your answer garden lies under some venerable old oak or underneath a clump of birches – maybe it has
a good amount of of bulbs like in the book at which hope springs eternal and when warm days brightened up the
winterish sky. Maybe it is clothed in vines of ivy, grape, trumpet creeper, or if it is in a tropical climate
with vines of Bougainvillea situated in the midst of those magical looking roots of ficus.

For in your own solution garden you own at last found a place to discuss the queries of the world with a
spouse, possibly not anything and everything so grand in the scheme of things, perhaps a place to teach Rover a couple of new
tricks, or a great deal more picturesque yet – a place for baby to take his first steps, or just a place to get away from
it all. For you secret garden will become a classic to additonally away the ages. and a place for the friends
and neighbors to gather.

Biodynamic gardening involves a number of kinds of compost, including various compost teas. Some are based on wicked weeds like horsetail, which send roots deep into the subsoil. Harvested horsetail tops contain minerals not readily available to plants with shallower root systems, and horsetail teas help combat molds, mildews, blight and fungal attacks.

It is worth repeating here that horsetail should always be cut, not pulled. Pulling up horsetail stems triggers the production of many new stalks. Cutting them, in contrast, depletes the storage root system. Cut horsetail tops can be dried and added to compost piles, but roots should be burned unless they can be thoroughly dried out first.

Biodynamic methods stress improving soil quality, largely through the addition of composts and manures.

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But if the rug is really bad, get berber from one of the home improvement stores and install it yourself.

LIGHTING

Upgrading the lighting is an inexpensive way to improve the look and mood of a house. Replace the fixtures, install dimmers and use soft-wattage light bulbs. Buy a chandelier, but nothing too ornate. Keep the outside lights on at night because prospective home buyers often drive through neighborhoods after dark.

LIVING ROOM AND CLOSETS

A cluttered house quickly turns off buyers, so lose the knickknacks. Make the house appear open and inviting. Pack up one-third of a closet’s contents and store the junk somewhere off site. A crowded closet tells buyers the house doesn’t have adequate storage.

GARAGE

Garage organization is big business these days and the before/after photos offer dramatic contrasts.

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These should be started in a sheltered part of the garden and gradually moved into a more open position.

4 Many of the species are evergreen. Some of those that are not evergreen manage to hold onto their leaves until new ones start to emerge in spring.

5 A relatively new variety, Epimedium wushanense ‘Caramel’, is one of the hardiest although many seem to be able to withstand low temperatures so long as they are in free draining compost. ‘Caramel’ can reach a metre high and its trident of leaves start by being mottled with purple and then turn green.

6 Some claim that Epimediums are good weed suppressers but the only one that may genuinely be effective is a Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit winner, E. x perralchicum.

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The show, featuring Dore and eight other designers competing for their own design show on Home and Garden TV, premiered June 8 and runs through Aug. 3.Dore, a native of Richland, Mich., started her career in design during college when she designed her first home in Dayton, Ohio, for a client of her father’s. By the time she was 21, the UK graduate who received a bachelor’s degree in interior design, had started her own company, Tracee Dore Interior Design. Today, she is the owner of Tracee Dore and Company, a design and building firm in Louisville. Audiences can find out more about Dore by visiting the show’s Web site, which includes a designer profile, pictures and her audition video.On “HGTV Design Star,” host Clive Pearse, who also hosts HGTV’s “Designed to Sell,” presents the contestants weekly with various design challenges.

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