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When people think of home design, the first thing that pops into their minds is generally the interior of the home. However, what many people may not realize is that home design is every element of the home, including your garden. When it comes to your garden, no matter what type it is, whether a flower or vegetable garden, you can decorate it with exquisite tastes that ensures that it is the highlight of your day.

You want to make sure that when you are considering home design, if you have a garden that you do not leave it out of the design factor. Creating a warm and inviting environment outside is crucial to the overall appeal to your home. As a gardener, you likely spend a good deal of time outside within your garden, digging, planting, weeding, watering, and taking general care of your plants. Therefore, why should not your garden be a beautiful and appealing place, since you have to spend so much time within it!

There are many different home design elements that would look perfect out near your planting area. You have choices from decorative elements such as statues, water fountains, walkway materials, and so much more. One great idea, particularly if you have a flower garden is to place a table and a couple of chairs either within the area or on the outskirts. This can serve as a great place for you to get away or even entertain visitors. What could be better than sitting next to or in your beautiful flower garden while having a great conversation with a close friend or neighbor?

Many people choose home design ideas that mean something to them personally. For example, there are many garden stones that have creative and inspirational saying etched upon them. These might be perfect out in your planting area. On the other hand, you may like the idea of statues within your garden. Statues come in many different sizes, shapes, and designs.

Many people choose to use a trellis. These are absolutely beautiful in almost any outdoor settings and come in a variety of styles as well. Depending on your home design tastes, you can find trellis in several different varieties, such as metal, wood, or plastic. At the same time, they can be simple and plain, or boast intricate and beautiful designs. What is more, a trellis can come in or be created in almost any design or color that you choose.

Other home design garden decor might include a bench, which is perfect for just taking a moment to relax and enjoy the scenery. You might also want to consider a water fountain of some sort. These too come in a variety of different styles, designs, and sizes.

The good news is that when it comes to home design and your garden you are only limited by your own imagination. You can purchase a variety of elements to create the perfect setting or even create your own.

Ranju Kumar who is the editor of the renowned site http://www.larryshomedesigns.com is giving away strategies to convert your log houses into cozy homes, without any hassles. Get free tips and ideas on transforming your log or sip houses at http://www.larryshomedesigns.com.

Do you love the taste of fresh berries? There’s nothing quite like the taste of fresh strawberry jam or grape jelly on toast. Unfortunately, buying fresh berry products can be expensive. However, growing enough berries to meet your needs is fairly easy and affordable. In many cases, you can grow a wide variety of berries in as little as five square feet of garden space.

Soil and Climate Concerns

For the most part, berry plants require acidic soil. Get a simple soil pH test kit from any lawn and garden store to check whether your soil is acidic or basic - and add Miracid fertilizer or tea bags to the soil around the plants to make your soil more acidic. If you make your own compost and apply it to your garden, you’ll be adding most of the nutrients that your berry plants need. Luckily raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries all tend to tolerate a wide range of climates, so you should be able to grow them no matter how far north you are.

Selecting Plants

Depending on where you live, you may be able to find wild berry plants growing on the side of the road or at the edge of a field. If you have wild berry plants around your yard, watch the plants closely during the late summer and fall. This is usually the time when berry plants will make small plants, or suckers, that will take root in the surrounding soil. If you dig these suckers up and plant them in your garden, they’ll bloom into healthy plants the following year.

If you don’t have access to wild specimens, you can purchase all different types of nursery stock at your local garden store, and even in many department and food stores. Typically, berry plants are widely available during the early spring months. If you decide to purchase these plants, it’s important to make sure that there’s no sign of infection or rot on the stems and roots. It’s also best to buy plants that don’t already have developed leaves, as they may not survive the transplant process.

Organic Pest Control

When it comes to berries, the most common pests you’ll encounter are birds. In order to protect your berry garden, it’s best to enclose them in a fence or net. If you place all your berry plants in one area, you can easily fence them off and put a net over them for protection. As you might expect, the net needs to be high enough so that birds can’t reach through to the berries nearest the net. If you love to have birds around and don’t want to permanently scare them off, you may also want to place a few berry bushes in other parts of the yard for them to feed on.

Every year, commercial farms produce millions of pounds of berries. While you may savor the taste of many kinds of fresh berries and jams, the price of these products may be outside of your budget. Growing your own berries also gives you access to affordable fresh fruit that hasn’t been exposed to pesticides - so you can be healthy and save money.

The author maintains a blog about gardening and lawn care. He has also written content for http://HobbyLawnCare.com

In spring, your lawn may look vastly different from what it did when you give it the last mowing in the fall. During the winter season, debris can accumulate on the lawn and there may be dead leaves remaining that you missed and there may be animal droppings that have started to rot. All of these can do damage to your lawn if you don’t remove them when you start preparing it in spring. This is why spring lawn care is just as essential as the care you give it all summer long.

Carefully examine the grass on the lawn to see if there are any weeds. These can grow rather quickly in the spring and need to be eradicated immediately. Remove the weeds, making sure you get the roots because if you don’t they will only grow back. For areas with patches or clumps of weeds, remove the roots and then aerate the soil. This means to poke small holes in the soil so that the oxygen can get to the roots of the grasses or plants. Water the soil and then plant new seedlings. You should do this with all of the lawn and not just in the places where you remove the weeds.

Raking the grass is and essential part of lawn care in the spring. This helps to bring up the dead clippings and rejuvenate the grass so that it will start to grow again. It is also an excellent way to remove thatch cover that may be present. Thatch cover of less than 50% is not a big deal for any lawn, but if there is more than that you do have to take steps to remove it and raking is the best method.

All lawns need water in the spring. You should not think that the soil has received enough water from any snow or rain because most of this moisture evaporates rather than sink into the soil. Experts recommend that you should give your lawn at least 5 inches of water in the spring. Thereafter you should give it at least an inch or water once a week and during the hot summer weather, the lawn needs an inch of water every three days.

The water will help moisten the soil to ensure that any new seedlings have the fertility they need to start growing. You should also check the drainage system to make sure that any excess water does drain away and does not saturate the lawn. In areas where there is a lot of ice and snow during the winter months, watering the lawn early in spring serves another purpose. If you use salt to de-ice walkways or the driveway or if you live close to the street where the city regularly spreads salt to keep it from becoming slippery, water will help desalinate the lawn. Even though you don’t spread these chemicals on the lawn, the wind and the spray from the wheels of vehicles on the street will carry them to the lawn.

For more information on spring lawn care and other lawncare related topics, visit the lawn care tips site http://www.HobbyLawncare.com.

It seems the each year in June I get dozens and dozens are questions related to brown spots in lawns and turf. Could it be lawn fungus or disease and will it kill my lawn? Following are some very general tips on controlling and preventing common lawn diseases and fungal problems.

Lots of late spring rain coupled with temperatures in the high seventies and eighties set up the perfect breeding ground for many common lawn disease problems. Add in some humidity, and you have a “perfect storm” of lawn problems.

Some of the more common lawn fungus problems are rust disease, red thread, summer patch, and dollar spot. None of these will turn into serious problems if you are willing to do a little work and change some of your habits.

Since we can’t control the weather, we need to make effective choices in the cultural practices we can control. Mowing high and watering consistently, but deeply and never at night are just 2 of the best ways to help control lawn diseases. In addition, you should bag your lawn clippings when conditions are favorable for fungal development.

Granular fungicides available at your local home center will work to prevent a majority of disease problems, but timing is crucial. It is best to get an application down prior to any onset of disease in the turf, meaning you should get some down in later May or early June if possible. A second granular fungicide application will serve your turf well in July.

Nitrogen is also an important factor in keeping lawn diseases to a minimum. Proper amounts of soil nitrogen allow grass to basically, “grow through” the fungus problems before they become a problem. I never recommend quick releasing synthetic fertilizers, however, because they “push” the grass plants, causing too much top growth.

It is always best to use an organic product for lawns that releases nitrogen slowly and consistently over time. Organic lawn fertilizers come in many forms, but bio-organics tend to give better results.

The final step in ensuring minimum disease pressure in your lawn is to manage the thatch layer. Thatch is the layer of dead grass and leaves that all lawns have just above the soil line.

Some thatch is good as it keeps the turf’s roots shaded and maintains moisture levels, but too much will harbor disease. If your thatch layer is more than one-half-inch thick, it is time to aerate and reduce it. You can aerate your lawn at any time during the year, as long as your machine can pull a good plug. If you can’t aerate and your thatch is too thick, it’s time to break out the rake and get those elbows working!

Whatever you do, don’t panic! Turfgrass is very forgiving and tends to live through most anything. Just keep up your proper mowing and watering, and fertilize regularly to keep that lawn looking its best!

Al Haneson blogs about Illinois issues and life at http://lifeandlawns.com and http://ambitenergyforillinois.com

After the last snows and frosts are gone, you will need to perform regular lawncare in order to assure you have a beautiful lawn for the upcoming summer season. When you look at your lawn in spring it may be hard to visualize as it was in the height of its beauty the last time you mowed it in the fall. However, this chore is not as hard as you may think.

The first thing you have to do in spring to start taking care of your lawn is to remove any debris that may have built up on it over the winter season. Putrefaction, or the decomposition of animal materials, may be evident if any animals crossed the lawn during the past few months. You will have to remove these and dispose of them. You may also have to remove deal leaves that you missed in the raking during the fall as well as some grass clippings that rotted over the winter. If you do not take the time to remove these now, they may mar the look of the lawn later on.

Weeds also grow quickly in spring. You should carefully examine the grass and remove all the weeds, taking care that you get the roots and not just the leaves. Once you remove the roots you can feel pretty safe that the weeds will not grow back. Look for thatch cover. If it is less than half, then this won’t really pose a problem. However, if you find that there is a lot of thatch, and there are brown spots in the lawn, remove the thatch, aerate the soil and water it before you plant new seeds.

Aeration involves poking holes through the soil at regular intervals to allow the oxygen from the air to reach into the soil. These holes also allow the water to get to the roots of the grass and the seedlings that you plant. You should aerate all of the soil in the lawn to ensure that when you do water it, the roots benefit from the water and that it doesn’t just evaporate on the surface.

In spring, you do have to water the soil - a lot. It doesn’t matter if you have had a lot of snow or rain because most of this water does not go deep into the soil. Experts recommend that you add about 5 inches of water to the lawn when you start preparing it in spring. This is especially necessary if you had to salt any of the walkways or driveways or if your lawn is close to the street where salt was applied for de-icing purposes during the winter. Even if you didn’t apply it directly to the lawn, it does get carried by the wind and from the spraying from the vehicles. The water serves to desalinate the soil.

Add fertilizer to the soil in small doses. You should also do this at regular intervals to supplement the nutrients the grass needs in order to grow.

For more information on spring lawn care and other lawncare related topics, visit the lawn care tips site http://www.HobbyLawncare.com

Having a beautiful lawn during the spring summer and fall shouldn’t have to cost you money. By taking advantage of the lawn care tips you find in books and magazines, online and by asking questions of experts at your local lawn and garden store, you can easily take care of many of these jobs on your own. Once you are aware of some basic factors associated with lawn care, you can become a professional in your own right and your neighbors will start asking you for advice. The only requirement is that you spend some time researching how to take care of your lawn during every season of the year and devote some time to the tasks.

Mowing is one of the basic essentials of having a great looking lawn. However, there is a trick to this. In the spring, when you mow for the first time, mow the grass at the lowest level on the mower. This will remove all the dead grass and allow the roots to start producing new shoots. Make sure you rake up the lawn even if there are not many clippings because raking helps to revitalize the grass and the soil. Then when you mow the grass again, you should move the blades up a level. The lawn needs to be mowed on a regular basis. During how weather in summer, you can even have the blades higher so that you don’t mow too close to the ground and cause the grass to burn and turn brown. When you mow the lawn for the final time in the fall, place the blades at the lowest level again.

Watering plays a major part in lawn care. Without water the grass will not grow and will die causing brown patches to appear in the lawn. You have to know the type of grass you have and the type of soil so that you give it the appropriate amounts of water. You should never water the lawn after a rainfall because this could saturate the soil and cause the grass to die. When there is very little rainfall, the best time to water the lawn is in the early morning or just at sunset. This is because there is less chance of the water evaporating before it gets a chance to soak into the soil.

Fertilizing the soil is also important. For this you do need to know what type of soil you have. If you are not sure, you can bring in some of the soil to a garden center and the experts there will be able to provide you with the right fertilizer for your needs. You can also decide whether you want to use organic or chemical fertilizers, but whichever one you choose, you do have to follow the directions on the packaging. Using too much fertilizer can be harmful to the grass.

One thing that people do not realize is that the soil and the roots of the grass need air in order to grow, especially if the soil is compacted. To check to see if this is so, pour a small amount of water on the soil and wait a few minutes to see if it starts to soak down through. If it doesn’t this means you will have to aerate the lawn. What this means is to perform a simple procedure or poking small holes in the lawn a t regular intervals so that the oxygen can reach the roots and the water can get to them. The holes are small and will not be noticeable in the lawn.

For more great lawn care tips and lots of information on lawncare related topics such as spring lawn care visit http://www.HobbyLawncare.com.

Want to spruce up your garden or yard? Nothing else does the job quite like a bird feeder does. A bird feeder will brings dozens of beautiful birds into your garden and yard, giving it a colorful, lively feel. To get the full benefits of a bird feeder, though, you must first learn about the different types and varieties of bird feeders, and how you can go about the best on for your needs. It isn’t complicated, but knowing a few things can go a long way towards making your bird feeder a success.

The first thing to consider with any bird feeder is the look. If it doesn’t fit with your garden and house, its not going to do you any good. Fortunately, you can get bird feeders in a wide variety of colors and styles. You can get sheet metal bird feeders, wood bird feeders, hanging feeders, standing feeders, solar powered bird feeders, and many more. Look with what fits in with your garden, and make your decision. While a stone angel feeder may look great in one yard, the gazebo style might be a much better choice for yours.

You also need to consider what type of feeder you want. The most common type of feeder is the traditional birdseed type feeder. These feeders take the traditional mixed birdseed, which will attract a wide variety of different birds. If you have a lot of finches in your area, a finch feeder maybe be for you. Since finches have long, narrow beaks, and can eat different types of seeds, you can attract these birds with a specialized finch feeder. These can be a great compliment to your regular feeder, as it will provide some nice variation. Finally, you can get a hummingbird feeder, which feeds liquid sugar to hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are always fascinating to watch, so getting one of these feeders is a great idea.

You should also consider some special features for your feeder. The most important feature, in my opinion, is squirrel proofing. If you have squirrels in your area, they will get into your feeder if you let them, no doubt about it. You will find out how outlandishly clever squirrels are once you start trying to keep them out of your feeder. Even though many of the squirrel proof designs aren’t perfect, if you don’t have this, you’re just giving them a free lunch.

Another interesting feature you can get with your bird feeder is a lighted feeder. Powered either by battery, or a rechargeable battery powered by solar panel, you can watch birds feed into the evening and in the early morning with the feeder. This makes it a great conversation piece for those summer outside parties. A very unique and wonderful choice for a bird feeder.

Overall, you can see that choosing a bird feeder isn’t an extremely easy decision, but neither is it that hard. Just make your choice among the wide variety of styles and options available, and you will get to enjoy the relaxation and aesthetic appeal that only a bird feeder can bring to your yard or garden. Just keep those squirrels away!

David Wilson loves birds, bird feeders, and life in general. Shop for a wide selection of great bird feeders at http://www.buybirdfeeders.info/, and enjoy the benefits today.